REGARDING REST PERIODS
*First of all, note that I tend to side with Chris Beardsley most of the time. I believe that he does a lot to help us understand how the body works. However, he is not God either. Sometimes he is limited by the research that he has to use to draw conclusions, and probably the lack of real-life experience training (in person) thousands of clients like many of us have. Theory and research ARE very important to give us direction. But it really all boils down to getting results. And when something gets better results despite going against the most elegant theory, then I tend to side with the results.
There are also some issues with studies looking at training protocols.
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The training itself is not the only factor involved in gaining muscle or strength. Nutrition, recovery, genetics, stress levels, sleep, training background (not just the number of years spent “training”) all play a role. If one of the testing group has a more favorable profile, then they will show better results even if the protocol they are testing is not really better.
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Who is administrating the training sessions? Oftentimes it’s undergrad students who aren’t serious lifters themselves. Not experienced trainers or coaches, or even passionate hardcore lifters. Why is that important? Because it means that they are no guarantees that the subjects are all training at the same level of effort (if a group, on average trains with more effort they’ll get better results even on an inferior program), use proper technique or are receiving the motivation they might need (test subject rarely are self-motivated hardcore lifters).
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Most studies use what I would call beginners. Even the subjects who are “experienced” really are beginners in my book. Just because you’ve been training in the gym for 5 years doesn’t mean you are past the beginner stage. We all know people in the gym who have been doing the same thing for 5 years and look exactly the same. Can we call them experienced lifters? Now think about it. You KNOW that the programs used in the studies tend to be very basic if not “low-level”. If you are a true hardcore lifter who loves training and is working hard to progress, are you likely to put your own training on hold for 10-12 weeks to only do the program that a study wants you to do? HELL NO! That’s what I’m saying: even the studies using experienced subjects are really only using people who have been going to the gym, not training seriously…
That last point will be important when I’ll discuss rest periods.
Before I get to that, I’ll give you a few examples:
Zach, as a former QB you’ll appreciate the first one.
Years ago I trained a pro football player, an offensive lineman. As you know you only have a short time period between plays (25 to 45 seconds depending on the level and league). I decided to do a phase to work on the player’s capacity to maintain a high level of force with very short rest periods.
The plan was to do 5 x 5 with around 85% of his max on the bench (we did it on the squat too and has similar results). The goal was to do that with 30 seconds of rest.
We started out at 5x5 with 425lbs with 45 sec of rest. Much to my dismay, he was only able to get something like 425 x 5, 425 x 2, 385 x 5, 335 x 5, 295 x 5… this would kinda prove the short rest periods/central fatigue connection.
Except that by week number 6 he was doing 425 x 5 with 30 seconds of rest and the last set was NOT grinded.
I also trained numerous Crossfit athletes. Several who went to the Games and even more who competed at (the old) regionals (now sectionals). I honestly cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen of the Crossfit athletes I was training hit a PR on a big lift during an EMOM (so less than a minute rest) or right after a bout of conditioning. The one that sticks to my mind was a girl who hit a 15lbs PR (175lbs) on the power snatch right after (less than a minute rest) a 400m run (pretty fast but not all out).
My point is that I believe that you can train yourself to have less detrimental central fatigue and be capable of maintaining and even increasing performance from set to set with short rest periods.
A BIG part of central fatigue is caused by afferent signals sent from the muscles (tendons and fascia too) to the nervous system. Specifically a signal that tells your brain that something is uncomfortable, painful, hard, etc. And this information upon being received by the brain causes an inhibition of the excitatory drive to the muscle, what we call “central fatigue”.
JUST LIKE ANYTHING SIMILAR, you can become less sensitive to this discomfort, pain, and feeling of effort. It’s kinda like plunging in ice cold water: at first, you think you’re gonna die, but quickly you desensitize and it’s tolerable. The cold is the same, you just send weak afferent signals to the brain about the cold. We could also talk about working in a noisy factory: at first, you think your head is gonna explode, but you eventually build a tolerance to it. The noise is the same, but you are less sensitive to it.
My point is that the more you train in that painful/uncomfortable/hard zone the weaker are the afferent signals sent to the brain. The less inhibition is thus causes leading to less central fatigue and the capacity to keep performing with short rest periods.
Now, get back to my last point about studies. And that’s where actually having coaches a lot of people in the gym helps. YES, most studies show that longer rest periods (typically 3 minutes) lead to better results than short rest periods (typically 1 minute).
But there are done with beginners or low-effort trainees.
Here are some things that most of them have in common:
- They have low work capacity
- They have a low pain/discomfort threshold (this one you have to have trained people to know)
- They are less effective to start with to recruit fast-twitch fibers
- They aren’t passionate about training and often don’t really want to be there.
#2 and 4 might not seem that big of a deal, but it’s a huge thing.
First, if you have a low pain threshold regarding exercises it means that you are more sensitive to the pain/discomfort/effort signals and are thus a lot more likely to suffer from a large inhibition/central fatigue which would, obviously, warrant a longer rest period to get rid of.
Also, when you are training because you HAVE to be there rather than WANT to be there, the mindset is not the same. And mindset affects perception, including the perception of discomfort and effort (leading to stronger afferent signals to the brain and more inhibition).
The point is that beginners and the other participants in the study indeed needed longer rest periods.
But it doesn’t mean that this is applicable to everybody and even less that the capacity to maintain performance with shorter rest periods is not trainable.