Comments on: Factors Affecting the Length of the Rest Interval Between Resistance Exercise Sets – Research Review

By: Danny Healy

Danny Healy — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 19:04:43 +0000

From my experience (on myself) waiting any longer than 1-2 minutes between heavy sets will see a decrease in strength. Don’t know if it’s mental but it’s like after 2 minutes (or so) my muscles become deprimed, it feels like they’ve become “cold.” My thoughts were that it’s had something to do with epinephrine.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:26:03 +0000

Simon

I’m not sure 1 minute between heavy sets at 85% is sufficient and I’d tend towards longer (at least 90-120 seconds) in most cases to ensure that the weight is maintained across sets (or at least better maintiained).

Jared, I know a lot of people who have had good success with rest pause methods (ala Dante’s doggcrapp training or Blade’s Myoreps). Without writing an entire article on the topic, the basic idea is that you get a greater cumulative fatigue (after the initial heavy tension stimulus) in a lower volume. That is, most rest pause methods start with a heavyish set followed by the rest-pause repetitions. Since you’re not getting complete recovery, in premise this gives a greater stimulus but without having to do as much volume (which should enhance recovery). Hope that makes sense.

Lyle

By: Jared

Jared — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:27:04 +0000

What is your opinion on rest pause as a technique for muscle/strength gains, and if possible, could you explain the physiology behind it?

By: Simon Jeavons

Simon Jeavons — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:50:53 +0000

Very good article Lyle. I’ve only ever been a casual weightligter throughout my life (long periods between doing so and not) so have never delved into the theory – starting with an improbable 100 reps on (v.)small weights as a teenager to the current which involves a mix of high reps with low weight as a starter on a muscle group, then moving onto a second set with less reps using a higher weight to finish off on the same muscle group – repeating again with a different muscle group until I’ve used them all.
It’s only recently that I’ve varied the rest between the rep, reducing the time to 30 secs between each mainly due to time constraints and despite a short period of doing so I’ve seen a noticable change in the results that this brings. When I’ve been at my biggest (in appearance) was early 20′s where I used bigger weights but with long rest periods – and so was able to scale up a lot quicker as strength rose more quickly (concentrating on slow controlled movements). By reducing the time the effects are far more sweat inducing and intense but as with Jake above, when I move onto the second round of sets with the bigger weights 12 sets now quickly turns to 10, turns to 8 with the 3rd set of reps as fatigue bites. This seems to have resulted in greater growth but couldn’t say I feel any stronger as a result, with the muscles not getting the full workout for as much of a sustained period as a result.
For a casual weightliter looking for the middleground (balance between stamina, power, strength and the time it takes), would a safe summisation of the above be to work on 5-8 reps at 85% (with appropriate stretching and cardio prioir and after) with 60 secs rest between reps with the same muscle group and say a longer 2 min rest between different muscle groups be a reasonable starting point to ‘keep the hand in’ as it were? Not keen to continously vary the weights witin each session given the time it takes, the lazy mans workout as it were?

By: admin

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:28:58 +0000

Jake,

Yes, some people just really suck at maintaining reps across sets for whatever reason. For some, training to close to failure is a cause, they’ll grind out 12 reps and then only get 8 on the next set almost regardless of their rest interval. For others, it’s just a lack of work capacity and overall recovery.

In that case, starting with a longer rest interval (and/or a slightly lower intensity) and gradually reducing it as you get fitter can work.

Some of it also depends on goals: if the goal is to maintain tension (e.g. load on the bar), then use a long enough rest interval to keep reps up. If the goal is fatigue, don’t worry about the drop.

Another option is to drop the weight down on subsequent sets. So say you normally drop from12 to 8 reps with a 60 second rest interval. 4 reps is maybe a 10% drop so try lowering the weight on the bar by 10% on the second set (e.g. 100X12 on the first set, 90X12 on the second) and see if that helps.

Lyle

By: Jake Adams

Jake Adams — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:16:29 +0000

Great article. I’ve found that my recovery sucks even for both strength and hypertrophy work for the rest times described above. For example, if I do a set of 12 – unless its way below failure – and wait only 60 seconds, I guarantee I will not get close to 12 on the next set.
Have you seen people like this? What do you recommend doing in this case? Should I really do all but the last set very far from failure to ensure constant reps across sets?