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Rest Between Sets
by Michael Wolf
When training for strength, the priority is and must be doing things that result in an increase in your ability to produce force. You do that most efficiently for a while by lifting progressively heavier weight every time you train. Your rest period must reflect that priority.
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Great article! I have found that performing my warm up sets for my next lift with a second bar allow me to get maximum rest between working sets and also help me get the workout done in a reasonable amount of time. This also seems to produce a beneficial conditioning affect and I become less mentally distracted than if I were to do nothing for 5-7 minutes.
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That's one of the things we often advise for those who are time-constrained, and have the set-up to be able to do so. Excepting maybe the last squat or DL warm-up set, the warm-ups of one lift shouldn't much affect the upcoming set of the other, as long as you're still resting enough. Which you can do and still save time - if you bump your rest between squat sets up from 3 to 6-7 minutes, and perform a press warm-up set at about the halfway point, you save a decent amount of time compared to completing all your squats with 7 mins rest, then warming up separately for your presses. It doesn't end up taking that much longer than it did with the shorter rest periods, that were directly constraining your ability to add weight to the bar. I think the issue is most people's set-up doesn't allow for this, but if it does, I don't see anything wrong with it under most circumstances.
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My situation won't apply to many but my "formula" might be useful to a few folks--I'm 73 and am diagnosed with heart issues and COPD. When I got to weights in the squat that were heavy for me, I found I was having a hard time with 3 sets of 5 reps. I was running out of "wind" before I ran out of strength and I didn't really recover no matter how much time I rested between sets. 3 sets of 5 reps just beat me up pretty bad. Eventually, the solution for me was to do 5 sets of 3 reps--I believe my form was better through all the reps this way, and with a 2-5 minute rest between sets, I could recover and get a total of 15 reps done in less total time than when I tried 3x5
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Amazingly enough, we already recommend triples for old guys.
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