Posted: 7/19/2005 3:34:46 AM EDT
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Between set? Between exercises? Between working the same muscle group? I rest 30 seconds between sets and 60 seconds between exercises. I generally put 48 hours between working any one muscle group. I'm just curious what other folks do. |
I'm not sure I understand this. If you have no rest between sets, how do you define them as "sets"? Or are you saying you go (for an example) curls, dips, bench-press, squats, leg extensions, etc. straight through without stopping (dropping the weights from the curls as just as you start doing the dips) until you're done with one cycle? |
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My rest between sets depends on the exericise and how strenuous it is. I tend to rest five minutes or more between sets of bench press on my later sets. For something like lateral raises, usually 2-3 minutes. Back when I was younger, healthier, and serious about this stuff, I was able to go a lot heavier on everything, but I also took longer between sets. One fellow in the gym dubbed me "the Human Rain Delay." |
Yes, that is what I do. Then when you are done with one cycle you dont rest you would start right back over at curls, then dips etc... until you did however many cycles you were doing that day. |
Solid advise. I try to mix up my reps and rest every couple of weeks. Sometimes I will only rest for about 30-40 seconds betweens sets and other times I will wait a couple of minutes. I usually only take enough time to get a dreink from the fountain before starting the next excercise. |
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I dont rest between exercises because I follow a push exercie with a pull exercise. This allows excellent recovery and I lift more weight for more reps on successive exercises for that body part. I rest between sets till I am not breathing hard and my heart is not pounding. If I dont I just lift fewer reps which is pointless. If I want to do cardio I will do cardio. My goal is to lift as heavy as I can inside a certain range for the most reps I can. If you can do another set after 30 seconds rest you are not lifting with enough weight or intensity and you probably did not come even close to failure. I hit each major muscle group once a week. |
That's obviously not entirely true. If you either decrease the weight or decrease the number of reps you could very easily lift to failure. Now, one could argue how effective that is, but I saw very good results in myself and my ex-girlfriend a couple of years ago when we were doing the Body for Life thing, which is essentially a combination of decreased reps and increased weight.
I used to do this before I took about a year off from working out due to some medical issues. I hope to get back to this routine eventually. |
Decraesing weight is a decrease in intensity, decresing reps means you are not lifting to failure. You should lift as much as you can untill you cant lift another rep for every set. Doing less than this will yeild sub optimal results. More weight plus more reps = more gains. Very simple concept. Lifting a light weight lots of reps or fewer reps than you can do before failure means less results do to less stress imposed. If you can do the same number of reps on your second set as your first or your third as your second you know you are not lifting to failure. Powerlifters ofter do not lift to failure as they fear "learned failure" in the nervous system or some such crap which is a bogus concept. If you dont rest enough between sets your next set will likely be half the number of reps as the previous one. |
But will still be to failure. For example, if I'm doing curls with 25 lb dumbells, and I can do 10 for the first set, and cannot get an 11th, but do 8 for the second set and cannot do a 9th, then it's still to failure for both sets. If I go down to 20 lbs for the second set, but still do 10 reps, then that is still to failure as well. Doesn't this also depend on your goals? I have always been taught that the way you lift for gaining size may be different than lifting for strength, or stamina, or definition. Not everyone that lifts weights wants to look like Mr. Universe. |
In my experience and that of most "experts" I know personally, going to failure on every set is too much for most people, especially if they do not have external chemical assistance. An exception would be if you're only doing one or two sets per body part, a la the old Arthur Jones/Nautilus/Mike Mentzer style of training. The last guy with whom I discussed this was 5th in the NPC Nationals the last time he competed and was about to get his IFBB pro card before he sustained some injuries that ended his competitive career (he's still huge though). He agreed with me that going to failure on every set was definitely going to result in "overtraining" at some point, especially if someone does a lot of sets per body part during each workout. |
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Normal lifting 45-60 seconds between sets. When I feel like I need some extra zip in my workout I will do cut-weight supersets of the same exercise - Pick a weight where I can do 8-12 reps, knock those out, rest 15-20 seconds, then do the same exercise again with a weight 30% less than what I used for the first 8-12 reps, both sets to failure. Rest 1 minute between these supersets. Now, in the summer, when I am more focused on aerobic exericise/triathlon training I hold the lifting to 2 circuit training sessions/week. 6 different exercises 15-25 reps each, only as much rest as it takes me to transition between exercises, then 2 minutes rest between circuits. Repeat 3 more times. Takes about 30 minutes total. |
Decreasing your weight on future sets and doing the same reps is counter productive. I do the decreasing reps because that is the weight that will cause the most trauma and go to failure just as you described. Decreasing the weight on additional sets never gave me additional gains nor anyone I trained with. The only goal I have for weight training is increase in contractile proteins. If I get too big I just stop increasing the weight and lift more reps to failure with the same weight. By using a lighter weight and doing less reps (same as the concept of less weight on the second set due to fatigue and doing more reps) I will not grow at all. |
It all depends. I have trained with guys who were amature competitors who have earned theior pro cards. They all lift 5-6 days a week and often twice a day. They do not do what I do because they would overtrain. I lift 3 sets per exercise and 2-3 exercises per body part (usually 2) and spread my body parts over 3 days M/W/F and hit them only once a week. This leaves time for training in hand to hand which creates its own issues. For example I cannot try to gain mass using this or any other training regimine and do heavy bag work at the same time training the way I do or I get severe tendonitis which requires either cotiosteroids or 2 weeks off training COMPLETLY. For someone who only lifts and runs overtraining is not an issue. If I dont try to increase my weight while doing heavy bag work for punching power I am OK or if I gain mass while limiting my bag work to focus mits I am also OK. I have had several injuries to teach me this. I am not a genetic freak and have found this limit in the focus of training to work for anyone to prevent overtraining or injury. |
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30 sec between sets and 1-2 min between exercises that hit similar groups. I usually do a muscle group exercises like trap bar deadlifts and then support exercises like calf raises in the same day, and it's important to rest between them to use full potential. I only lift twice a week with cardio in between, either jogging, hiking, heavy bag, or MA class. The only exercise I do one right after the other are shrugs with the trap bar, right after deadlifts. |
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