Archive: Around Town

'Time is the justice that examines all offenders.' -Shakespeare.

Watching most people work-out in regular gyms, you would think people have all the time in the world. This flies in the face of people's number one excuse, though, "I don't have time to work-out." The time spent "moving" in a workout is not the most important part of your workout, however; rest is your most important use of time during a strength training or interval training session.

The textbooks will recommend different rest intervals for different goals. For muscle building (hypertrophy), rest should be moderate at 60-90 seconds between sets. For high intensity strength and power, rest is long and fully complete at 3-5 minutes. For endurance lifting, it is 30 seconds or less. Modern strength programming muddies the textbook water, however, in that a set of an exercise is rarely done by itself. Exercises are put together by most strength coaches in pairs as "supersets." It is not obvious how much rest should be taken after, for example, a superset of back squats and dumbbell rows. Different muscles "rest" while the other exercise is performed, an idea largely attributed to Canadian strength coach Charles Poliquin. Most coaches use the same textbook rest guidelines, though, even when supersetting.

Athletes/clients who are new to strength training always expect to jump right into the next set, however. If they see 3x12 repetitions on their program, they always perceive it as 1x36. The "forced" rest between sets is always greeted with an unsaid, "Why do I have to rest?" I have come to the conclusion, over the years of coaching, that you should rest when and if you need it. The importance of rest comes, though, when the athlete starts into their second set and can't get 12 clean technique repetitions (in this case). Unfortunately, the realization that rest is, in fact, needed comes in hindsight. However, this experiential process is essential for future training sessions. The load may not have been too heavy for 12 repetitions, it was just that sufficient rest wasn't taken. Finding this fine line between rest and intensity (load) is key for breaking down muscle.

Some people abuse rest the other direction and take too much time; these are the people who like to hang around the gym for more than 2 hours at a time. However, high intensity lifting with heavy loads or fast speeds (power) does require long rest periods; lifting for strength and power fatigues the nervous system much more than the muscular system. Thus, the central nervous system requires more rest than the muscular system to recover (3-5 minutes). An athlete may have caught their breath and think they're ready to go but their nervous system probably needs a few more minutes rest.

Another option is not taking rest. Strength coach Charles Staley's Escalated Density Training is a system based on how much work you can do in a fixed amount of time. For example, you would superset two exercises and hammer out as many reps as you can in the fifteen minutes; rest when you need it. In the next workout you would try and beat that record by getting more reps.

I observe that no one wears watches anymore. Ultimately, if you don't wear a watch when you strength train, you are possibly negating the training effects you are trying for and, more than likely, wasting time with an inefficient workout. The watch timer becomes your personal coach, keeping you on track and keeping you honest. If lifting for hypertrophy, set your watch timer for a 60 second countdown and hit the start after every set. Then, when you get wrapped up in an important conversation concerning Megan Fox, the country's healthcare, or in Sportcenter's top plays, the timer "cracks the whip" and tells you to get back to work. Stay strong.

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