by HAC Personal Trainer Dewey Lightcap
You know that bummed-out feeling you get when there’s someone on your favorite machine? You know how that feeling quickly turns to rage when that person on your favorite machine isn’t even working out? We’ve all been there. That sort of blatant disregard for the value of other people’s time leads us all to question our faith in humanity. However, there are times when long rest intervals are not only warranted but necessary to achieve the desired training stimulus. So all jokes aside, in this article, I want to talk about why we rest between sets, how long we should rest between sets, and when it’s appropriate to use one rest interval over another. Finally, I want to wrap up with a little talk about gym etiquette and how to approach someone who’s been using the same machine for what feels like an eternity.
Why We Rest
Question: what’s the powerhouse of the cell?
Answer: Chuck Norris! Just kidding, the mitochondria!
Let’s briefly review the cell and our favorite organelle! (What? You don’t have a favorite organelle?) Inside these little mitochondria is where the citric acid cycle, also known as the Krebs cycle to some of you more “vintage” readers, and the electron transport chain take place. Both the Krebs cycle and the ETC are forms of aerobic metabolism and both produce a molecule called adenosine-triphosphate, or ATP. To keep it simple, when you eat food, it gets converted into glucose. Glucose gets absorbed into your bloodstream and carried into your cells. Glucose is then split into smaller molecules called pyruvate, which is taken into the mitochondria and ultimately turned into ATP! Cool huh?
Let’s review: food to glucose, glucose to pyruvate, pyruvate to ATP. See!? Simple!
What is important to remember is that ATP is what makes your muscles able to move. It’s the energy that’s released from the cleaving of the third phosphate that allows the fibers of your muscles to contract. No ATP means no movement. So the answer to why we rest between sets is to allow our bodies time to replenish our ATP stores so we have enough fuel for the next set. The crucial question of how long we need to rest for has everything to do with our training goals!
When exercising, it’s important to know your goal and how to define it in physiological terms. In the paraphrased words of the great American philosopher John Dewey (no relation), a well-framed question often lends itself to its own answer. Only after you properly define your goal or goals can you start incorporating the correct training stimulus into your workout. This is because our perfectly designed meat suits make very specific adaptations to whatever demands are imposed upon them. Actually, there’s an acronym for that: SAID! SAID stands for specific adaptation to imposed demand. If you push your body to run faster, you get faster. If you push your body to run farther, you can run farther! Remember the classic tale of Milo of Croton, the Greek man from way back who carried a baby cow into town every day? Seriously, you don’t!? The calf grew larger over time, and so did Milo’s muscles. Before long, he became so strong he could carry a full-grown cow into town on his back! The point remains: if you want to get stronger, you have to lift heavier…and heavier…and then even heavier. In lieu of a cow, barbells are just as good. Better in fact! Even though they never make milk or turn into steak… so equally as good.
Fun fact: Mitochondria are little organelles that we get from our mothers. Your mitochondrial DNA is a perfect match to your mother’s! Thanks Mom!
Funny fact: Your mother got her mitochondria from her mother too! And where did her mother get her mito’s from? My dear reader, it’s mothers all the way down!
Strength and Power
Let’s talk training for strength and power, and let’s use an example to make our point. Two twins – we’ll call them Luke and Leia – start lifting to get strong. Leia, being well-educated, not unlike you, my ever-impressive reader, did her research and decided to follow the “3-5 Rule”. She convinces Luke to do the same. So, they both set out to do four sets of five reps of each exercise. Following the rule, Leia rests for 3-5 minutes between sets. Her less-educated and impatient brother, Luke, only rests for one minute between sets. Being twins, they both perform the exact same on their first set. They both do five reps. Awesome! After one minute, Luke starts his next set. His first two reps are good. Rep three is a real struggle. By rep four, his target muscle group has already fatigued. His body compensates by recruiting less-fatigued muscles, causing his form to deteriorate. He ekes out rep five, but his form is terrible. By his third set, Luke is so fatigued that he fails to complete all five reps, and by his fourth and final set, he can barely complete three bad reps (which, by the way, greatly increases his chance of injury). The only real benefit to Luke’s inadequate rest was that he saved himself about six minutes. But, as we all know, good things take time, and a little investment made now can have a huge ROI later. Leia invested those six minutes and properly rested. When she started her second set, BOOM, gorgeous form! Perfect form! Set three? Same! Set four? Double same! Adequate rest means adequate fuel, which means less fatigue, which translates to less compensation, better form, lower chance of injury, better performance, and maybe most importantly, better results! So, when training to gain strength or power, adequate rest is a must. It’s non-negotiable. If you don’t want to rest that long, that’s okay, but don’t be disappointed when you spend month after month at the gym chasing after strength gains that never manifest. Take the time. Do it right!
Power training has roughly the same rest requirements as strength training. When training either, you’re typically looking for optimal performance during the set. If you’re not performing at a high level, you’re likely not resting properly. For both, resting 3-5 minutes is the standard. Some Olympians have been known to rest for up to TEN MINUTES between sets. Yikes! And while that has to do with recouping creatine monophosphate, or CMP, it’s a bit excessive for most of us mere mortals, a group of which I am regrettably a part. That said, a pretty good starting rest interval for anyone serious about gaining either strength or power is about two minutes, and most research I’ve been exposed to seems to confirm that people who are new to strength and power training can get considerable improvements with only two minutes of rest. However, as you advance in your training and become more experienced, your body will change, and you will likely need to extend your rest interval beyond two minutes. It’s only been a handful of times in my professional career that I’ve had my clients rest for longer than two minutes, but it has helped each of them attain new heights or push past plateaus. So be warned: resting for less might really decrease your gains. And it’s all about the gains!
Hypertrophy
“Hyper” means more, and “trophy” means growth, so hypertrophy literally means “more growth.” When we use this word in regard to training, we mean getting bigger muscles. Hypertrophy is interesting because, while it might just be the hardest training to undergo, it’s also the simplest. The golden rule of getting big is this: do a lot of sets, all to failure. If you don’t know, failure means doing as many reps as you can until you “fail.” There is an acronym for that, too. Crossfitters know it well: AMRAP, or “as many reps as possible.” Dr. Andy Galpin explains that the appropriate rep range for hypertrophy can be anything between 5-35 reps. You can’t miss! You can do 10’s! You can do 12’s! You could do prime numbers like 7’s, 11’s, 13’s or even 17’s. Get weird, man! The key is to get to failure. This can and should be performed to technique failure in order to prevent injury, especially in newbies. Technique failure is more of a ‘soft cap’. It’s when your form breaks down. And form breakdown can include loss of good form, loss of range of motion, decrease in speed and tempo, decrease in power production, signs of asymmetry, etc. True, failure will net you bigger gains but at greater risk. So don’t be reckless.
Now, how does that affect the rest requirements for hypertrophy? Essentially, there are none! When lifting to get big, the singular most important variable is the number of sets performed to failure per week. So, you can rest for one minute, or thirty seconds, two and a half minutes or seven hours! All that matters is the number of sets to failure per week. Beginners need about 10-15 sets per muscle group per week while professional body builders are going to upwards of 25-30 sets per muscle group per week. How long you rest really isn’t as important when you’re trying to fail on every set.
Other Training Styles
There are many other types of training, like circuit training, interval training, and HIIT, or high-intensity interval training, that all have unique rest requirements. One of the most well-known interval workout styles is called Tabata. Named after Dr. Izumi Tabata, Tabatas are performed with a work set lasting 20 seconds and a rest interval lasting only 10 seconds. They are usually performed at max intensity but are only done for eight rounds totaling a four-minute workout. You can see how different that is to anything I’ve discussed here talking about strength, power, or hypertrophy. Honestly, there is just too much to cover in one article, but I hope you, my curious, knowledge-hungry reader, realize that rest intervals vary wildly based on training goals. So please, do your research, hire a trainer (I know a guy…) and find out what length of rest interval you should be using in your workout. The investment now will pay off big time.
Etiquette
Now, remember that jerk we discussed before who is always scrolling social media and hogging your favorite machine? Let’s talk about the best way to handle them. If someone is using the machine you want, simply walk up and ask, “Excuse me? How many sets do you have left?” It’s polite, it’s straightforward, and it’s acceptable gym etiquette. Now, they could respond in a few different ways. “I’ve got one more set, but then it’s all yours” is the best possible answer. Or they might say, “I’m almost done. I’ve only got two more sets,” In this case, I like to respond by asking, “Mind if I just hang out?” or waiting close by (but not uncomfortably close…don’t be that guy) until the machine is free. Sometimes, you’ll ask how many sets they’ve got left and they’ll respond with a really cool gym phrase like, “Oh, I actually just started, but you can work in with me if you want.” And this, dear reader, is the moment you’ve been waiting for since your preschool teacher taught you that sharing is caring. You know what to do in this situation. TAKE TURNS! First, they’ll do their set, and then you’ll do yours. As one person performs their work set, the other person can rest. It’s a match made in heaven! And remember that you can offer others the chance to “work in” with you, too. Sure, in a post-COVID world, more cautious gym-goers might not want to work in with you. Or, if you’re the germaphobe, you might not want to work in with them. No worries, everyone has their preferences. Some gyms are full of people working in with others, and some aren’t. So, the next time you see that annoying kid taking up your favorite machine, just know he or she might be strength training, and see if you can work in with them. Who knows, you might end up with a new gym buddy!
