How do you get STRONG without spending 3+ hours at the gym? The answer is terribly simple: Rest.
Rest days - You need these in order for your body to recover and build muscle.
Measured rest between movements/sets - The sad forgotten cousin of “rest days” that people often ignore.
It’s easy to get on your phone and catch up on emails or scroll through the Gram during your rest periods. However, studies have shown:
In terms of chronic adaptations, resting 3-5 minutes between sets produced greater increases in absolute strength, due to higher intensities and volumes of training.
If your goal is muscular hypertrophy, the combination of moderate-intensity sets with short rest intervals of 30-60 seconds might be most effective due to greater acute levels of growth hormone during the workout.
TLDR: For maximal strength and hypertrophy, you NEED to measure your rest periods.
If you’re not measuring your rest periods, I challenge you to try it for 1 week. Be STRICT with your rest between movements and sets.
Not only will you stimulate muscle growth more efficiently, you’ll maximize your time in the gym and bring more intensity to your sessions in the process.
Give this sick quad finisher a shot, with no rest between movements and 2:30 rest between sets. Enjoy the pump!
3 sets
8/Side Bulgarian Split Squats
20 Banded Quad Extensions
Max Wall Sit
Rest 2:30 between sets
Workout courtesy of Kyle Flowers, CF-L2
Sources: de Salles BF;Simão R;Miranda F;Novaes Jda S;Lemos A;Willardson JM; (n.d.). Rest interval between sets in strength training. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.). Retrieved October 18, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19691365/.