Monday, December 29, 2008

How Not Resting Properly Could Affect Your Muscle Gains

By Ricardo Daryans

Jack finishes a focused set of exercises and re-racks the weight. His legs are wobbly, he feels light headed and he takes a big swig from his water bottle. He looks down at his watch and presses the start button to begin counting down backwards from 2 minutes.

He saw on TV that 2 minutes is the perfect rest time between sets, and what he wants is to do it exactly in that way. So, the watch beeps and he's be back in the squat rack ready for his next set of exercises with the weights.

2 minutes is up. His legs still feel weak, his heart still beats frantically and he doesn't quite feel 100%, but that watch beeped and that means his time is up. He must perform his next set regardless of how he feels.

He performs the next set. He is not really ready to exercise right now, so he puts forth a mediocre effort, finish the set, and waits for another 2 seconds. He is making a huge mistake, just as hundreds of lifters in another gyms.

By having a set rest interval between sets, he is forcing his body to train at an effort level that is far less than his maximum potential and is severely sacrificing the amount of muscle growth he can ultimately stimulate because of this.

Muscles respond to stress, and the only truly stressful reps that actually trigger your body's muscle building mechanisms are those at the end of each set when the body is on the brink of muscular failure.

In other words, building muscle is all about progression in both weight and reps. It is about lifting as much weight as you possibly can for the greatest number of reps that you possibly can (within a given rep range of course) and then continually striving to improve.

If you don't rest enough between sets, you will not reach your maximum strenght potential sacrificing the amount of weight you can lift, and also sacrificing the amount of muscle you can build. So, to begin the next set qhen you are still tired is the big mistake you should not make.

So, return to your exercise set when you feel you are again at 100% of your strenght capacity. When will it be? When your body tell you so, listen to it an you will know when it is time to the next set.

The set rest period theory is also highly flawed because it does not take into account the fact that certain exercises tax the body much more heavily than others and therefore require more rest between them. - 16463

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