Your Rest Periods are Adorable . . . Now Quit It.
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Things are harder than they should be because of your rest periods.
You are failing reps because of your rest periods.
So knock it off.
The Phenomenon
We see and talk to people who are missing reps a few weeks into their barbell journey, and the conversation often goes something like this:
Coach: “How long are you resting between sets?”
Lifter: “A couple of minutes, at least one or two, sometimes three.”
Coach: “That’s so tiny and cute. Let’s fix it.”
When members start training at Testify, we discuss the fact that, at first, they are going to rest three to five minutes between work sets. In other words, three minutes is the bare minimum for the first session or two, and that will increase over time as the weight on the bar increases and things become more challenging.
What is the Goal?
Keep the goal in mind, and the goal is to get strong, so here’s the quick and simple version (courtesy of the transitive property):
You want to get strong.
To get strong, you need to complete the prescribed reps.
To complete the prescribed reps, you need sufficient rest between work sets.
So, to get strong, you need sufficient rest.
Don’t Be Silly
Don’t worry, I’m not telling you to rest twenty minutes between your work sets. But if you want to get stronger - and I hope you do - then resting three to four minutes isn’t going to cut it after the first few weeks.
There’s a time to get sweaty and out of breath, and that’s during your conditioning, but in the wise words of one of our dads at Testify, don’t be one of those people who confuses “strength and conditioning” with “conditioning and conditioning.”
More Resources
To learn more about why you might be missing reps early in your training career, be sure to read “The First Three Questions” by Mark Rippetoe.
Finally, sometimes (perhaps most of the time) you’ve got to get your workout done in a quick and efficient manner, and the video below covers exactly how and where to save time at the gym.
As always, we hope these tips help you get stronger and live better.
-Phil
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