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Old 06-03-2008, 12:32 PM
EricT EricT is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 6,314
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I don't know what mass/strength is as opposed to strenght/mass. At some point is strength is among your goals, then everyone one will have to train more specifically to meet that goal. You can't spend a whole carrer tyring to train in a "general" mass/strength way...and continue to get stronger and at some point that will prob mean you won't get much bigger.

But if your goals are generalized and you are at a point where your training can be generalized then, imo, a generalized recommendation should be around 3 minutes or more. Generally speaking. Habitually training with shorter rest periods than that across the board is not condusive with having strength as a goal.

Ninety seconds as a blanket rule is simply not enough for recovery when it comes to strength training. To say that it is always enough for "mass" would be missing the boat as well. Certainly, with so many people doing 5x5's, I hope their not all just resting 90 seconds between sets. Good lord that ain't the way to get the most out of it.

Time periods are one parameter. Just like volume is one parameter. Density, intensity, etc...

Even if you are a guy that "doesn't care about strength" to say that one specific rest period is always what anyone needs for mass would be like saying one specific volume is all that is needed. There are too many factors involved to make a rule like that. You need what you need.

I don't know what else I can say about it though...

I mean I can break it down into recovery periods if that will help but I don't want it to be read like a bilble...it's just general guidelines and a lot depends on the individual:

0-30 seconds
~50% metabolic recovery

30 seconds to 2 minutes
~90% metabolic recovery

2-3 minutes
Near complete metabolic recovery

3-5 minutes
Near complete neural recovery

5-10 minutes
Complete neural recovery

Metabolic recovery is a catchall for all the machinery involved other than neural components.

If you goal is strength and mass then there are going to be parts of your training day that you rest longer..at least 3 or more minutes and other parts where the rest period may be shorter depending on the exercise and how much muscle comes into play. But even then the goal should be to get the volume you intend at the weight your want so rest what you need to do that. Obviously you will not have to rest as long after a set for front shoulder raises as you will after a set of squats.

But I'll just be blunt. 90 seconds is a SHORT rest period. That is the province of bodybuilders who refuse to work any lower than 6 to 12 reps and "don't care about strength". If you really don't care about strength and want to use higher reps to just hypertrophy then you probably ARE best off to use shorter rest periods. But if the word strength is in your goals along with "mass" then you will have to rest longer a lot of the time.
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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

Last edited by EricT; 06-03-2008 at 01:33 PM.
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