Do Rest Periods Matter?

10.17.19 DO Rest Periods matter part 1.mp4 from Hybrid Performance Method on Vimeo.

10.17.19 Do rest peridos matter part 2.mp4 from Hybrid Performance Method on Vimeo.

Do Rest Periods Matter? 

There's a lot of conflicting information out there about rest time in supersets and advanced techniques like drop sets. 

Some people don’t pay attention to rest times while some people stare at their watches, waiting for the exact moment to start their next set. 

When it comes to getting bigger, rest periods are almost the last thing you need to worry about. 

Volume, intensity, frequency, and an appropriate progression are far more important when it comes to muscle growth. 

Some people have thought that shorter rest intervals increase the metabolic demands of sets (stress), the huffing and puffing, and a killer pump translate to good gains. 

The problem with this idea is that it is possible to create a lot of metabolic stress, get a killer pump, and get a complete rest period. 

We now know that fatigue interferes with motor recruitment and might keep us from challenging those hypertrophy-sensitive fibers that kick in at the end of the set. 

Part 2

By Doing working sets with incomplete rest, we might fail to tap into those reserves and leave some hypertrophy and strength gains on the table. 

More recent evidence has suggested that longer rest intervals confer some benefits to hypertrophy. 

Shorter rest periods do have a distinct advantage in that they take less time, but that might come at a cost. And they might be unnecessarily hard sessions. 

If metabolic adaptation is a part of your goal along with some but not absolute, maximal hypertrophy - more incomplete rest periods might be for you! 

If you want to get as big as humanly possible, you might want to rest as much as you need to preserve intensity across all the working sets. 

- Stefi