Beautiful theory: rest periods between sets

While the previous piece in the “Beautiful theory…” series came from my own head and pen, I’m bringing you the second part of the trilogy as a translation.
[url=http://www.fitness.ee/artikkel/1339/ilus-teooria-i-osa]Beautiful theory… Part I[/url]

Beautiful theory: set length and rest between sets are inversely related…

True, it has always been said that when you do shorter sets with heavy weights, you should recover longer between sets than you would with lighter weights and longer sets.

There is some relationship, but this rule applies more to beginners. I’ve seen beginners who really do sets of twenty squats without their breathing even speeding up. Last week I decided to try squatting for more than six reps for the first time in several years. After working up in weight and finishing my work sets as triples, I lowered the weight and decided to finish with one set of twenty reps, in memory of the old days. After the last, twentieth rep, I put the bar back on the rack and immediately collapsed on the spot myself with a crash. I lay on the floor gasping for ten minutes. Yet according to that training principle, rooted since time immemorial, I should have been able to repeat a similar set without any problems after 90 – 120 seconds.

To ask directly: after a twenty-rep set like that, do I need less rest than after a heavy squat set of 2 – 3 reps?

I understand perfectly well that this rule mainly takes into account the recovery needs of the nervous system, which is entirely appropriate, but I have to ask here: what about the recovery of the other systems? Halfway through my last set of squats I was seriously fighting not to vomit. Shouldn’t we also take the other systems and their recovery needs into account, besides the nervous system?

If you’re a beginner and your ability to push hard is nonexistent, then of course long sets don’t cause much fatigue either. When we choose the rep count for a set, it’s always worth reminding ourselves why we’re doing a set of that particular length. Are we doing a long set to stimulate hypertrophy and/or to develop endurance? In the latter case, the training weight, as a percentage of 1RM, is certainly not the same as in a set aimed at hypertrophy, even at exactly the same set length. Consequently, if we do a long set in pursuit of endurance development, then of course we don’t need to worry as much about the nervous system, and rest between sets can be short. The problem arises when we use long sets (for example twenty reps) for the purpose of muscle building and we get stronger. If an advanced or elite trainee keeps applying this controversial training principle in their workouts, there is no doubt that it won’t work: performance, and with it all the progress coming from training, would start to drop workout by workout.

Of course, when doing a long set, a lot depends on the chosen weight and the degree of effort. It’s important to point out that the rule’s lack of validity is revealed especially when you compare the extremes of set length. If you compare sets of one or three with a very heavy weight against sets of, say, eight or ten, then of course someone doing triples at 95% probably does need to rest longer to recover than someone doing sets of ten at 75 – 80%. When we do a short set with a very heavy weight, then for the sake of performance the nervous system naturally has to recover as fully as possible. But if we compare squat or deadlift sets of 15 – 20 repetitions taken to 50 – 60% of capacity with triples at 95%, there is no doubt that the inverse relationship between rest between sets and set length no longer holds in the slightest.

Author: Janar Rückenberg (translation)

Source:Turg.Fitness.ee

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