Saturday, November 10, 2007

Should I Rest Between Sets?

Let's say your at the gym and you just did a set of barbell squats and you re-rack the weights and rest setting your timer for two minutes. Most people say that two minutes is the ideal time of rest between sets. So after two minutes you head to the rack grab the barbell for another set and your legs are still week from the last set. Your heart is beating fast and you don't quite feel 100%.

You unrack the weight and squats down. You legs still burn and he wishes that you could have had more time to prepare for this set. You put forth a mediocre effort, re-racks the bar, and set your watch for another 2 minutes. Like a ton of other aspiring lifters in the gym, your making a deadly, critical mistake. By having a set rest period your forcing your body to train at a level that is far less than its maximum potential and lowering your maximum growth potential.

Muscles grow because of an adaptive response to stress. You lift X amount of weight for Y number of reps, a! nd your body adapts to this level of stress. In order to see continual gains in muscle size, you must continually force X and Y to higher and higher levels. Building muscle is about progress in weight and reps and 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.

You must always go into every single set of every single workout at your maximum strength potential. By sacrificing the amount of weight you can lift, you sacrifice the amount of muscle you can build. And there is no worse way to make this sacrifice than by not providing your body with enough rest between sets. Should I rest between sets? Yes!

Go all out during the set but rest between sets until you feel 100%

Stop timing how long you rest and focus on lifting at 100% of your strength potential. You can't have a set rest period because some exercises work you harder than ot! hers which require more rest time. A dead lift and a tricep pr! ess down aren't exactly in the same boat here. Go on your instincts and only perform your next set when you feel that you can do so with 100% of your strength.

And don't forget that One of the most costly mistakes that I see in the gym week in and week out is that the majority of lifters fail to recognize the importance of a proper warm up. Some lifters perform a wimpy, worthless warm up that consists of 1 set of 20 reps using the weight of the bar, and others neglect the warm up process altogether.

What about proper rep ranges? Workout length? Exercise selection and layout? For more details on proper workout structure make sure to visit my website below for exclusive details. Most people are dead-wrong in the way that they perform their workouts, and I can help you to clear up the confusion once and for all.

This is Jon Potkins if you found this helpful you can get more information at http://freeyourabs.com - plus! you can sign up for a free report.

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