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experiencelifemag.com
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Pause for Power
Adding a short pause at the end of a tough set can help you overcome plateaus
in your resistance-training routine.
By Matt Fitzgerald |
June 2008 |
The Rest-Pause Reaction
A Pause for Progress
Give It a Try
Rest-Pause Basics
It’s well established in the fitness community that
rest helps stimulate the physiological changes that increase strength, endurance
and leanness — not to mention that it prevents overuse injuries. But it’s not
just the type of rest you take between workouts or the minute-long break you
take between sets that matters — even the rest you nab between the repetitions
of a single weightlifting set can help you bust through plateaus. These
brief intra-set recovery opportunities give your muscles just enough time to
partially reverse some of the physiological fatigue factors that cause you to
struggle in the last few reps of a set. This allows you to squeeze out a few
more reps than you could without these “rest-pauses” — or, alternatively, to do
your usual number of reps with slightly more weight. Either way, the upshot
is the same: By accomplishing a bit more work in each set, you build more
strength. Whether your goal is to build muscle size, increase strength or
improve athletic performance, introducing rest-pause sets into your routine can
help boost your performance — without spending more time at the gym.
The Rest-Pause Reaction
The mechanics of muscle fatigue are complex.
Researchers have identified at least five separate factors that can contribute
to it, including the depletion of the phosphate, or ATP-CP, energy system — a
glucose-fueled chemical reaction in muscle cells. Rest-pause sets take advantage
of the quick recovery of that system to boost strength. “The ATP-CP energy
system fuels short, high-intensity bursts of activity, such as those
involved in a weightlifting set,” explains Chad Waterbury, MS, author of Muscle
Revolution: The High-Performance System for Building a Bigger, Stronger, Leaner
Body (self-published, 2007). This system can supply energy for about 15 to 30
seconds. Fatigue sets in when high-intensity efforts are sustained for longer
than that and the ATP-CP system becomes depleted. “It usually takes about
three minutes to fully recover, but the process begins very quickly,” says
Waterbury. “By allowing your muscles to relax for even five to 10 seconds,
you’re giving the ATP-CP system enough time for muscle contractions to resume.”
And that gives you an opportunity to get more strength gains out of every
set. In a standard weightlifting set, you maintain a steady tempo, pausing
for only a fraction of a second between repetitions until your set is complete.
In a rest-pause set, you lift as you normally would until your muscles
become fatigued to the point where you cannot complete another repetition at the
same tempo. At that point, you rest for anywhere from five to 30 seconds, and
then try to squeeze out another rep. Repeat this process until a rest-pause
isn’t enough to enable you to lift the weight again with good form. Consider
a standard set of barbell squats versus a rest-pause set of barbell squats. In a
standard set, you might perform 10 repetitions using a weight that leaves your
leg muscles severely fatigued after the 10th repetition. While mounting fatigue
may cause your last few reps to be a little slower than your first few, you
still barely pause between the lowering and lifting phase of the
repetitions. In a rest-pause set of barbell squats, you might use the same
amount of weight and lift it repeatedly without pauses until fatigue causes your
tempo to slow discernibly — perhaps after the eighth or ninth repetition. You
would then allow your upper-leg muscles to recover by pausing in a locked,
standing position. (Although your muscles will still be lightly active in
supporting the weight of the barbell, they will still be able to replenish
some of their ATP-CP energy stores.) After five to 10 seconds (thanks to the
muscle recovery achieved in the rest-pause), you’ll likely be able to complete
another repetition at the same speed as the first rep of the set. You take
another rest-pause after this repetition, and continue in this manner until you
can no longer lift the weight at your original tempo, even with the rest-pauses.
Expect to extend your set by one to three repetitions compared with a
conventional set using the same weight. Or, you might keep your number of
reps the same as usual and add more weight instead. In this scenario, your tempo
will probably slow after about seven repetitions. You can then use rest-pauses
to complete the last three.
A Pause for Progress
Rest-pause sets are simple to do. To get the most out
of them, follow these guidelines from our experts: Know when to pause. The
best time to insert a rest-pause is when doing so will most effectively help you
to complete another rep, says strength coach Charles Staley, MSS, of Staley
Training Systems in Gilbert, Ariz. Don’t pause too early, when your muscles are
still fresh enough to complete more reps without a break. And don’t wait until
your muscles are completely exhausted and therefore unable to squeeze out
another rep, even with a rest-pause. “Once your lifting speed slows discernibly,
that’s when you want to pause and gather yourself,” he says.
Rest-pause with appropriate exercises. Some exercises lend themselves to
the rest-pause method better than others. “It doesn’t work well with exercises
where you pause in a position in which you can’t really rest,” says Staley. In
other words, you wouldn’t rest-pause during, say, the dumbbell shoulder press or
the bench press. Most machine and cable exercises are good choices, because
you can fully relax in the starting position. Among free-weight exercises, the
dead lift, barbell squat and dumbbell biceps curl are all good rest-pause
choices. ˙ You can find others easily: If you can really rest in the
start position, it’s a good rest-pause exercise. Otherwise, it’s not.
Increase weight gradually. Rest-pauses bump the work volume of your set,
either by increasing the number of reps or the amount of weight you use. But how
much more weight should you try to lift? “It depends on the movement,” says
Waterbury, “but as a general rule, you can usually increase the load by 5 to 10
percent.”
Blend your sets. Rest-pause sets are just one effective tool for breaking
through weightlifting plateaus, and because the body responds to variety, you’ll
make the most progress if you employ various tools in a balanced way.
While rest-pause sets stimulate muscles in a way that conventional
sets don’t, the reverse also holds true. Specifically, conventional sets better
test muscles’ ability to resist fatigue during continual work — also an
important attribute for many fitness pursuits. Therefore, a strength-training
program that includes both conventional sets and rest-pause sets is better than
one that includes only one or the other. “I suggest using rest-pause sets
for two weeks, every six weeks or so,” says Waterbury. “You can even blend the
two workout types in multiweek progressions. For example, during your first
workout, you might rest for eight seconds between dead-lift reps. Next workout,
you’ll rest for seven seconds. You’ll continue to cut one second off the rest
period until you can perform all the reps without resting.” After completing
such a cycle, increase your weight and start a new cycle. “The downside to
rest-pauses is that you lose your rhythm, and sometimes maintaining rhythm gives
you a better chance of completing another rep than taking a short break,” says
Staley. With practice and mindful attention to your muscles, you can learn to
tell whether maintaining your rhythm or taking a quick break will have the
greater effect on your chances of completing another repetition in any given
set. How do you know if you’re using rest-pause sets correctly? Just
monitor your performance, says Staley. “As long as your performance is
improving, you are using them correctly.” Matt Fitzgerald is the author of
several books on fitness and nutrition. Most recently, he coauthored
Maximum Strength: Get Your Strongest Body in 16 Weeks With the Ultimate
Weight-Training Program (Da Capo, 2008). For more information, visit www.mattfitzgerald.org.
Give It a Try
The leg press is a good exercise for practicing rest-pause sets. Here’s how to
do it: - Load the leg-press machine with the maximum amount of weight
you can lift 10 times without rest-pauses, and then add 5 to 10 percent.
-
Position yourself on the machine and release the safety bars.
-
Slowly bend your knees until they’re near your chest, and then press the
weight back upward.
- Pause for just a fraction of a second with your
knees just shy of locked and begin the next repetition. (This is not a
rest-pause.)
- Continue doing repetitions until your quadriceps (thigh
muscles) are too fatigued to perform another repetition without a
rest-pause.
- Pause for five to 30 seconds with your legs extended to
give your quads a break, and then attempt to complete another repetition.
-
Continue rest-pausing between reps until you feel you cannot complete
another rep, even with a rest-pause; then unload the weight
Rest-Pause Basics
Who: Rest-pause sets are useful for anyone who has hit a plateau in his or
her weightlifting routine. What: A rest-pause set is a weightlifting set featuring a five- to 30-second
pause after each of the last few repetitions. When: Take a rest-pause after completing the last repetition you can do
without slowing your tempo drastically. Continue lifting with rest-pauses until
you can no longer lift the weight at your original tempo, even with a
rest-pause. Where: You can insert rest-pauses into any exercise in which your muscles are
truly able to rest and recover between repetitions. Why: Rest-pause sets help you build strength and break through plateaus by
increasing the total amount of weight you’re able to lift within each set.
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Pause for Power
Adding a short pause at the end of a tough set can help you overcome plateaus
in your resistance-training routine.
By Matt Fitzgerald | Form & Function Department,
June 2008 |
The Rest-Pause Reaction
A Pause for Progress
Give It a Try
Rest-Pause Basics
It’s well established in the fitness community that
rest helps stimulate the physiological changes that increase strength, endurance
and leanness — not to mention that it prevents overuse injuries. But it’s not
just the type of rest you take between workouts or the minute-long break you
take between sets that matters — even the rest you nab between the repetitions
of a single weightlifting set can help you bust through plateaus. These
brief intra-set recovery opportunities give your muscles just enough time to
partially reverse some of the physiological fatigue factors that cause you to
struggle in the last few reps of a set. This allows you to squeeze out a few
more reps than you could without these “rest-pauses” — or, alternatively, to do
your usual number of reps with slightly more weight. Either way, the upshot
is the same: By accomplishing a bit more work in each set, you build more
strength. Whether your goal is to build muscle size, increase strength or
improve athletic performance, introducing rest-pause sets into your routine can
help boost your performance — without spending more time at the gym.
The Rest-Pause Reaction (Back to Top)
The mechanics of muscle fatigue are complex.
Researchers have identified at least five separate factors that can contribute
to it, including the depletion of the phosphate, or ATP-CP, energy system — a
glucose-fueled chemical reaction in muscle cells. Rest-pause sets take advantage
of the quick recovery of that system to boost strength. “The ATP-CP energy
system fuels short, high-intensity bursts of activity, such as those
involved in a weightlifting set,” explains Chad Waterbury, MS, author of Muscle
Revolution: The High-Performance System for Building a Bigger, Stronger, Leaner
Body (self-published, 2007). This system can supply energy for about 15 to 30
seconds. Fatigue sets in when high-intensity efforts are sustained for longer
than that and the ATP-CP system becomes depleted. “It usually takes about
three minutes to fully recover, but the process begins very quickly,” says
Waterbury. “By allowing your muscles to relax for even five to 10 seconds,
you’re giving the ATP-CP system enough time for muscle contractions to resume.”
And that gives you an opportunity to get more strength gains out of every
set. In a standard weightlifting set, you maintain a steady tempo, pausing
for only a fraction of a second between repetitions until your set is complete.
In a rest-pause set, you lift as you normally would until your muscles
become fatigued to the point where you cannot complete another repetition at the
same tempo. At that point, you rest for anywhere from five to 30 seconds, and
then try to squeeze out another rep. Repeat this process until a rest-pause
isn’t enough to enable you to lift the weight again with good form. Consider
a standard set of barbell squats versus a rest-pause set of barbell squats. In a
standard set, you might perform 10 repetitions using a weight that leaves your
leg muscles severely fatigued after the 10th repetition. While mounting fatigue
may cause your last few reps to be a little slower than your first few, you
still barely pause between the lowering and lifting phase of the
repetitions. In a rest-pause set of barbell squats, you might use the same
amount of weight and lift it repeatedly without pauses until fatigue causes your
tempo to slow discernibly — perhaps after the eighth or ninth repetition. You
would then allow your upper-leg muscles to recover by pausing in a locked,
standing position. (Although your muscles will still be lightly active in
supporting the weight of the barbell, they will still be able to replenish
some of their ATP-CP energy stores.) After five to 10 seconds (thanks to the
muscle recovery achieved in the rest-pause), you’ll likely be able to complete
another repetition at the same speed as the first rep of the set. You take
another rest-pause after this repetition, and continue in this manner until you
can no longer lift the weight at your original tempo, even with the rest-pauses.
Expect to extend your set by one to three repetitions compared with a
conventional set using the same weight. Or, you might keep your number of
reps the same as usual and add more weight instead. In this scenario, your tempo
will probably slow after about seven repetitions. You can then use rest-pauses
to complete the last three.
A Pause for Progress (Back to Top)
Rest-pause sets are simple to do. To get the most out
of them, follow these guidelines from our experts: Know when to pause. The
best time to insert a rest-pause is when doing so will most effectively help you
to complete another rep, says strength coach Charles Staley, MSS, of Staley
Training Systems in Gilbert, Ariz. Don’t pause too early, when your muscles are
still fresh enough to complete more reps without a break. And don’t wait until
your muscles are completely exhausted and therefore unable to squeeze out
another rep, even with a rest-pause. “Once your lifting speed slows discernibly,
that’s when you want to pause and gather yourself,” he says.
Rest-pause with appropriate exercises. Some exercises lend themselves to
the rest-pause method better than others. “It doesn’t work well with exercises
where you pause in a position in which you can’t really rest,” says Staley. In
other words, you wouldn’t rest-pause during, say, the dumbbell shoulder press or
the bench press. Most machine and cable exercises are good choices, because
you can fully relax in the starting position. Among free-weight exercises, the
dead lift, barbell squat and dumbbell biceps curl are all good rest-pause
choices. ˙ You can find others easily: If you can really rest in the
start position, it’s a good rest-pause exercise. Otherwise, it’s not.
Increase weight gradually. Rest-pauses bump the work volume of your set,
either by increasing the number of reps or the amount of weight you use. But how
much more weight should you try to lift? “It depends on the movement,” says
Waterbury, “but as a general rule, you can usually increase the load by 5 to 10
percent.”
Blend your sets. Rest-pause sets are just one effective tool for breaking
through weightlifting plateaus, and because the body responds to variety, you’ll
make the most progress if you employ various tools in a balanced way.
While rest-pause sets stimulate muscles in a way that conventional
sets don’t, the reverse also holds true. Specifically, conventional sets better
test muscles’ ability to resist fatigue during continual work — also an
important attribute for many fitness pursuits. Therefore, a strength-training
program that includes both conventional sets and rest-pause sets is better than
one that includes only one or the other. “I suggest using rest-pause sets
for two weeks, every six weeks or so,” says Waterbury. “You can even blend the
two workout types in multiweek progressions. For example, during your first
workout, you might rest for eight seconds between dead-lift reps. Next workout,
you’ll rest for seven seconds. You’ll continue to cut one second off the rest
period until you can perform all the reps without resting.” After completing
such a cycle, increase your weight and start a new cycle. “The downside to
rest-pauses is that you lose your rhythm, and sometimes maintaining rhythm gives
you a better chance of completing another rep than taking a short break,” says
Staley. With practice and mindful attention to your muscles, you can learn to
tell whether maintaining your rhythm or taking a quick break will have the
greater effect on your chances of completing another repetition in any given
set. How do you know if you’re using rest-pause sets correctly? Just
monitor your performance, says Staley. “As long as your performance is
improving, you are using them correctly.” Matt Fitzgerald is the author of
several books on fitness and nutrition. Most recently, he coauthored
Maximum Strength: Get Your Strongest Body in 16 Weeks With the Ultimate
Weight-Training Program (Da Capo, 2008). For more information, visit www.mattfitzgerald.org.
Give It a Try (Back to Top)
The leg press is a good exercise for practicing rest-pause sets. Here’s how to
do it: - Load the leg-press machine with the maximum amount of weight
you can lift 10 times without rest-pauses, and then add 5 to 10 percent.
-
Position yourself on the machine and release the safety bars.
-
Slowly bend your knees until they’re near your chest, and then press the
weight back upward.
- Pause for just a fraction of a second with your
knees just shy of locked and begin the next repetition. (This is not a
rest-pause.)
- Continue doing repetitions until your quadriceps (thigh
muscles) are too fatigued to perform another repetition without a
rest-pause.
- Pause for five to 30 seconds with your legs extended to
give your quads a break, and then attempt to complete another repetition.
-
Continue rest-pausing between reps until you feel you cannot complete
another rep, even with a rest-pause; then unload the weight
Rest-Pause Basics (Back to Top)
Who: Rest-pause sets are useful for anyone who has hit a plateau in his or
her weightlifting routine. What: A rest-pause set is a weightlifting set featuring a five- to 30-second
pause after each of the last few repetitions. When: Take a rest-pause after completing the last repetition you can do
without slowing your tempo drastically. Continue lifting with rest-pauses until
you can no longer lift the weight at your original tempo, even with a
rest-pause. Where: You can insert rest-pauses into any exercise in which your muscles are
truly able to rest and recover between repetitions. Why: Rest-pause sets help you build strength and break through plateaus by
increasing the total amount of weight you’re able to lift within each set.
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