Rest-pause Training
Variety is the spice of lifeits also what gets our muscles growing again when we hit a plateau
. Muscle growth is a reaction of the stress of weightlifting. Muscles grow during the recovery phase in an effort to be prepared the next time you lift a heavy weight. The problem is that when our muscles get accustomed to our training routines, our gains first slow to a trickle, then stop entirely.
Thats why you want to mix up your routine every once in a whileto keep the muscles guessing by introducing something new that will cause a growth reaction. So that brings us to Rest-Pause Training, a greatbut brutalway to really push your muscles to failure and break through the occasional wall.
In everyday bodybuilding workouts you do a movement for 8-12 reps, then rest for about a minute before moving on to the next set. Using this strategy, the amount of weight youre lifting each time is less than what youre really capable of lifting, which enables you to do multiple reps. The rest period between sets gives your muscles time to recharge before you start lifting again.
The time spent resting also gives your muscles a chance to flush out the lactic acid. Lactic acid builds up when the muscles are really stressed, causing the burning sensation deep inside muscle tissue. Depending on the weight, speed and number of reps youre doing, eventually youll get to a point of failure where your muscles cant perform the movement any more.
The point of Rest-Pause Training is to hyper stimulate the muscles to failure, giving them just enough time to catch their breath again before you hit them again. Rest-Pause Training takes advantage of the bodys ability to recover quickly from a stressful situation. The body is able to quickly regain some of its strength by flooding the muscle fibers with a substance known as phosphocreatine. This compound provides the energy source the muscle needs to quickly flush out the lactic acid and get back to work. Rest-Pause Training takes advantage of this process and uses it to help you push through the wall and hit the gains you want.
So heres how it works. I want to warn you though that this routine can be brutal.
The object is to push your muscles to absolute failure and then with as little rest as possible, push them to the limit again. When you do Rest-Pause Training, always be sure to have someone spot you. Start with a weight that is about 90% your one-rep maxthe highest amount of weight you can lift for a single rep.
Perform a single rep, rack the weight, rest for 10-15 seconds and then do another rep. Keep doing this until your muscles fail entirely and you cant do another rep and your muscles feel like spaghettithats why you always want to be sure to have someone spot you when doing this.
If youre a beginner or just dont feel that youre quite up to a full Rest-Pause Training jump just yet, you can do a modified version to build yourself up for the real thing. In this version you wont use your one-rep max but just a heavier weight than normalmaybe about 75%-80% of your max.
As you perform the movement, rest about one to three seconds between each rep. Keep doing this until your muscles hit failure. This is your first set. Then, rack the weight, rest 10-15 seconds and start over again. When youve hit the point where you cant even do a single rep, youre finished. As you get more comfortable doing this, increase the weight until you feel youre ready to make the leap into full Rest-Pause-Training.
Another variation is to start with your one-rep max but rest 15-30 seconds between each rep, shortening the rest time as you progress until you get to the 10-15 second mark.
Because this is so intense and you are working with weights that are much heavier than what you normally lift, be sure that you are sufficiently warmed up before diving in. The purpose of Rest-Pause training is to push yourself to the breaking point. If youre not properly warmed up and prepared, you could really injure yourself. A good way to make sure you are ready is to make your last set a Rest-Pause set. Besides, after doing Rest-Pause your muscles arent going to be in any shape to be doing much more serious lifting so its best to use that to your advantage.
You can train any body part using Rest-Pause Training and can do it with just about any movement that you perform. Its great for arms, legs, back, chest or any area where you feel like youve hit a wall or a plateau. But because its so intense, dont use it more than once a week on each muscle group, or for longer than eight weeks. Otherwise, you risk over-training and you dont want that.
This is just one of several techniques you can use that are outlined in the new Critical Bench Program 2.0 that is set to be released this fall.
by: Mike Westerdal
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