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>Traditional bro wisdom holds short rest periods of 1-3 minutes are optimal for bodybuilding. The papers cited don't contradict "traditional bro wisdom". If an

by 99_00 6y ago

>Traditional bro wisdom holds short rest periods of 1-3 minutes are optimal for bodybuilding. The papers cited don't contradict "traditional bro wisdom". If anything, the time window given by "bro wisdom" is too long. But there are additional factors at play. If a workout takes too long and doesn't fit into someone's schedule, week after week, year after year, they won't work out. A person resting for 1 minute won't see as much growth as someone resting for 2.5 minutes. But they will see more growth than the person who skips workouts or just quit because they have a life and things to do. So giving people a broad range to work with may not be 'optimal' but may result in more people being more successful. What is the difference in muscle gain between 1 minute an 3 anyway? Does it make up for missed workouts and time off?

hodder 6y ago
Absolutely, this is a practicality matter. Further, while the evidence on rest periods is mediocre, the evidence on increasing work volume leading to greater hypertrophy is crystal clear. If you have an hour to workout, more reps is clearly going to win out for muscle hypertrophy over resting 5 min between sets and completing only 9 sets or less in a workout. Muscle hypertrophy (as opposed to strength) follows a clear dose response relationship. More volume is better. More sitting around during training sessions equals lower volume. It is asinine to assume total work volume will be equated if rest periods are very long. Cool for studies, but in reality, you use what time you have to lift and then you leave. Therefore smaller rest periods than an outrageously long 5 min will basically always lead to greater total work performed as you will perform more reps x weight in your allocated time slot. If sets and reps are equated, sure resting longer is more effective. In fact, if you are equating reps and sets in a study, the longer rest group will have higher volume, defined by sum of reps x weight, as the lower rest period group will lift lighter because of increased fatigue. I find it hard to believe many bodybuilders would disagree with that statement. However, in real life, sets and reps will not be equated. You use what time you have and maximizing volume wins (reps x weight, assuming the weight is reasonably difficult). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303131/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303131/ In an ideal world for bodybuilders, perhaps they’d sit at the gym for 2.5 hours to complete a workout, but people have lives outside of lifting weights. Even pros. Finally, the author seems to really think bodybuilders are by and large clueless “bros”. While this might be true for some, I think the average bodybuilder consumes far more academic literature than people involved in almost any other activity outside of academia. Bodybuilders are on average fairly well read and up to date on the scientific consensus thanks to people like Mike Israetel, Jeff Nippard, Brad Schoenfeld, Brett Contreras, Lyle McDonald, and Layne Norton to list just a few.
- heymijo 6y ago
  > the evidence on increasing volume leading to greater hypertrophy is crystal clear. To a point. It also depends on your level of experience and age. Systemic volume also needs to be accounted for. Generally speaking 10-20 sets per muscle per week. This can be from one session or spread out over multiple sessions. I'm 38, have been lifting weights for 20 years (do not and never have used anabolic steroids of other performance enhancing drugs). if I try to do 20 sets per muscle group over the course of a week I will run my body into the ground. Schoenfeld, the lead author on your link has research on these topics. His Instagram is a good aggregator of his work. https://www.instagram.com/bradschoenfeldphd https://www.instagram.com/bradschoenfeldphd
  - hodder 6y ago
    Agreed, the evidence points to a diminishing returns effect on increasing volume leading to an asymptote. More is better (absent injury)... but the benefit of each additional set starts to really flatline somewhere beyond 20 sets. I believe another publication is coming soon from Schoenfeld on this matter. My point is just that to perform even 10 sets per muscle group, unless you want to live in the gym, 5 min rest periods are not really an option. Almost no one has the time to be optimal, so just cramming as much volume in as you can handle is the ideal for most. I also follow Schoenfeld. He does excellent work.
valuearb 6y ago
Why not just switch body parts? I always do my push exercises separated by my pull exercises, and rarely rest more than a minute. Super time efficient.
- porb121 6y ago
  Interferes with the pump & mind-muscle connection, and makes it more likely that you're limited by your cardio (or neural fatigue, or secondary muscles) as opposed to the target muscles.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Also improves your cardio tho.
danenania 6y ago
On the opposite side of the spectrum, for the sake of fitting workouts into my schedule, I sometimes do them at a very slow pace over the course of a few hours or sometimes even a whole day. I have my little gym setup right next to my desk in my office, so I'll just go over and do a set or two when I need a quick break or the tests are running or whatever (it beats wasting time on Twitter or HN). This sometimes means resting for a few minutes between sets, sometimes fifteen minutes, and sometimes an hour or more. The results at the end of the day don't seem very different at all in terms of how I feel physically or the rate of improvement compared to doing more efficient workouts with the "right" amount of rest. So I'm inclined to agree with you that just getting the volume in one way or another is by far the most important thing, at least until someone is quite advanced.

by 99_00 6y ago

hodder 6y ago

Absolutely, this is a practicality matter. Further, while the evidence on rest periods is mediocre, the evidence on increasing work volume leading to greater hypertrophy is crystal clear. If you have an hour to workout, more reps is clearly going to win out for muscle hypertrophy over resting 5 min between sets and completing only 9 sets or less in a workout. Muscle hypertrophy (as opposed to strength) follows a clear dose response relationship. More volume is better. More sitting around during training sessions equals lower volume. It is asinine to assume total work volume will be equated if rest periods are very long. Cool for studies, but in reality, you use what time you have to lift and then you leave. Therefore smaller rest periods than an outrageously long 5 min will basically always lead to greater total work performed as you will perform more reps x weight in your allocated time slot. If sets and reps are equated, sure resting longer is more effective. In fact, if you are equating reps and sets in a study, the longer rest group will have higher volume, defined by sum of reps x weight, as the lower rest period group will lift lighter because of increased fatigue. I find it hard to believe many bodybuilders would disagree with that statement. However, in real life, sets and reps will not be equated. You use what time you have and maximizing volume wins (reps x weight, assuming the weight is reasonably difficult). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303131/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6303131/ In an ideal world for bodybuilders, perhaps they’d sit at the gym for 2.5 hours to complete a workout, but people have lives outside of lifting weights. Even pros. Finally, the author seems to really think bodybuilders are by and large clueless “bros”. While this might be true for some, I think the average bodybuilder consumes far more academic literature than people involved in almost any other activity outside of academia. Bodybuilders are on average fairly well read and up to date on the scientific consensus thanks to people like Mike Israetel, Jeff Nippard, Brad Schoenfeld, Brett Contreras, Lyle McDonald, and Layne Norton to list just a few.

heymijo 6y ago
> the evidence on increasing volume leading to greater hypertrophy is crystal clear. To a point. It also depends on your level of experience and age. Systemic volume also needs to be accounted for. Generally speaking 10-20 sets per muscle per week. This can be from one session or spread out over multiple sessions. I'm 38, have been lifting weights for 20 years (do not and never have used anabolic steroids of other performance enhancing drugs). if I try to do 20 sets per muscle group over the course of a week I will run my body into the ground. Schoenfeld, the lead author on your link has research on these topics. His Instagram is a good aggregator of his work. https://www.instagram.com/bradschoenfeldphd https://www.instagram.com/bradschoenfeldphd
- hodder 6y ago
  Agreed, the evidence points to a diminishing returns effect on increasing volume leading to an asymptote. More is better (absent injury)... but the benefit of each additional set starts to really flatline somewhere beyond 20 sets. I believe another publication is coming soon from Schoenfeld on this matter. My point is just that to perform even 10 sets per muscle group, unless you want to live in the gym, 5 min rest periods are not really an option. Almost no one has the time to be optimal, so just cramming as much volume in as you can handle is the ideal for most. I also follow Schoenfeld. He does excellent work.

valuearb 6y ago

Why not just switch body parts? I always do my push exercises separated by my pull exercises, and rarely rest more than a minute. Super time efficient.

porb121 6y ago
Interferes with the pump & mind-muscle connection, and makes it more likely that you're limited by your cardio (or neural fatigue, or secondary muscles) as opposed to the target muscles.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Also improves your cardio tho.

danenania 6y ago

On the opposite side of the spectrum, for the sake of fitting workouts into my schedule, I sometimes do them at a very slow pace over the course of a few hours or sometimes even a whole day. I have my little gym setup right next to my desk in my office, so I'll just go over and do a set or two when I need a quick break or the tests are running or whatever (it beats wasting time on Twitter or HN). This sometimes means resting for a few minutes between sets, sometimes fifteen minutes, and sometimes an hour or more. The results at the end of the day don't seem very different at all in terms of how I feel physically or the rate of improvement compared to doing more efficient workouts with the "right" amount of rest. So I'm inclined to agree with you that just getting the volume in one way or another is by far the most important thing, at least until someone is quite advanced.