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Lumberg
New member
Ok guys this is gonna be a longish post so bear with me.
Over the past few years, coming from a MTTF split from football, I have evolved a low-to-medium volume, 8-day split where I lift every other day regardless of day of week. It goes arms-squat-bench-deadlif or arms-legs-chest/shoulders-back.
Each workout takes 45-90 min and I don't do any more than 8 sets for any given body part. For example on leg day I do 4 sets of squats and 3 sets of lunges, that's about it for quads. On bench day I do 4 sets of bench and maybe 2 sets of dips, that's about it for pecs. Of course I superset with other exercises that I won't get into here. I hit arms on bench day because as small muscles they recover pretty quickly.
I take long-ass breaks between sets and try to take all sets except for warmups to failure. When I take a good, 2-3 minute break I can usually do, for example, 13, 12, then 10 reps for a given weight.
Sometimes I also pick a given weight and try to see how many reps I can get three times. For example, I'll pick 185 for bench and see if I can get three sets of 5. If I can get that last set of 5 the next time I will try 6. Say I get 6, 5, 5. I will stay at that level until I get all three sets of 6 with no help. Then the next time I will start with 7.
I know this is hard on your CNS but I have gotten good results and have bigger muscles and better definition (and am stronger to boot) than I ever did before. I am 27, 160#, natural. I have toyed with having a six-pack but have had trouble keeping disciplined with my diet.
Lately however I have been feeling burned out and just kind of blah. I have taken the odd week off here and there but I still feel mentally like I just don't give a shit. It might be because I have a great new job and am looking for a house, and feel like I have other pressures and ways I have to impress people that are not related to how I look without a shirt on. However in my conscious mind having a great body is still important to me.
The other day I went back to the gym for the first time in a week. I was in kind of a hurry so I rested very little between sets (for me). The reps I could do from the first to last sets dropped drastically of course. However I didn't feel quite as worn out, and overall I liked it.
I am wondering, is taking sets to failure just as hard on the CNS whether you take a 1 or 3 minute break between sets? If so what is the point of not taking a long break between sets?
I do not buy the idea that somehow taking less time between sets burns more fat. Calories are calories and if you do more work (ie do more reps because you take longer breaks) during a workout, even if it takes 15 minutes longer, you have still burned more calories. Also I think the more work you do in the gym the higher your metabolism is afterwards and the longer that lasts (I forget the exact term but it's something like post-workout excess oxygen consumption).
So anyway just as a change of pace, and maybe to not make my workouts not seem so onerous, I am thinking about switching to less rest time between sets. I am pretty happy with my size right now so it would be more of a maintenance type of thing. I think that maybe my muscles are done growing for a while and I need to take a few weeks to just stabilize and "lock in" my gains if you will.
Also I will be taking the week after next off to go visit family in Missouri. The most exercise I will be doing is push ups and swimming. So another thing I was thinking is that I can overtrain a little this week because I will be taking a week off.
The plan would be to stick with the short rest routine even after I get back.
Would like to get everybody's thoughts on this.
JC
Over the past few years, coming from a MTTF split from football, I have evolved a low-to-medium volume, 8-day split where I lift every other day regardless of day of week. It goes arms-squat-bench-deadlif or arms-legs-chest/shoulders-back.
Each workout takes 45-90 min and I don't do any more than 8 sets for any given body part. For example on leg day I do 4 sets of squats and 3 sets of lunges, that's about it for quads. On bench day I do 4 sets of bench and maybe 2 sets of dips, that's about it for pecs. Of course I superset with other exercises that I won't get into here. I hit arms on bench day because as small muscles they recover pretty quickly.
I take long-ass breaks between sets and try to take all sets except for warmups to failure. When I take a good, 2-3 minute break I can usually do, for example, 13, 12, then 10 reps for a given weight.
Sometimes I also pick a given weight and try to see how many reps I can get three times. For example, I'll pick 185 for bench and see if I can get three sets of 5. If I can get that last set of 5 the next time I will try 6. Say I get 6, 5, 5. I will stay at that level until I get all three sets of 6 with no help. Then the next time I will start with 7.
I know this is hard on your CNS but I have gotten good results and have bigger muscles and better definition (and am stronger to boot) than I ever did before. I am 27, 160#, natural. I have toyed with having a six-pack but have had trouble keeping disciplined with my diet.
Lately however I have been feeling burned out and just kind of blah. I have taken the odd week off here and there but I still feel mentally like I just don't give a shit. It might be because I have a great new job and am looking for a house, and feel like I have other pressures and ways I have to impress people that are not related to how I look without a shirt on. However in my conscious mind having a great body is still important to me.
The other day I went back to the gym for the first time in a week. I was in kind of a hurry so I rested very little between sets (for me). The reps I could do from the first to last sets dropped drastically of course. However I didn't feel quite as worn out, and overall I liked it.
I am wondering, is taking sets to failure just as hard on the CNS whether you take a 1 or 3 minute break between sets? If so what is the point of not taking a long break between sets?
I do not buy the idea that somehow taking less time between sets burns more fat. Calories are calories and if you do more work (ie do more reps because you take longer breaks) during a workout, even if it takes 15 minutes longer, you have still burned more calories. Also I think the more work you do in the gym the higher your metabolism is afterwards and the longer that lasts (I forget the exact term but it's something like post-workout excess oxygen consumption).
So anyway just as a change of pace, and maybe to not make my workouts not seem so onerous, I am thinking about switching to less rest time between sets. I am pretty happy with my size right now so it would be more of a maintenance type of thing. I think that maybe my muscles are done growing for a while and I need to take a few weeks to just stabilize and "lock in" my gains if you will.
Also I will be taking the week after next off to go visit family in Missouri. The most exercise I will be doing is push ups and swimming. So another thing I was thinking is that I can overtrain a little this week because I will be taking a week off.
The plan would be to stick with the short rest routine even after I get back.
Would like to get everybody's thoughts on this.
JC
