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Hiya.
I've used rest-pause in various forms over the years. I have used it successfully for short periods, but it greatly depends on how I approached it. I'm trying to figure out why some r-p methods work better than others.
The first "method" I tried was a carbon-copy of Mike Mentzer's take. Basically, it entails doing close to your 1RM for about five to six reps, with rest periods of 10-20 seconds between reps. After the first rep, I'd need help to do a second at the same weight, and would have to drop the weight significantly with each subsequent rep. So, in actuality, I was doing something like this:
1st rep @ ~1RM, rest 15 sec., 2nd rep @ 90% 1RM, rest, 3rd @ 80%, and so on.
I went overboard when I first tried this, back in late '94 (I was 16). I did each negative as slowly as possible (Mentzer called this "hypertraining"). I also did more than one set per bodypart.
Before I tried this, I was following a three-way Heavy Duty style workout, hitting ea/ bodypart once a week. I figured this training was more intense, so I added one or two extra days off between *every* workout. Thus, it was about twelve days before I repeated the same bodypart.
I found out immediately that the extra rest did jack. I couldn't even *budge* what I'd used for my first rep in the previous workouts. I was pissed to say the least. I tried doing rest-pause sets as he recommended, even to the tune of one set/bodypart and no maximum negatives...they never managed to work, whether I didn't repeat the movement for a week or three weeks!
(I would've tried repeating another, similar exercise in under a week's time, but at that point, I was convinced overtraining was the problem.)
Later on, probably around 1999 (now 21), I tried a variant of rest-pausing, only this time I started with a weight I could do three good reps with. After hitting failure, I'd rest about 20 seconds and bang out another one, repeating that until I got about six reps total.
My training frequency was roughly the same, but this time, I saw small strength gains. One possible reason is that I only did 1-2 sets/bodypart this time around.
In 2000, I tried an altogether different method that a friend of mine coined "deep strength." With it, you slowly work up to 1RM, and take a full minute between reps. It might look something like this on a BB curl:
1 @ 95, 1 @ 105, 1 @ 115, 1 @ 135 (maximum), continue with 135 until you can't get a rep with it. Probably 1 more rep and one close but no cigar.
My strength freaked out using this, even with more than one set/bodypart, and I never felt tired in the gym. If anything, each rep left me feeling MORE energetic. It also helped convince me years ago that Mentzer was barking up the wrong tree with this "one set every two months" junk, God bless him. (He was a friend. I hate to bash him.)
I've played with forms of this since. It usually yields nice results for a few workouts.
One question is, what's the dramatic difference between these different approaches to doing essentially the same thing? All of them yield hellacious contractions. The number of different exercises (total volume) used is the same in two of the cases.
Oddly enough, THE most effective rest-pausing for me involved only two or three near maximum reps and those long rests between reps. You'd think that a set of four to six maximum contractions would be more effective, right?
Evidently not; at least, not for me, the fast-twitch fiber slughead.
Why is the one method so much more traumatic? Does it simply cream the CNS, such that it takes ages for it to get back on track (while the muscle itself recovers and is ready to grow again, then begins to atrophy)? Why doesn't the "deep strength" method do the same thing?
I am very keen on trying something similar to Dante/Doggcrapp's routine, probably starting with minimal rest-paused sets, because I am increasingly of the opinion that hammering the CNS is what's holding me back from making really dramatic progress these days. I feel I could be somewhat competitive (for a short guy) on the state level if I could just improve that last little bit! But I want to understand the workings of recovery a bit better before I pursue this, and I think figuring out why some of the above worked (and some didn't) might help.
Is it possible a certain number of growth-inducing, maximum contractions in a single workout operates according to a kind of "threshold" for some people--that is, if you do a few too many, it doesn't matter of the recovery period, and you're stuck from the minute you walk out of the gym? Does the nervous system go "haywire" at a sufficiently hard level of stimulus?
Does that only seem to be the case because I repeated the same movements, which I gather is inherently negative at this level of intensity?
If I sound confused, it's because I am. I am a pragmatist. I don't really care why something works as long as it does, but when it stops working, I think it's important to know the "whys"...that's the only way you might go about fixing it. So I guess I want to cover my ass before I embark on a very low volume, but very high intensity/somewhat high frequency routine.
I haven't trained a bodypart thrice in two weeks in a looooooong time, but I definitely think, if there is a way around the CNS issue, it'd be possible to produce more growth as a result of those frequent, hard workouts.
I've used rest-pause in various forms over the years. I have used it successfully for short periods, but it greatly depends on how I approached it. I'm trying to figure out why some r-p methods work better than others.
The first "method" I tried was a carbon-copy of Mike Mentzer's take. Basically, it entails doing close to your 1RM for about five to six reps, with rest periods of 10-20 seconds between reps. After the first rep, I'd need help to do a second at the same weight, and would have to drop the weight significantly with each subsequent rep. So, in actuality, I was doing something like this:
1st rep @ ~1RM, rest 15 sec., 2nd rep @ 90% 1RM, rest, 3rd @ 80%, and so on.
I went overboard when I first tried this, back in late '94 (I was 16). I did each negative as slowly as possible (Mentzer called this "hypertraining"). I also did more than one set per bodypart.
Before I tried this, I was following a three-way Heavy Duty style workout, hitting ea/ bodypart once a week. I figured this training was more intense, so I added one or two extra days off between *every* workout. Thus, it was about twelve days before I repeated the same bodypart.
I found out immediately that the extra rest did jack. I couldn't even *budge* what I'd used for my first rep in the previous workouts. I was pissed to say the least. I tried doing rest-pause sets as he recommended, even to the tune of one set/bodypart and no maximum negatives...they never managed to work, whether I didn't repeat the movement for a week or three weeks!
(I would've tried repeating another, similar exercise in under a week's time, but at that point, I was convinced overtraining was the problem.)
Later on, probably around 1999 (now 21), I tried a variant of rest-pausing, only this time I started with a weight I could do three good reps with. After hitting failure, I'd rest about 20 seconds and bang out another one, repeating that until I got about six reps total.
My training frequency was roughly the same, but this time, I saw small strength gains. One possible reason is that I only did 1-2 sets/bodypart this time around.
In 2000, I tried an altogether different method that a friend of mine coined "deep strength." With it, you slowly work up to 1RM, and take a full minute between reps. It might look something like this on a BB curl:
1 @ 95, 1 @ 105, 1 @ 115, 1 @ 135 (maximum), continue with 135 until you can't get a rep with it. Probably 1 more rep and one close but no cigar.
My strength freaked out using this, even with more than one set/bodypart, and I never felt tired in the gym. If anything, each rep left me feeling MORE energetic. It also helped convince me years ago that Mentzer was barking up the wrong tree with this "one set every two months" junk, God bless him. (He was a friend. I hate to bash him.)
I've played with forms of this since. It usually yields nice results for a few workouts.
One question is, what's the dramatic difference between these different approaches to doing essentially the same thing? All of them yield hellacious contractions. The number of different exercises (total volume) used is the same in two of the cases.
Oddly enough, THE most effective rest-pausing for me involved only two or three near maximum reps and those long rests between reps. You'd think that a set of four to six maximum contractions would be more effective, right?
Evidently not; at least, not for me, the fast-twitch fiber slughead.
Why is the one method so much more traumatic? Does it simply cream the CNS, such that it takes ages for it to get back on track (while the muscle itself recovers and is ready to grow again, then begins to atrophy)? Why doesn't the "deep strength" method do the same thing?
I am very keen on trying something similar to Dante/Doggcrapp's routine, probably starting with minimal rest-paused sets, because I am increasingly of the opinion that hammering the CNS is what's holding me back from making really dramatic progress these days. I feel I could be somewhat competitive (for a short guy) on the state level if I could just improve that last little bit! But I want to understand the workings of recovery a bit better before I pursue this, and I think figuring out why some of the above worked (and some didn't) might help.
Is it possible a certain number of growth-inducing, maximum contractions in a single workout operates according to a kind of "threshold" for some people--that is, if you do a few too many, it doesn't matter of the recovery period, and you're stuck from the minute you walk out of the gym? Does the nervous system go "haywire" at a sufficiently hard level of stimulus?
Does that only seem to be the case because I repeated the same movements, which I gather is inherently negative at this level of intensity?
If I sound confused, it's because I am. I am a pragmatist. I don't really care why something works as long as it does, but when it stops working, I think it's important to know the "whys"...that's the only way you might go about fixing it. So I guess I want to cover my ass before I embark on a very low volume, but very high intensity/somewhat high frequency routine.
I haven't trained a bodypart thrice in two weeks in a looooooong time, but I definitely think, if there is a way around the CNS issue, it'd be possible to produce more growth as a result of those frequent, hard workouts.
