Schvitz’n with Norm

There are several program variables to consider when writing a workout.

We tend to pay attention to the trendy buzzwords like intensity – and the more obvious phrases like choice of exercise – but overlook things such as rest periods. And though there doesn’t seem to be all that much to rest periods, I find them to be a very interesting yet neglected part of exercise/working out.

Marathons, among other exercise examples, inhumanely do not allow for rest periods. In the weight room, we often have specified “rep” and set assignments with clear-cut rest periods in between. Somewhere in the middle there are sports such as soccer, which has periods of sprinting, jogging, walking, and standing. Even without stoppage of play, there are intervals of recovery, which serve as a quasi rest periods.

And this stop/go intermittent activity and varying levels of intensity are often applied to offseason training and recreational exercise.

In determining how long or short a rest period should be, you must first establish your training goals. The strength/power end of the spectrum calls for longer rest periods, whereas the endurance/conditioning end lends itself more to shorter rest periods.

I can remember as clear as yesterday being put in my place by a very prominent strength and conditioning coach whom I had the good fortune of meeting early in my career. At the time, his athletes were working out on slide boards, guided by a pace clock, stepping on and off accordingly.

Based on their work bouts, I asked some technical questions about metabolic pathways, trying to pass myself off as a conversant hotshot associate. Rather than impress him, I managed to annoy him as he whipped his head around shouting ”(Forget) the energy systems! I’m having them slide for 30 seconds because that’s the average length of their hockey shift; their rest period is a minute and a half because that’s their average off-ice time between shifts.”

Such a great lesson in practical decision making as opposed to textbook hypotheticals. It’s the very essence of a logical needs analysis that should be conducted before putting together a sensible training program.

Determining an appropriate rest period can be accomplished in different ways.

Biofeedback such as heart rate can be used as an indicator of when to resume training following a rest period. Scientific research has given us some established guidelines that can be generically employed when choosing a suitable rest period.

Many strength and conditioning coaches also base exercise prescription on work-to-rest ratios. The aforementioned hockey example represents a 1:3 work-to-rest ratio. 

If your work bout is 15 seconds, you rest for 45; if it is one minute, you rest for three, and so forth. Work-to-rest ratios are by no means limited to a 1:3 formula; they can be any ratio that simulates probable athletic conditions or that which makes sense for your individual needs.

From the earlier soccer example, we know that a rest period doesn’t necessarily mean complete stoppage.

I commonly have my anaerobic athletes alternate bike sprints with intervals of normal tempo recovery, pedaling the whole time but fluctuating between high intensity and low intensity.

Circuit training is yet another example of a less-than-obvious strategy for recovery. When it first came on the scene, it was billed as a catch-all method of exercise, using strength training as a tool for endurance. The big idea was that participants would move through a variety of stations comprised mostly of strength-exercise movements, successively from one station to the next in a near continuous manner. The stations are commonly sequenced in such a way as to vary muscle groups between stations, allowing for short-term muscle recovery. There are no designated rest periods, but some built-in downtime for muscles before their next grind.

So in this great big world of long rest periods, short rest periods and no rest periods, what’s an exerciser to do? There’s not really a right or wrong, but there is a question of how appropriate or inappropriate an exercise program may be.https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html

The bottom line is that sometimes you need a full recovery and sometimes you don’t.

When the task at hand calls for a full tank of gas, longer rest periods are in order.

When lifting near maximum loads in the weight room, your body needs to be ready going into those strenuous sets. These kind of heavy sets may sometimes require four- to five-minute rest periods. If your muscles are not fully recovered, you cannot impart as much force to the bar; you might have degradation in technique, and you’re not necessarily going to get the training result you’re looking for.

When training for endurance, on the other hand, we strive to improve our ability to resist fatigue. In doing so we’re pretty much trying to make ourselves tired. We don’t need full recoveries to achieve this training effect, and so short rest periods play into this type of goal. Too much rest might not provide adequate stress to achieve your desired results.

Strength, speed, power, and quality-of-movement type exercises dictate longer rest periods. Submaximal exercise, endurance, and quantity-of-movement type exercises dictate shorter rest periods. If you want the best of both worlds, you need to compromise and work at both ends of the spectrum or stay somewhere in the middle.

If you only have a have an hour to work out, you probably cannot afford the luxury of a longer rest period-style workout. And if you’re using a calendar instead of a clock to time your rest periods, you are probably not working hard enough.

Article originally published on Southcoast Today