Working out - rest between sets or not

In My Humble Opinion
1

I workout with my boyfriend. We go late at night so there’s not many people, most machines are open.

His way:

Pick 3 machines, for example an ab machine, a chest machine, and a leg machine. He will do one set on each and then start back at the beginning until he has 3 or 4 sets done. Then he moves on to three more machines and repeats. He does not stop or rest between machines.

My way:

I’ll pick one machine, for example an ab machine, and do three sets, resting ~1 minute between reps.

He says that by not resting between machines he keeps his heart rate up. I can see his point, but I usually do 25-30 minutes on an elliptical at the beginning of my workout and am usually at 85% of my max heart rate for that time. He doesn’t do cardio before he works out, he just stretches/warms up for awhile then hits the machines.

What are the pros/cons to these methods? I’m not loking for which is the better way, just some discussion. We had an argument about this the other night at the gym, quite embarrassing. He’s beeen working out for years, I haven’t, but I see a lot of people doing it my way.

2

I agree with his assessment of not doing cardio on weight training days, except perhaps for a mild “warmup” for your muscles.

As far as whether to rest or not between sets? It’s pretty much a personal preference thing.

Resting allows you to “recover” from your last set, and hopefullly “ramp up” for your next set.

I tend to rest for anywhere from 10 seconds to a full minute between sets, depending upon how impatient I am that day.

For a newbie at weight lifiting? I’d definitely recommend waiting that full minute rest, until you become confident in your routine/form etc and get your stamina up there.

As to the “I’ve been doing this for X years” people? Give us a break!!

Sorry, not snapping at you, just the mentality.

Form is what is important. Making sure you don’t just “sling” the weights around. Make each movement count, both on the lift and the release (which both have correct scientific muscle names that I can’t think of right off the top of my head, :D).

Lift sizes that work for YOU. Don’t try to lift based on what you see other people doing.

A good rule of thumb is that for your “warmup” set you should pick an amount that you can semi easily lift 12-15 times.

Your next set you ramp UP in weights and lower the reps and you should be finding it a bit harder to finish out the whole set.

Of course there are many MANY different types of “sets and reps”. Ramping is just one way.

Some people lift the same weight for 3 sets of 15 reps.

Some people do what they call “holistic sets” (from an exercise/weight loss board to which I belong, not sure if they made up that particular name, or if that’s the correct term).

Anyway, those of us to whom this type of workout was given soon came to call them HELListic sets.

That type of workout consists of starting with the HEAVIEST weights you can stand for 6 reps.

Then ramping DOWN to approximately 2/3s of that weight for 10-12 reps, and finally, with an amount you usually use for warmups, do 40, (yes FORTY) reps.

You will be whimpering like a small dog by the end of those!! hehe.

Muscle and Fitness has some great information. So do a lot of the men’s magazines, and there are some great women’s mags out there as well.

Also, some good books on weight lifting. IMHO? I’d ignore your boyfriend’s macho posturing, get some good “how to” books, and learn and do it at your own pace.

Good LUCK!!!

3

Muscle & Fitness, like most other bodybuilding mags, has some good information, and a lot of bullshit. Women’s mags, on the other hand, lean towards less information and more bullshit.

Rest between sets is one of six big training variables that you can manipulate to affect the results you get from your training. The others are intensity, frequency, sets, reps, and tempo.

Sets and reps are pretty well-known. The total number of reps is known as the training volume. Frequency is how often you work a particular bodypart.

Those are the less important ones. What really matter are tempo and intensity.

Intensity and tempo are the two most important variables. Intensity is simply how much weight you’re lifting, expressed as a percentage of your 1RM (one-rep max, the most weight you can lift once in good form).

Tempo is the amount of time you take to raise the weight (the concentric portion), lower the weight (the eccentric portion), and pause at the top and/or bottom. AFAIK, none of the popular mags have ever even mentioned tempo.

By manipulating these six variables, you can change the emphasis of your program. Want to get as strong as possible without putting on much muscle? Use 80-90% of your 1RM, and go for explosive concentrics, fast but controlled eccentrics, 3-5 sets of 3-5 reps, and about two minutes rest between sets.

Want to get big? Go for high total volume (3 sets of 8-10, or 8-10 sets of 3-4) at about 65-75% of your 1RM with slower concentrics, much slower eccentrics, and about the same amount of rest.

There are other combinations, and they’ll get you other results. Low-volume/low-intensity is pretty much worthless, and high-volume/high-intensity will cause you to burn out, so avoid those.

4

Thanks for the advice. He does do cardio on weight days, he bikes to his job. He tries to be helpful, and he doesn’t insist his way is the only way, but he figures if it’s good for him, it’ll be good for me.

I do the ramping, I start out at a low weight and do 15 reps, then up the weight, do 15 more, and finish even higher. Sometimes I can’t finish the last sets, so I notch it down to finish it up. I do whine like a puppy. 40 would have me squealing.

5

LOL, Okay ultrafilter has a good point. Yes, the mags do have a lot of fluff. But I’ve found some really good information in there.

The reason, (and I’m sorry I should have clarified this before), that I suggested starting out with magazines as a beginner, is that they tend to be less filled with “hello, I’m the weight-lifting GOD and you are the know nothing grasshopper” type industry only, confusing jargon.

Especially in the woman’s mags, and there ARE some good ones. Just avoid the obvious “Shape” “Fitness” “Oprah’s Workout” ones.

Once you BECOME more confident in what you’re doing, A really “user friendly, takes basic OLD knowledge and says it in a plain english way” starter book is Bill Phillips’ “Body for Life”.

Also, “Leanness Lifestyle”. (sorry, I’m up north at a remote jobsite and all my links and textbooks are at home, or at my regular office".

And thanks ultrafilter for providing her with the correct terms that I was blanking out on.

6

The first thing you should do is decide what EXACTLY what results you want. Write down your goals, expressed as specifically as you can… like with numbers.
Once you select specific goals, you’ll be able to plan your exercises, and seek advice, much more efficiently.

You’ll also be able to avoid more arguments… “That’s good for what YOU want, this is good for what I want.”

7

Having bashed the magazine’s, I’m going to come out and endorse a particular magazine, Testosterone. I like them because they have leading strength coaches and nutritionists writing for them, they keep up with current research, and because they assume that their readers are intelligent.

I got the idea of tempo from them, and I can say that it’s the most important thing I’ve run in to. I added 50 pounds to my deadlift in a month or so once I started incorporating the right tempos.

8

GOOD point!! I’d forgotten about that one. I was wracking my brain trying to figure out (from my isolated site up here, lol) which ones I’d found the most helpful. Our gym used to get that one in, and when resting I’d read a bit of them.

I’d just tried to steer her away from some of the heavy duty “weighlifter’s manuals” for now. I sort of got the impression from her OP that she felt the same way I did about being a beginner.

I know when I was first starting, I found the verbiage very Jargon-y and hard to figure out, in a “do your 4-9-15 Up, and add in ya super bidocity set, next you craft your deadlift box…” (okay, I kid, but that’s how it looked half the time).

After reading some of the “beginner” type stuff like the mags, and Bill Phillips, I finally understood it.

I liked them in kind of a “training wheels” kind of way. They really helped me, especially as a female, and already self-conscious about lifting weights, figure out how to do things.

I really recommend some of the online fitness groups too. Steer away from men only clubs at first, or if you get your feelings hurt by profanity and gruff “advice”, they tend to be WAY harsh at times despite being a generally excellent source of information.

The mixed groups, or women’s only groups tend to be more supportive and less “brutal” about telling you how to correct your errors and food troubles and stuff.

Nothing more frustrating than going to get assistance from someone and having them post something like “F***, with ST like that, no WONDER You’re Fing up so much, etc etc”.

Which I underSTAND isn’t [i[meant* in a negative way, and is just the way guys express themselves sometimes, but can be counterproductive to people used to communicating a little differently.