ADVANTAGES

Here are the PLUSES of reducing rest periods between sets:  GREATER GROWTH Decreasing rest reduces the intraworkout recovery time for your muscles, which, in turn, exhausts your muscles more over the course of a workout. This exhaustion then spurs growth. In effect, less rest means more stress, and your muscles compensate for stress by growing.  MORE BLOOD VOLUMISATION This is a fancy way of saying you get  a better pump. Workout systems like FST-7 utilise reduced rest periods  to pump up the muscles more than workouts done with normal rest periods. The increased blood flow nourishes muscle cells and aids recovery and growth. DISADVANTAGES There are two potential PITFALLS to reducing rest periods:  DECREASED STRENGTH To exert maximum strength, you typically need at least two minutes of recovery time between sets and even PHOTODISC longer between especially taxing sets. When you substantially reduce that time, your strength will also decrease, so you’ll have to use lighter weights. To counter this, do some sets with standard rest periods and some with reduced rest periods. Our quads hybrid-rest routine shows you how to accomplish this.  LOWER INTENSITY Focusing too much on workout speed can distract you from pushing sets  to failure and from continuously  using a greater overload. For this reason, change the length of your  rest periods from one workout to another, or within the same workout— as in our quads routine. FRESH TAKE If you’re limiting yourself to 20–40 seconds between sets, you can’t guess that time frame. You’re not doing your next set only when your breathing has returned to normal and you feel recovered. You’re going well before then. So, between sets you need to monitor yourself using a clock or watch with a second hand, or use a stopwatch. When Hany Rambod trains Phil Heath, he monitors the second hand on his watch between sets of the sevens sequence (typically seven sets with 20–30 seconds rest between sets). Other times, Heath watches the clock. Be precise about your time between sets, and as soon as your rest is finished, go back to work. M&F