Rest Pause Method

[BSHC]

 Rest Pause Method

Rest Pause training is flat out brutal!  It is mean to allow you, as an athlete to go past what you normally would have on a given set.  You begin by reaching failure on an exercise.  Once you have accomplished this, you will rest a few seconds and then continue the set until you reach failure again.  The key, however, is to rest as shortly as is possible.  The exercise will dictate the form of rest pause you implement.  For exercises like Chin-Ups, you can do your reps, let go of the bar, rest momentarily, and then attempt to force out some more.   For biceps curls, you can allow the weight to hang in front of you, and for squats, you can actually rest pause, by simply standing and locking your legs.  In fact here is a quote from an article of mine on how to use the rest pause method for squats.

From The Article Muscle Fibers Part I

I would like to give one final example of how your body can actually use all three energy systems in one set.
Lets analyze perhaps the most brutal shocking method ever devised!  The 20 rep squat.  For those of you who do not know what it is I'll briefly explain it.  You choose a weight you can lift 10-15 times and rest pause it out for a total of 20 reps.  You see when squatting you can lock out at the top of a rep, which provides a perfect form of rest pausing.  It takes tremendous amounts of pressure off of your quads, hams and glutes.
Therefore when failure approaches, you simply stand straight up with the weight on your shoulders and rest until you feel recovered enough to continue.

A shocking method like this will utilize all three energy systems.  Lets take a look!  You step under the rack, rest the weight on your shoulders and move backward.  Adrenaline is being released at an enormous rate and you want to take clear advantage of it.  This translates to an explosive and powerful first rep.  The weight feels as if it was going to fly up and break the ceiling because of your powerful contraction.  Guess what? You just used up essentially all of your ATP stores! As you go into the second rep your body begins recycling ADP back into ATP to fuel the contraction.  It is still almost as powerful rep one.  

You continue pulverizing the weight until you reach rep seven!  The contractions are now less explosive and a tingling, almost numbing feeling arises in your hamstrings.  This means that the lactic acid system has kicked in!  By the 10th rep your whole lower body is on fire and you know it's time to rest pause or the lactic acid build up will totally prevent any further contractions.  Standing with your legs locked you notice that you are breathing heavily.  Your body is now using its Aerobic Respiration system to fuel the muscles responsible for stabilizing your body while standing.  This is the upper back and the shoulders to name a few. 
Moreover oxygen must be supplied to replenish glycogen stores.   

After sufficiently resting the set continues.  Moving at a medium pace and again relying on the lactic acid system you complete 5 more repetitions.  You again rest pause.  This time however breathing becomes almost unbearable!  This is due to the fatigue in the stabilizer muscles, and the fact that you are running intensely in the Aerobic Respiration zone.  Finally you some how manage to continue the set getting one rep...two reps...then on your third the lactic acid build up simply will not allow your muscles to contract and the weight falls back onto the safety rack!  Following this brutal set you collapse to the ground in agony, breathing like you have never breathed before!  You guessed it, the body needs oxygen to replenish its stores for the next bout!  So suck that wind warrior, cause you need it! 

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Rest-Pause Training Re-visited
by Mike Mahler

"....heavy singles made me bigger and stronger than any other combination of sets and reps I ever tried."

— Brooks Kubick in "Dinosaur Training"

Go to any gym these days and you see most trainees doing an endless number of reps all in the hopes of attaining the oh-so elusive and fleetingly short pump. Blame it on Arnold who, years ago in the movie "Pumping Iron," said that getting a pump was as good as coming, or, in Arnold-ese, comink. Ha!

Regardless, going hard and heavy seems to be a part of some distant past as most people these days think that squat racks are a convenient place to do barbell curls. To make matters worse, many gyms have become magnets for meaningless conversations and look more like places for people to hook up then for serious training to take place.

I'm not sure what's worse, the meaningless conversations or the pseudo lifters that attempt to look serious by growling and grunting with each high-rep set and then browse through the newspaper between each worthless set. Mind you, I'm not saying that high reps are a waste of time. High-rep programs such as the "Super Squats" program produce incredible results and I often do high-rep ballistic sets for high-octane fat burning. However, a very effective and forgotten way to get much stronger and bigger is to do several sets of low reps with short rest periods. One form of this training philosophy is called rest-pause training.

Rest-pause training will separate the serious lifter from the pseudo lifter in no time, as you don't have time to mess around between each set. In additon, this form of training is super intense and requires your full attention.

Bodybuilders during Arnold's competition days used to do rest-pause training from time to time, to get bigger and harder physiques. Mike Mentzer had incredible results with rest-pause training and found it to be an effective way to blast through training plateaus.

Unlike a standard powerlifting routine where you do low reps (1-3 reps) for several sets with long rest periods (3-5 minutes), rest-pause training requires you to take 10-15 second breaks between each set. You're basically taking a short break between each rep in order to use the maximum amount of weight. Since the breaks are short and the weights are heavy, hypertrophy will follow like a charm.

As effective as rest pause training is, it can also be extremely difficult to break into. After all, most people will have trouble taking their one-rep max on the bench press and doing it every 10-15 seconds for 5-6 sets. Chances are they won't get past the second set and will most likely be lucky if they even get that far. Luckily, I recently came up with a way to combine a training approach that I learned from Coach Ethan Reeve of Wakeforest University with rest-pause training to make it much more user friendly.

What you do initially to prepare yourself for modified rest-pause training is to take your three rep max and do ten singles with that weight. Instead of taking only 10-15 seconds between each set, take one-minute breaks between each set.

For most people, this won't be too difficult and that, of course, is the point. I want you to build a pattern of success with a few relatively easy training sessions to prepare you for the brutal rest pause training sessions to follow. Once you can complete all ten singles with one minute breaks, decrease the breaks to 45 seconds between each set. Keep the weight the same.

Once you can complete all ten sets at 45 seconds, go down to 30 seconds. Once you can do that, go to 15 seconds (even though you're only resting 15 seconds, you'll still rack the weight in-between).

At 15 seconds you'll definitely understand how rest-pause training works and you'll love how hard and pumped up your muscles feel after doing several sets. It's much more satisfying then the bloated, soft feel of doing lots of reps with a relatively light weight. If your body-fat is low enough, your veins should look like they're going to explode.

Once you've completed ten sets with 15 second breaks, increase the weight by 10 pounds and go back to one minute breaks between sets. Work your way down the rest pause ladder again until you're back to 15-second breaks. At that point, increase the weight again by another 10 pounds.

After using this method for only ten days, I added 10 pounds to my best overhead press. Before rest-pause training, I had been stuck at a frustrating plateau for months. In additon to the strength increase, I got several comments from friends and family that my shoulders and arms looked much bigger. I was elated to say the least.