Rest Pause

Rest Pause is too intense of an intensity exercise for a beginner, or at least somebody who's not used to high volume, so how I get around this and by supporting the routine itself, I get them to find out their 10 rep maximums. This is done by doing sets of 8-12 repetitions, approximately 2 minutes rest and adjusting where necessary, so each set they achieve 12 they add a low amount of weight, ie 2.5kg (1.25kg per side) and if they only achieve 8 repetitions they decrease the weight slightly using the approximate guide above. 

This can help them understand roughly where their 10 rep maximums are at with the exercises they wish to use on the rest pause routine. I start them off with 3 sets and each session add a set until they are doing a session of 5 sets with each exercise, this lets me know they have the frequency and volume down but at a reduced intensity. Then we invert this slightly with rest pause, as rest pause is a very intense technique so the volume is lowered slightly until in

the long run when the individual adjusts to the volume, then we will raise the volume further. In the long run, higher volume is necessary. The best part of training high volume is it's addictive. High volume weight training alters your neurotransmitter balance, training then begins to have a drug like effect. 

The reason rest pause is superior for hypertrophy has several reasons, however a large one is the ability to increase strength. For those who are unsure of how rest-pause works, we complete a set to failure using our estimated 10 rep maximum, we use a brief pause (10-30 seconds) and repeat for a set of 3 (2-5), this is followed again by a brief pause and a set of 3 (2-5). This process is repeated until our volume goal has been achieved. From here you should be able to figure that the repeated 3 repetitions for the rest-pause sets are in fact similar to the final 3 repetitions of a set to failure with your 10 rep max, thus repeating the most effective portion of the set and maximising the amount of

effort required, this in turn helps build strength as I will explain further on.

Imagine benching 100 kg for a set of 10 to failure it'll go like this:

100 kg x 10

Rest 20 seconds

3 Reps

Rest 20 seconds

3 Reps

Rest 20 seconds

3 Reps

So here we've achieved 19 repetitions, we would carry on until we reach our goal depending on what it could be, generally we aim for 30-50 repetitions depending on the format of the routine. We do not go below 30 repetitions, this would decrease the percentage of effective repetitions we complete.

Now, the reason I've said 2-5 repetitions and 10-30 seconds is because it needs to be adjusted depending on what your achieving, so say you did your rest pause set and achieved 4 repetitions, this means you are resting too long between your rest-pause sets and need to slightly decrease your rest, if your achieving say only 2 repetitions, your not resting long enough and you need to slightly increase your rest. You will find some exercises may require slightly more or less depending on the complexity and the stress involved with the lift, ie a bench press or squat will likely require more then a set of curls.

Like before, if you achieve a set of 12, on your next session slightly increase the weight to accommodate for the change in strength and vice versa if you only achieve 8 repetitions a slight decrease in weight.

As I described earlier, maximising hypertrophy is also about maximising strength simply within a moderate repetition range as opposed to a maximal effort range, some people call this RE (Repetition Effort) and strength training ME (Maximal Effort).

So it looks like this:

Maximal effort method = Lift very heavy weights (1-3RM etc), all your reps are high effort

Repetitive effort method = Lift moderate weights to failure (or near failure), the last few reps of each set are high effort

Think of a set of 10 repetitions using your 10 rep maximum, the final reps (approximately 3) are very hard and often ground out, similar to that of using your 3 rep maximum. The effort required to complete either is the same, yes the weight and fatigue is different but effort required is very similar and this is shown through things such as motor unit recruitment. When we rest-pause our reps we spend more time near the end of a set so we're spending a lot of time in the high effort zone, this is why rest-pause is great for increasing strength and size at the same time, we can perform a lot of high effort reps which build strength and there's plenty of volume to promote hypertrophy.

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