Why you SHOULD be on your phone at the gym 📲
We all know how important rest days are to our body when we’re weightlifting, since that’s when our muscles are rebuilding stronger 💪🏼
So we know how awesome rest it is for our body, what about the rest we’re taking IN BETWEEN our working sets? 🤔
Here’s the tea ☕️ :
Shorter rest time (>1 min) : more calories burned, faster, “harder”, more metabolic stress to the muscles, but you’re not able to lift as heavy or perform as many reps.
Longer rest periods (2+ min): less sweaty, more recovery between sets, not as fast, more total volume = more muscle damage, meaning more weight moved for more reps throughout your workout.
Brad Schoenfield did a study in 2016 comparing 1 minute rest time vs. 3 minute rest time on young resistance trained men, who were all training with a rep range of 8-12. What that study boiled down to, was that the guys with the longer rest periods experienced more muscle growth and strength gains.
aka TOTAL VOLUME > METABOLIC STRESS❕
“But, how much rest should I be taking?” 🧐
For your single joint/isolated movements: 1-2 minutes is ideal. (think curls and extensions here)
Compound movements like DL, squat, bench, take about 3 minutes to recover between sets
As a rule of thumb: more weight = more rest time 🤓
If you haven’t been timing your rest: START DOING THAT!
More calories burned DOES NOT mean a better workout. Training with more intentional, longer rest periods might not give you soaked with sweat t-shirts, but it WILL give you more gains which is WHY we lift in the first place 🙌🏼
So the next time someone gives you crap for being on your phone at the gym, you take your sweet time, then go rep out something inhuman 😈
Why you SHOULD be on your phone at the gym 📲