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If 'Size' is Your Goal, 30s Rest & 20 Reps Beat 3 Min Rest & 8 Reps to Failure -- Extra 100% Biceps Gains in 8 Week Study

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Do women have to complain that training makes them "bulky", because they're doing it right (high rep, low weight, short rest) while their boyfriends don't?... What? Don't worry, I am just kiddin'. As a loyal  SuppVersity  readers, you will remember my 2016 article: "Not Resting Long Enough May Ruin Your Gains! 1 vs. 5 min Cut Post-Workout Increase in Protein Synthesis by 50%!" ( read it ). Now, back in the day I already pointed out that "the study at hand only proves what we already knew - training volume is more important than metabolic stress when it comes to hypertrophy gains" ( SV. 2016 ) and still many people (mis-)interpreted the results in their black-and-white world as "final evidence" that you'd have to turn your workout into a coffee (or intra-workout) party to make the gains you feel you deserve. That's a mistake you should not repeat by taking the publication of a recent study from the  Nippon Sport Science...
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Not Resting Long Enough May Ruin Your Gains! 1 vs. 5 min Cut Post-Workout Increase in Protein Synthesis by 50% !

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Rest is not a waste of time ;-) You may remember Schoenfeld et al's 2015 study with the telling title "Longer inter-set rest periods enhance muscle strength and hypertrophy in resistance-trained men" (Schoenfeld. 2015) and Henselmann's and Schoenfeld's previous review of "The Effect of Inter-Set Rest Intervals on Resistance Exercise-Induced Muscle Hypertrophy" stating that "the literature does not support the hypothesis that training for muscle hypertrophy requires shorter rest intervals than training for strength development or that predetermined rest intervals are preferable to auto-regulated rest periods in this regard" (Henselmann. 2004). Eventually, it can thus not be surprising that James McKendry and colleagues write in their latest paper that "short rest (1 min) between sets of moderate-intensity, high volume resistance exercise blunts the acute muscle anabolic response compared with a longer rest period (5 min), despite a su...
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Resting as Long as You Think Fit Reduces Training Time W/Out Reducing the Workload & (Hopefully) Your Gains

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The study provides only preliminary evidence, but it is evidence...  You will certainly remember the SuppVersity  article about the beneficial effects of long(er) rest times on strength and size gains from November last year ( read more ). Now, after I posted this article, a discussion evolved about whether you actually have to wait that long (3 min) after exercises that don't leave you as winded as barbell squats; and if resting less than the "optimal" time wouldn't yield the exact same results if volume and weights you lift during set and individual rest time workouts were identical. As the authors of a recent study from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Freitas de Salles. 2016), point out, there was, until now, no study that compared the "consequences of applying selfsuggested with fixed intervals in upper and lower body exercises performance". With said study, however, there's some data on what happens if you compare the effects of...
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Resting 3 vs. 1 Min. Between Sets Pays Off: Greater Size + Strength Gains - Probably Mediated by 15% Higher Volume

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Resting long enough to maximize your training volume could be the key to success, i.e. strength  and  size gains. If you have been following the various affords to ascribe differences in strength and, even more so, size-increases to a specific training variable, you will remember that the only promising parameters that appear to be supported by more than the literal "outlier study" are training load and volume. Of these, the former is pretty much uncontested. The latter, however, is still questioned by a camp of inconvincible skep- tics, who simply ignore the fact that there's ample evidence that "[h]igher-volume, multiple-set protocols have consistent- ly proven superior over single set protocols with respect to increased muscle hypertrophy" (Schoenfeld. 2010). It would be interesting to see if rest periods should also be periodized ! 30% More on the Big Three: Squat, DL, BP! Block Periodization Done Right Linear vs. Undulating Periodizationt ...
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Training to Failure and Modifying Rest Times: Two Ways to Maximize Muscle Activity? Two Studies, Similar Implications

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This is what science looks like... Well, at least in the Hiscock study, where the subjects, 10 young men with at leas 12 months of training experience did regular and hammer dumbbell curls on the preacher bench - (photo | Hiscock. 2015). In today's SuppVersity  feature article, I am going to address not one, but two potentially highly relevant articles from the  Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research  (Looney. 2015) and the European Journal of Sport Science (Hiscock. 2015). What makes these papers interesting is the fact that both investigated the effect of commonly prescribed remedies to "bust a plateau" by providing novel growth triggers: (a) Training to failure and (b) modifying rep schemes and whether you fail or don't fail on every set. If you believe in what you can read in many articles on strength training, both, training to failure and decreasing rest times / drop sets should significantly increase the muscle activity and thus - this is the most...
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