Thoughts on rest times

Hi Guys,

Would love to know thoughts on rest times. Here's the situation: 

Assume the idea of mobility being the only rest you get is to 'condition' the body and increase work capacity. As a consequence of this, it's harder to maintain technique for longer due to fatigue causing total number of 'clean' repetitions to decrease. 

So in my mind, when completing strength work the rest should be long enough for you to perform the task at hand to your best abilities without huge amounts of fatigue hindering technique or duration. For example on HBP > PE3 and iM (Planche lean I believe) 10-15 seconds (mobility) is not long enough rest for me as a 12 second planche lean is near maximal for me. However, If I rest for 1 min between end of mobility and next set of planche lean my PPT and body alignment is way better so total productive work is 48s of quality planche leans rather then 48s of worse technique. So if technique is king, is rest such a bad thing?

I know the exact programming says active mobility rest, but what is the reasoning behind it as it obviously is a method that works. I'm not trying to 'make things easier' so to speak just trying to work out what the best methods of advancement are for someone who is fully invested in mastering my body. 

it feels like a battle between conditioning and perfect technique. Although I assume some people will say your not conditioned enough for that stage if you can't do the work well without additional rest. 

Hi Daniel, 

The aim of this setup in the Foundation courses is to build work capacity.  If you are having trouble maintaining form or completing the required number of reps without taking additional rest, my recommendation is to take your training back to an easier step. Try to find that sweet spot where you can complete all of the sets and reps, with perfect form, using only the integrated mobility as rest. 

And what happens if we progress in all the exercises with more rest? I really really hate training fast without stop. I hope this won t mean we cannot progress in Foundation or that we ll have some problems. For me doing all the sets straight away without passive rest mean the end of enjoying my training... I am still not able to see the benefits of working with such a little rest, your body won t be recovered for the next set. Maybe for long time-reps sets I can understand, but not for the low rep sets. I need a whole minute or two between sets. If in the end I can master all the progressions doing 5 sets of all of them with a minute rest, then what is wrong? 

I'm interested in this topic as well! 

No opinions here yet, but letting you know I am actively reading these replies.

Yes, and I am very afraid of what experts will say. pleeease let me train with my resting times.... pleeeasee, I beg you!

7 minutes ago, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

Yes, and I am very afraid of what experts will say. pleeease let me train with my resting times.... pleeeasee, I beg you!

 

My guess is that it's just going to take longer to master the final element if you're "mastering" the elements before it with rest in between sets. It may be 6 of one, half dozen of the other, but I guess the logic is why not fully build the work capacity before trying the end element rather than getting to that element and struggling more than you would've? An easy analog would be with weightlifting. If your 1 rep max is 275, you shouldn't go to 300 the next week. You'd be better off doing 3 reps, 5 reps at 275, then going to 300 for one rep.

There also might be some injury concerns from one element to the next, i.e. if you haven't built up the proper work capacity then going on to the next element is more dangerous than it would've been. Probably not the case with these early progressions, but maybe when you get to really technical ones. Just guesses on my part. Interested to hear the answers.

Your analog is about increasing reps, what I understand, before moving. I understand increasing reps, increasing time, increasing sets, but no to cut rests, but probably it has something to do what what you said about mastering and injuries.

1 minute ago, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

Your analog is about increasing reps, what I understand, before moving. I understand increasing reps, increasing time, increasing sets, but no to cut rests, but probably it has something to do what what you said about mastering and injuries.

Yeah I just see cutting rest as one more step in making things harder, just as more sets, more reps, more time under tension does.

Thanks! I didnt see these post before. That clarifies to me, so it seems i have to go back in my progressions probably. But these threads let me with one more doubt. I didn t know Handstans course was supossed to be work simultaneuosly with foundation. Is that absolutely essential? I am working on foundation and all strecht courses and feel like is a lot of information already and learning the movements take time.

if you have never had experience of basic adult conditioning you need to know that for the first 8-12 months the basic approach is a general preparation with medium / high reps and rest in between 45 and 60 seconds and if possible optimize the rest with active recovery exercise. this is what it is recommended on the literature. foundations work exactly in this way.

I'll let you know what's happen when someone train on basic strength element without this approach and the moves into advanced rings session. Advanced rings session must be done only after a proper warm up, what about if the proper warm up it is not a warm up for you due to your low work capacity? if you cannot hold a basic session how do you suppose to hold adv work session.

One my friend who has always trained with long rest , one day decided to train with me. he had already achieved planches , front lever, side lever , planche on rings. he weights about 20 kg less then me so he has some advantageous . He was totally crushed from my warm up, and my warm up was the last elements of foundations (except manna) all in a row with no rest.

My warm up was his training session and he did not moved into rings work scheduled for the day.

To follow up with what Alex said, the Foundation courses are preparing your connective tissue for more advanced GST which comes much later in your training. The aim during your Foundation training is to increase total work capacity. The active rest periods are preparing you for things like the rigors of ring strength training which can safely begin after the completion of Foundation Four. The work capacity you develop will then transfer over nicely. 

15 minutes ago, Alessandro Mainente said:

. He was totally crushed from my warm up, and my warm up was the last elements of foundations (except manna) all in a row with no rest.

LOL. That's impressive.

What is it about Manna that is so difficult for everyone? I mean, I know I'm struggling immensely with the early elements, but just curious about you advanced guys, what specifically is the stumbling block.

Got it!

On 16/09/2016 at 10:04 PM, Alessandro Mainente said:

if you have never had experience of basic adult conditioning you need to know that for the first 8-12 months the basic approach is a general preparation with medium / high reps and rest in between 45 and 60 seconds and if possible optimize the rest with active recovery exercise. this is what it is recommended on the literature. foundations work exactly in this way.

I'll let you know what's happen when someone train on basic strength element without this approach and the moves into advanced rings session. Advanced rings session must be done only after a proper warm up, what about if the proper warm up it is not a warm up for you due to your low work capacity? if you cannot hold a basic session how do you suppose to hold adv work session.

One my friend who has always trained with long rest , one day decided to train with me. he had already achieved planches , front lever, side lever , planche on rings. he weights about 20 kg less then me so he has some advantageous . He was totally crushed from my warm up, and my warm up was the last elements of foundations (except manna) all in a row with no rest.

My warm up was his training session and he did not moved into rings work scheduled for the day.

Great response! thanks got it! thats crazy, I'll keep that at front of my mind with my training from now on!

On September 16, 2016 at 3:09 PM, Antonio Alías Montoya said:

Yes, and I am very afraid of what experts will say. pleeease let me train with my resting times.... pleeeasee, I beg you!

 

No, lol. You'll get stronger this way. You bought the program so, it'll work best if you do it as planned.

Manna development it is hard if you weight a bit more and if you have some muscle distribution, a clear example it is having  big triceps and big lats, it makes the attempt to press forward the upper body harder, but you can achieve a least a good high V-sit. for a future manna development it is a matter of how much consistency I decide to put on it.

How long do you think you have left until you obtain the manna Alessandro?

I would say that if you do take a rest that you shouldn't count that step as mastered. Until you can do said step with no rest beyond the integrated mobility then you're still mastering it. Say you're on Step 6 and can perform really clean reps of the PE or SE and the iM, but only when you take a quick breather between sets. Well, then the next step would not be to jump up Step 7 because you've handled and mastered step 6, but to cut your rest times down to the point where your only rest is the active mobility. Yes, this may clearly take longer but if it warrants you clean form on both the PE and iM, I see no harm in it. The forum coaches may have a different opinion. But I did it yesterday with my upper body workout and found that my iMs and the PEs were much smoother, of course, this means I'm hanging out at my current 'step' until I can kick its ass at the follow-along video's pace, but it is a minor reward to know that I CAN at the very least do the movements with good form if I just pause and go slower, next step speeding it up. It's about the journey not the end game so, as long as I can get to Step 9 with perfect form and no rest breaks, I don't feel it should matter HOW I got there so long as I do and it meets the GB standards and expectations.