Ep. #1178: Brad Schoenfeld on Optimal Rest Times for Muscle Gain

Brad Schoenfeld: [00:00:00] If you’re an intermediate to an advanced lifter and I say, all right, that when you feel ready, go back and we’ll do another set that has shown to have just as good effects as resting two minutes or more. And it’s efficient, like in certain cases, depending on the type of of that exercise, whether it’s single or multi, it can be an even more efficient way because people seem to have an intuitive sense as to when they’re ready without compromising their results.

And certainly that’s the way I approach my own training. I don’t sit there with a watch and say it’s two minutes. I can do my next step. 

Mike Matthews: Hello there. And welcome to muscle for life. I am your host, Mike Matthews. for joining me today for a new interview with a repeat guest, Mr. Brad Schoenfeld. PhD, who is an internationally renowned fitness expert, author, educator, lecturer, and researcher who has published over 300 peer reviewed studies on exercise science and sports nutrition.

And in today’s episode, Brad is going to be talking [00:01:00] about all of the subtleties related to the relationship between rest times in between sets and muscle growth and specifically how to set up your training program, how to set up your rest times to maximize muscle hypertrophy. And so in this interview, he’s going to explain things like why you want to make sure that you are resting enough in between sets if your goal is to maximize muscle growth.

And then Brad’s going to talk about what is enough. for you because that is going to depend on what you’re doing and depend on your training experience and depend on your goals and even on your time constraints. How much time do you have to be in the gym? And then Brad also talks about shorter rest periods which are not optimal for maximizing muscle growth but which do have their uses.

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Hey Brad, it’s good to see 

Brad Schoenfeld: you again. Good to see you, Mark. 

Mike Matthews: Looking forward to today’s discussion. Get into the details on rest times in strength training, which is you see a lot of simple prescriptions, which are fine, especially maybe for people who are newer. If you’re trying to gain muscle, just rest a couple minutes, whatever.

Two to three minutes. If you’re trying to maybe burn a little bit more calories. Energy and you’re trying to get through your workout faster, maybe then rest less. But in today’s discussion, I wanted to get you on the show to discuss new research that you conducted with others, with colleagues on this topic in particular, and get into some of [00:05:00] the nuance, as they say, through a practical lens.

So people listening, hopefully at the end of the discussion maybe there are some little tweaks that they can make in their own training to just make it a little bit more effective. So let’s just Start at the top. If you want to, you can quickly discuss this meta analysis that you conducted that talks about the influence specifically on hypertrophy, right?

Because talking about strength would be Maybe a slightly different discussion. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. So for those who don’t know, a meta analysis is when you pull all the results on a given topic, all the studies that have been done, results of the studies, and basically you’re making one large study out of multiple small studies, it’s particularly important in a field such as exercise science, because the sample sizes, the amount of subjects in most studies are relatively small because it’s a very labor intensive process to carry out a training study.

But hours and hours, we carry out resistance training studies. It’s over a thousand man hours [00:06:00] over the course of the study period, 10, 10 weeks. 

Mike Matthews: And then funding too, right? It can be expensive too. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Fun, of course, funding comes into it as well. 

Mike Matthews: Maybe RFK wants to give money to to help people get more jacked.

That would be positive. 

Brad Schoenfeld: I’m not putting my eggs in that basket, but we’ll see. But anyway, so we carried out this meta analysis and we looked at all studies that had one group that rested more and the other group rested less. So it was a binary topic where it, the studies that were controlled where one group had more rest and the other group had less rest.

And that was the focus of the study. And the findings were quite interesting. We found that at 60 seconds resting only a minute, there was a notable, but relatively modest, but notable reduction in hypertrophy, or when I say reduction, it blunted the amount of growth that you can get. But once a, study reach or once the rest interval reached 90 seconds, there was not [00:07:00] seemingly any difference in terms of the negative effects.

We didn’t notice negative effects between 90 seconds and two minutes, 90 seconds and three or four, anything above that. So there was a cut point. Now I want to hesitate. Or I want to make sure people don’t just take that, Oh, all I have to do is rest 90 seconds. There’s a lot of caveats to this, and it’s not a black and white.

Mate analyses can’t just quantify an exact point at which you’re able to rest without losing gains. And what we had here was The studies, first of all, there weren’t that many studies on the topic, which kind of reduces the ability to draw strong inferences. I think we had 10 total studies that were done that, that met our criteria, that had specific criteria that allowed us to investigate it.

So that was part of it, but also you’re not able to specifically look at some of the higher versus lower. And rest intervals, one against the other. So I’m trying to articulate this in a way that is, it’s not too [00:08:00] geeky, but anyway, it’s when you’re trying to statistically analyze a topic that you don’t just say, all right, here’s 90 seconds.

Now we’re going to directly compare it with three minutes. It doesn’t work that way. So there’s ways that you have to try to extrapolate these inferences. And bottom line is that while we have some decent evidence that 90 seconds would be a. Bottom, lower threshold. I would say there are nuances to that.

In particular, we weren’t able to sub analyze the type of exercise, so multi joint versus single joint. There is some evidence in acute studies where, and we’ve carried one of them out, where two minutes rest did not show much difference from three minutes rest, but one minute, one minute and even 90 seconds tended to blunt the number of reps you could do, which seemingly would translate to A reduction in hypertrophy.

So I do think there is some nuance to this. And if you’re asking me, my general rule probably would be two minutes would be a safe bet, at least on multi [00:09:00] joint. And I think if you’re dealing with some of the more complex exercises, like squats, it might even be a little more. And I think there’s also inter individual variability as far as this goes.

Mike Matthews: And that would line up with probably the experience of many people listening. Lines up with my experience, even 2 minutes take some sort of heavy squat type of exercise. And if I’m pushing close ish to failure. Two minutes, I’m going to perform probably a couple fewer reps compared to two and a half or maybe three minutes.

So that is not surprising to people listening. Whereas if it’s a biceps curl, I may not even notice a difference between a minute and a half and two minutes. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, and another important caveat that I’d like to mention is that the vast majority of studies were in untrained subjects, which needs to be always taken into account that you can’t necessarily extrapolate, generalize the results in untrained subjects into those who have [00:10:00] resistance training experience.

Mike Matthews: What relevant differences should people be thinking with when you’re talking about untrained versus trained specifically in the context of rest times, what changes? 

Brad Schoenfeld: Number one, you’re able to use heavier loads so that the absolute amount of weight you can use seemingly would, we can speculate, would have an effect on the amount of rest you might need.

You could also speculate in the other realm that you might get greater buffering capacity. So we’re talking generally with these. The studies are using 8 to 12 reps for the most part, sometimes a little higher rep ranges where you’re going to have some acidosis. These aren’t very low rep, three, three reps sets.

And thus, if you’re able to buffer, as you start to train more, you get greater buffering capacity where you’re able to carry out first of the sets to a greater extent, closer to failure. But also you could look at it, that you might be able to buffer in between sets, that your buffering capacity would allow you to come back.

More quickly. [00:11:00] Again, this is a hypothetical. We just don’t know about. 

Mike Matthews: The heavier loads could offset that though, of course, where you’re buffering, but it’s just harder. What about how training to failure interacts with this? 

Brad Schoenfeld: That’s another great point. The vast majority of these studies trained at least a volitional failure where the subjects gave up.

But they try to push them. The vast majority of these studies, if you’re not pushing towards failure, certainly you can rest short of periods of time. So failure will reduce your ability to come back more quickly because you’re, you need more energy reserves to be repleted. 

Mike Matthews: And this may be obvious to at least some people listening, but it occurs to me that I should ask just mechanistically, why does being able to do more reps in subsequent sets?

Matter in terms of hypertrophy, because what some people hear is that what’s most important is that you just push [00:12:00] closer or that you push close to failure. And therefore if you’re resting, let’s say two minutes rather than two and a half minutes on a multi join exercise and in those subsequent sets, you’re going to get a couple of fewer reps.

As long as you’re pushing close to failure, the results should be more or less the same. I’m not saying that’s a correct argument, but I just know that’s. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, so we just don’t know, but again, that’s why I tried to couch it in terms that it’s conceivably could have negative effects, but conceivably volume, it’s a function of volume.

So the volume load can be expressed in three ways. You can look at it in terms of set buying, which is the way that we generally look at it. Like most of research studies are focused on set buying, but you can also look at repetition volume, the total number of reps that are performed in a workout. And you can look at it as in terms of volume load, which is sets times reps times the amount of weight that’s used.

And if you’re Not able to do as many reps or if you’re going to have to use a lighter load [00:13:00] to get the same amount of reps, your volume load is going to decrease. And there’s some evidence that may matter. There’s other evidence that doesn’t. So again it’s not clear. I don’t want to make it seem like this is a given, but it’s something that.

At least needs to be considered. So mechanistically is very difficult. Like people and often think that we have all these answers through science, but we don’t trying to tease out mechanisms is much harder than just doing a study and seeing what the results are and trying to draw inferences from the results of a given intervention.

That’s manipulating variables. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that makes sense. And in terms of individual prescriptions, so looking at practically what you think is most likely to work out best, I guess you could say, under different circumstances. How do you go about, even in your own training, or if you’re training other people or creating programs for somebody, how do you go about thinking with practically prescribing rest periods?

And you can take that in whatever direction you want, even, I know that a lot [00:14:00] of people listening that they’re on the spectrum of new to advanced. So if you want to talk specifically to, for people who are newer, here’s a way of going about it that is likely to work out well, and then as you become more advanced, here’s some changes you may want to make.

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. I’ll speak to the Intermediate to advanced first, and my approach generally is to auto regulate. I throw all this, it’s nice to know about the different recitals, but we do have some evidence, there’s been a couple of acute studies, and again, it’s just looking at the number of repetitions on hypertrophy, stay tuned, we actually are carrying out a study on this, but if you if you’re an intermediate to an advanced lifter, and I say alright, when you feel ready.

Go back and we’ll do another set. That has shown to have just as good effects as resting two minutes or more. And it’s efficient, like in certain cases, depending on the type of of that exercise, whether it’s single or multi, it can be an even more efficient way, because people seem to have an intuitive sense as to when they’re ready without [00:15:00] compromising their results.

And certainly that’s the way I approach my own training. I don’t sit there with a watch and say it’s two minutes, I can do my next set. It’s a little more complicated with the newbies because they’re generally not as in tune with their bodies yet. So I think this is where I think to me it makes sense to earn the sign of caution and to have them do rest a minimum of two minutes on most sets.

Now, with that said, Newbies generally, at least this is my general philosophy, you’re not looking to maximize or optimize results in a newbie. You’re looking to what? You’re looking to get form, basically, to teach them movement patterns and to get their form right. So I think The issue here is that looking at the studies we’ve done as to how it impacts hypertrophy is secondary to what their actual goals should be under those circumstances.

And I think, again, for me, what is more important is make sure that they’re not too tired, whether that will compromise their form. If they’re coming [00:16:00] back in terms of trying to do another set when they’re fatigued that can impair their ability to get that My muscle, if you will to perform the exercise in a proper way.

And that’s why I think structuring is, so there’s a minimum of two minutes to me would be, I think, indicative where they’re able to come back without the fatigue. 

Mike Matthews: Similar approach to diet. It helps when people are new to energy balance and macronutrient balance to create a meal plan or track for a period, just to calibrate their expectations of food and portions and so forth.

And in your training, and this may just be a, it’s just a moment that you just know it, but when you say that, okay, you’re auto regulating and once you feel like you’re ready to do your next set, is there anything specifically that you’re paying attention to? Because I’ve had people ask this point specifically should I be should be paying attention to my heart rate?

And when I feel that and how I’m breathing, or is it literally just. I’ll know it when I feel it, 

Brad Schoenfeld: that’s the way I do it. It’s just, like when [00:17:00] you’re training, I’ve been training quite a long time you just know, you just feel you’re ready to approach your next set. Now, what I will say is that it doesn’t hurt to rest longer for me.

You’re not going to lose gains for the rest of the water, but there’s a time efficiency, of course, standpoint. So there’s that trade off. So you have to then start saying what is my. And what I would say to that is you also can use certain techniques to make workouts more time efficient. We actually just finished a study, which hopefully will be published soon on superset training and did not compromise results.

Now there’s certain limitations to what you can do with supersets, but we used agonist antagonist supersets. So like a press into a row, a biceps curl into a tricep press down. And did not compromise results. To me, I think that is a potential strategy where you can reduce the rest and still get a more time efficient workout and Tom efficiency.

For many, I don’t want to say most, but certainly many [00:18:00] people is a paramount importance. It’s listed as one of the primary barriers to exercise. 

Mike Matthews: And now it’s going to be the next thing I was going to ask about. So could you share some of the details of how you went about it? Pairing these sets. And if you want to share details in the research too, and a question that I was going to ask specifically is, was that also in untrained or trained?

Brad Schoenfeld: No, this was a train we used to virtually all the studies from our lab are in train subjects. There’s been a handful where we haven’t the only time generally were in our lab where I will carry out a study on an untrained subject. It’s a infeasible to do it in a trained subject. I’ll give you an example there.

We have a study now looking at technique where one group is doing X using external momentum. Basically they’re using cheat reps and the other group is doing very strict form while we’re studying, adjusting biceps and triceps. I can’t do that. I can’t tell a trained subject for the next. 10 weeks you’re just going to [00:19:00] be doing biceps and triceps and you can’t train the rest of your upper body.

How many people are going to sign up for that? Yeah if you need to lock them in a in a metabolic ward and have, good luck with that. So that’s a study that just doesn’t make sense to carry that out and train subjects. We wouldn’t get We wouldn’t get subjects. And if we did, we wouldn’t get compliance.

They’d be sneaking out and doing their own thing. So that would be in like another time is where we did a study on the mind muscle connection and that we want to people that had no preconceived notions as to what. How to think about their training. So if we’re going to do mind muscle connection, we don’t know what someone is actually thinking.

So we figured that it was best to have them as blank slates. But anyway, the vast majority of our studies are in trained subjects. This was, we did trying to remember specifics, but it was bicep curl, tricep press down, chest press, seated row, and leg curl, leg extension. I think we’re the Six exercises and we did them in sequence.

Mike Matthews: And [00:20:00] how did you time the, so was it just one right into the next? And then was there a short 

Brad Schoenfeld: one right into the next? Then it was two minutes rest, I believe, or one minute. I’m forgetting the exact, we do a lot of studies. So I’m forgetting this. We finished this now was a year ago. So I forgot the exact setup that we use, but it was I think one group got to one group got two minutes rest, the traditional group, the other, the superset group.

I think we went one into the other and I think they got two minutes rest, but it could have been somewhat shortened rest because the other leg was getting less rest. So I don’t remember the specifics, but what I can tell you is that the super sec group finished the workout in 40 percent less time. And this is by the way, preprint, you can go online and read the study.

If Done with this interview. I’ll try to remember, go read it and remember what we did. But yeah, it’s it’s been posted as a preprint. 

Mike Matthews: And just generally, if you are going to do such a workout, can you one, just explain if people don’t understand the [00:21:00] antagonist agonist relationship and then how you go about thinking about programming that workout.

So there’s the muscle groups that you pair, but then there are also the exercise choices. It’s one thing to do it, for example, with a leg extension, a lead curl. And it’s another thing to try to do it with a barbell squat and anything else. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. So you got it. Exactly. You need to think about the exercise you’re doing.

That’s why I said, it’s not well, you can integrate these concepts into a workout. Generally, if you’re doing a total body workout, it would be difficult to do a full workout, just the paired supersets. You can do supersets in other ways, because you could do. like a squat and then an upper body exercise would be an alternative to that.

So it doesn’t necessarily have to be agonist antagonist supersets. I want to make sure that is clear. But anyway, a it’s called a paired superset or an agonist antagonist superset. Muscles that have an agonist antagonist relationship is when one is doing the movement, the other is, so when one is shortening, the other is like you’re doing a bicep curl, the triceps or the end quote, unquote, the antagonistic [00:22:00] muscle.

And there’s I don’t know how deep you want to get into this, but the antagonist actually is a especially in untrained subjects, it acts as a brake. So the antagonist muscle actually hinders performance of the agonist muscle. That, that is, Somewhat deactivated for the most part in trained subjects, which is again why when you’re doing research in trained and untrained, there can be other things that enter into it.

Anyway, that would be the strategy where you look at muscles on opposing that oppose each other and you do supersets. Biceps, triceps, quads, hamstrings, back and chest, the. Good examples of that. 

Mike Matthews: And are there preferential exercises if you’re going to, or if you’re talking about some of these smaller muscle groups, just pick whichever ones you like, or.

Brad Schoenfeld: Certainly the single joint exercises are themselves true because there’s going to be less fatigue. If you’re doing a squat, like you talked about, the hamstrings will be not. They’re certainly not heavily involved. A lot of [00:23:00] people think that you’re getting a lot of hamstring work. You’re not.

But there is enough where they’re going to be somewhat fatigued and that can hinder your performance in that movement and vice versa. If you’re going to do the hamstrings first, it potentially can, to some extent, impair the squatting that you might do. Not sure how much, but that’s a consideration. So these are things that need to be considered and you have to use applied anatomy after.

This is why having some knowledge. of Applied Anatomy really can help. Yeah, you can get a book that gives this information as long as it’s a good book. Yeah, I’m sure your book must go into that and I’ll give you a book. But without knowing that the quality of the information, you got to be careful.

And that’s why being an informed consumer, if you will, fitness consumer is very important. 

Mike Matthews: And the way that people typically see supersets done and Maybe even whether it’s in a gym or on social media or whatever, it’s either going to be the same muscle group drop sets, giant sets, whatever cluster sets, or [00:24:00] it’s just going to be random.

So what are your thoughts about again? Let’s say super sets with the same. Muscle group or supersetting muscle groups that have no obvious relationship. 

Brad Schoenfeld: So supersetting the same muscle group is called pre exhaustion training. It would depend how you do it. Certainly if you’re going to, I wouldn’t do an incline precedent and a flat press, that would be.

Kind of silly cause you get no reps with the or you have to really reduce the weight. So that just doesn’t make good sense. But 

Mike Matthews: over the years, I would see it. Typically it’s the smaller muscle groups. And again, it’s grabbing whatever dumbbells and then go into failure or close and then grabbing the lighter dumbbells and repeating it several times.

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, but generally we’d be talking about doing like a pre exhaust, which would be a leg extension and then doing a squat. So you pre fatigue the quads and the idea would be that you then when you’re squatting, the quads would already be fatigued and the glutes then, if the glutes are failing first before your quads you’re not going to have Obviously good quad [00:25:00] development, you get the quads to fail earlier if that’s your goal.

And similarly like doing a fly before a press would fatigue your pecs before the triceps would be fatigued if you’re doing a bench press. 

Mike Matthews: And do you feel, do you think that’s a useful technique? 

Brad Schoenfeld: We don’t have good. So stay tuned next semester. One of my students is carrying out what will be the first study and train subjects on the topic.

So we’d like to think, yeah, I know Mike you’ve done several interviews and I think we’ve mentioned this before, but we’d like to think we have all these things studied every way to Sunday and it’s just not the case. There’s many topics that we still have. Little to sometimes no information on so there’s very little information that we have to go on.

I don’t have a strong opinion. So when you don’t have good information, empirically, the research, you go down to your next level, if you will, hierarchy, which would be logical rationale. And there is a decent logical basis for it. Like I just [00:26:00] mentioned, logic doesn’t always translate into practice. So I would say that, at this point, I don’t have a strong opinion either way, and we’ll see.

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And what’s the anecdotal argument or what’s your opinion on the anecdotal evidence that, cause you could find many examples of phenomena that have been borne out in research that bodybuilders, Had concluded some time ago, and that was just out of approaching it, maybe with a scientific mindset and being observant and concluding that there seems to be something here.

Something seems to be working about this. And then [00:30:00] later, it’s it’s confirmed improper research and on the topic of pre exhaustion. Do you have any opinion on with anything you find 2 schools of thought? Some people think it’s a great tool and some people think. That it’s not going to help and it may actually hurt at worst at best.

It’s neutral at worst. It’s counterproductive. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Look, the best research comes from a field. People that dismiss quote unquote bro science are silly. Now when I say they’re silly, you don’t just accept it because the big bodybuilder in the gym is doing, but you see a pattern where all the top level bodybuilders are using certain techniques.

Yeah. You generally they’re not doing it because it’s not working. They’re getting big for. Now, part of it, the reason is because they have usually good genetics and usually, certainly the pro not drug tested level, the good special supplements, if you will wink, but bodybuilders are generally quite intuitive.

And yeah they’re going to use logic. Usually these are [00:31:00] born out of logic and ultimately you need to test them in a, in an objective way. That’s what the scientific method is about. You can draw stronger conclusions just because the big dude is doing it. It gives you a reason to say, Hey, that’s something I want to pay attention to.

It doesn’t mean that, Hey, that’s the B B’s knees. Example, number one I started following bodybuilders workouts when I first started. Started my bodybuilding journey and I got decent results at the beginning. I quickly plateaued and it wasn’t until I started delving into the science and becoming more scientific about it that I was able to continue my journey to continue progressing and win titles as a bodybuilder because I did not have the genetics or the pharmacology that these pros at.

The, getting back to your question, I do think it has a logical basis. So here’s what I generally say. If we don’t have any good evidence to refute it, and it has a sound logical basis, it is worth trying until we have a basis to refute it. These are things that [00:32:00] should be experimented with, and ultimately everyone’s their own n equals one.

I certainly think that people, there are Some researchers who just, unless it has been validated by research, I will not do this to me. It’s about it’s backwards thinking, you need to use the tools that you have based on the available evidence. And if the evidence when evidence gets compelling.

Control the evidence. Then we have ways to either accept it or dismiss it. But until that happens to me, my in my humble opinion, we experiment with it. And to your point, I have used it. And it’s something that I think warrants inclusion in a program selectively. I don’t think it’s something to overutilize, but I think that if there’s a muscle that you want to target let’s say a squat, if your glutes are a The limiting factor, you lower some people, the lower back will be a limiting factor in squatting.

Pre exhaustion with, let’s say, a leg extension can be, I think, a viable tool to create fatigue [00:33:00] in the squat before your lower back or your glutes give out. And fatigue is going to be a factor. In in your results, that’s been pretty well documented 

Mike Matthews: and the point of doing that right is to allow you just for people wondering if what’s the end goal of the pre exhaustion?

It’s in this case of the squat. It’s allowing you to bring your quads specifically, let’s say, close to the point of failure before something else fails that forces you to stop the exercise. I’ve experienced, it’s not exactly the same, but think of a, I think of a barbell squat and how much more difficult that is than different types of squat machines, whether it’s a belt squat or what I think is generally referred to as a power squat and like a platform and it’s hard to describe, but whatever a squat machine that is it mimics the squat movement, but it just gives you stability.

I’ve been training more with a one squat machine in particular that I really like in my gym, and I’ve seen actually significant results in my [00:34:00] lower body, despite not intentionally being in a calorie surplus just maintenance calories and. The reason being is for so long, I had so much of my quad volume was barbell squatting and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But I had forgotten how much more difficult the barbell squat variations are as whole body exercises versus a machine that allows me to more just isolate. The quads and overload specifically the quads. And so it’s been fun. I it’s hard to find pockets of progress like that after you’ve been training for a while.

Brad Schoenfeld: And that goes to the point, everyone is thrown in equals one experiment. So ultimately we, the research provides you with guidelines. It provides you with certain tools to have an understanding of how you might be able to structure routines and manipulate variables but Ultimately, people respond differently to different programs, and you need to find out what works for you, and you’re going to do it [00:35:00] more readily if you have that scientific foundation and knowledge base to it.

If you’re a kind of I don’t know if you’re a fisherman, but I’m a deep sea fisherman, if you want to go out fishing, you could just take your boat out and drop a line and you might catch fish. It makes it easier if you have sonar, the fish are so similarly, if you’re, if you have a good understanding of the principles scientific principles, it’s going to make it a lot easier and facilitate your ability to make your N equals one more success.

Mike Matthews: And coming back to pre exhaustion. So for somebody who might want to try that. How do you go about that? You could take the example of the leg extension, the squat or something else. But if they’re wondering, okay, what do I do? Let’s say the pre exhaustion set, what kind of weight am I supposed to be rep range?

Am I supposed to go to failure? And then am I counting the pre exhaustion set as volume toward that muscle group? Or is it just something that I’m doing before I do my official volume? So to speak. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Now, certainly you should be counting it as volume. It’s causing fatigue. But if you’re asking prescription wise, there’s not one [00:36:00] way to go about it.

There’s more, as they say, more than one way to skin a cat. 

Mike Matthews: But even to the volume point, right? What if you’re not going even close to failure? And it’s just a sub max. 

Brad Schoenfeld: But that generally wouldn’t be the case. That wouldn’t be a great strategy in my humble opinion because then you’re not fatiguing the muscle to the point where that would do anything.

But if you’re asking rep ranges, there’s room for differences of opinion. I wouldn’t do three reps with, heavy flies or leg extensions. They’re just not generally a single joint movements aren’t cut out for. very heavy load training because you’re putting a lot of stress on the joints.

But my, can you do eight reps? Can you do 10, 12, 15? They’re all viable. That does not have an exact rep range that you need to get fairly close to failure. Just by the way, in general, the this goes against what I My bro upbringing where I thought either you go real hard, you go home and every set either was to failure or beyond where I did drop sets.

I did the four straps, et cetera. The preponderance of research now seems to show that if you’re within a [00:37:00] couple of RIR, a couple of reps short of failure, You get just as good results. If it’s strength, it’s even less, it seems. So you don’t necessarily need to go to failure, but you need to fatigue the muscle.

If you want to do pre exhaust that’s inherent in the name, pre exhaust. If you’re not exhausting the muscle to some extent, then it’s not going to have the desired effect on the subsequent exercise that you do. 

Mike Matthews: Just to comment quickly on this point of training intensity. I, of course I understand what you just said.

And I agree that makes perfect sense. I will say though, that just thinking about the years spent in gyms, I typically see more people training with too little intensity rather than too much. And though they may, if you were to ask them, how many more reps do you think you could have gotten, they may say one, two, or three.

I still find myself having to check myself on this when I’m, cause I like to track my RIR as a part of my, I put it, I have a spreadsheet and I put RIR there and I try to be conservative [00:38:00] with it. I try to be skeptical of even my own. I probably add one to what I think. I’ve had it happen many times over the years where, I pushed close to failure.

I think that’s a two RAR. It’s the final set. And I’m going to see, I’m going to go for it in this next set and let’s see if it really was. And it was not, it was probably a three or a four RAR. And so if I look at again, how. Many other people train what I’ve seen over the years is they, although they may say that, yeah, that was pretty close to failure.

If you saw the final rep, it moved just as quickly as the 1st. And then that’s not you. You were many reps away. Yeah, it just, that training intensity point I think in theory, like theory, yes, theoretically it’s important, but it. You have to have the right, it’s almost like you have to have the right mentality or mindset in your training.

Brad Schoenfeld: So I will certainly agree that I think the majority of casual general public when they go to the gym are training with too little intensity. [00:39:00] It just doesn’t take a rocket scientist to look around the gym and so I certainly would agree with that. And we see them when they come into our studies and then by the end of the study like I’ve never trained that hard in my life.

But I do, to some extent, I don’t want to say disagree, but I will say that I, this is very educated because we are carrying out a study right now that happens to look at RIRs. We’re looking at failure versus a two RIR, and one of the components of the study is to test subjects ability on their RIR.

Now, these are resistance strain subjects with a minimum of a year experience, and they, I was fairly surprised. The majority were within two RIRs. of being able to predict their failure, and that’s on either side, so that’s some of them under predicted so basically they’re like one rep off or so, and you’re saying two RIR on average, that means one on either side, so maybe one and a half, we haven’t analyzed the stats yet, just looking at the graph, how that graphed out, it seemed to be [00:40:00] somewhere in that realm, and by the way, so that was pre study, we’re in the process now of finishing testing, We’re going to look at their ability after the study was over, where they had to keep using the RARs, or training failure, and look to see, did they improve?

My guess would be that they’re going to improve more. I was actually quite surprised that people, I think we don’t give credit, and by the way, that was after they were taught. My guess would be if we just Got them in and said, all right, tell me how many more reps you think they would have done. But we taught them, we did a session of teaching them the RIR.

And after one session of teaching them, they were quite good. 

Mike Matthews: When you’re saying that it actually occurred to me that I had a qualifier to what I said in my own training. So I guess where I’ve experienced that, it might be almost exclusively lower body which again, comes down to I some sets I’m just willing to push harder than others.

That’s just objectively what’s happening. And then certain exercises, like I think of the deadlift, I [00:41:00] have surprised myself. So for a period I was doing some rep max testing every four months or so, and I wouldn’t push to to push. Failure on a deadlift, but I was willing to get closer, like really try to get as close to it as I’m comfortable going because I don’t want to risk injury.

And so there was, there were just, and I did that for probably 2 plus years. And so I had a fair number of repetitions of this and there were at least a handful of times where. I was genuinely surprised at my performance looking at, because, I’d look at my training records leading up to it.

And just to get a feel like, what should I, what’s my goal here, right? Like how well do I think I can do based on what I was seeing in my training? And then I go for it and. What I thought would have been six or seven turned into nine or something. And some of that might be the psychology because I was a little bit psyched up for the rep max.

Like I felt like I, I was working four months for this to see, did I make any progress [00:42:00] or not? So that’s certainly played into it. So anyway, if I think about it, actually, what you just said is perfectly aligns with my training with basically, I think about any muscle group, other than Particularly lower body.

So squat exercises, like press type type of exercises where when I have, let’s say it’s a final set, I wouldn’t do this particularly on a squat anymore, but maybe on a like press something where I feel comfortable. If I’m stuck at the bottom, I’m okay, depending on how it’s set up, and I say, okay, I’m going to go for it. And I do end up getting one, two, maybe even three more reps than than I, I thought that I was going to be able to get. But that wouldn’t happen. With a bench press, for example, like that, or really any other exercise. Actually, if I think about it, those are probably more or less always spot on.

And so coming back to to the rest periods we’ve touched on number of different aspects of this. Is there anything else? And it could be from this specific study or any other resort in any other research they’ve [00:43:00] done and just experience that people should be thinking about when.

Yeah. Prescribing rest times better meet their goals and their preferences. 

Brad Schoenfeld: So I think the take home from the study is that very short rest periods are going to be detrimental to, to gains, to, to when we talk about gains, hypertrophy and again, when you’re asking, so you mentioned about mechanistically, why?

We don’t know why, but the thought would be is because that it’s reducing the volume load. Could there be other factors that are coming into play? We don’t know. But, that, what I would say, so here’s the counter to that. It wasn’t like you got no gains if you did that. They still got good gains.

It was, it, Modestly reduce the gains. So now whether for, so this is where you have to take the research and say, what is important to me, how practically meaningful is it? I would say in looking at that for the average gym goer, it might not be that meaningful. You might be able to get. Certainly you’re going to get a faster workout.[00:44:00] 

That can be more important than the gains you might be missing. I know there’s other ways as we talked about doing head supersets or other upper lower supersets, whatever can also do that. And perhaps without compromising. 

Mike Matthews: But even if you can’t let’s say you show up and you’re just short on time.

Like normally you need 45 to 60 minutes to get through your workout and you’re bummed because you have only have 30. You can either cut that workout short, or maybe you can just shorten the rest and. And maybe you don’t want to do that every time, but you shouldn’t feel like that. That workout is a throwaway workout, or you shouldn’t feel discouraged that you couldn’t do what you were quote unquote supposed to do.

Brad Schoenfeld: Not at all. And again, I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit hole, but I can make a case whereby some type of quote unquote metabolic condition. I have a book where I talk about this, where you have a period, either it’s in a block of training or selectively done throughout a training cycle of short rest intervals may, even though it might not be the [00:45:00] best quote unquote for hypertrophy in that given session, it might facilitate greater hypertrophy in your somewhat longer rest training because it’s allowing you to buffer Acidosis.

It conceivably can help you to buffer hydrogen ions, which are critical lactic acid is hydrogen ions are the acidic portion that build up in the lactic acid accumulates. And that stops your ability to have muscular contractions. And thus you’re not going to be able to continue on. You basically could be able to extend a set if you’re able to buffer Acidosis to a greater extent.

So again, a hypothetical, do we have great evidence of this in research? No, but without good evidence, we go by the evidence we have, we go by a logical basis. And to me, I think it’s it bears experimenting with. 

Mike Matthews: And so if that were true, then if I’m hearing you then you would be able to increase your volume in any given session, just because volume load yeah.

Volume load. Yeah. [00:46:00] Correct. Yep. In any given session. Where you have a heightened buffering capacity because you’re going to get that extra one or two or what three maybe reps with the, with your workings 

Brad Schoenfeld: the same way. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And then that would also probably impact the, how quickly you could recover your performance capacity as well.

Brad Schoenfeld: Conceivably that, that could also have effects within the intro set, I’m sorry, inter set. Anyway, it’s something to me, I think that we don’t have, there’s really zero controlled evidence on the topic, but it’s something to me that there’s experimenting with and I have in practice. So I think it is something that can be useful.

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: I’ve mentioned that in the context of cardio, too, for the interset in particular, maybe not so much for buffering capacity of individual muscle groups, but that if theoretically by improving your cardio, you might be able to improve your. Recovery in between sets, which means [00:47:00] that maybe you can get through your workouts a little bit faster, or you might see better performance.

If you are sticking to a clock, even if it’s an internal clock where you give yourself a minute and a half, or you give yourself 2 minutes, let’s say you just go. If you’re not fully recovered in your capacity in those 2 minutes, but if you had better cardiovascular capacity, then you 

Brad Schoenfeld: So you’re talking about like a hit like a high intensity interval or 

Mike Matthews: I mean that if you’re going to do it right, you would want to include that in your program.

But even if let’s say you go from all you just lift weights, you don’t do any sort of cardiovascular exercise. Maybe you go for walks and then you start doing zone to the popular term. So let’s say you just start doing that to just build up your cardiovascular. Yeah. Capacity. Ideally, if you wanted to get even more, yes, with high intensity interval.

Brad Schoenfeld: There is some emerging evidence that capillaries ation. So we have capillaries, at least spare tiny blood vessels that allow for nutrient exchange and oxygen [00:48:00] streams as well is a factor in hypertrophy and in recovery. So by doing cardio conceivably, and there’s again, some emerging evidence suggesting this is the case.

You facilitate the body’s ability to recover after your session is over. Whether intraset I don’t know. We have the evidence to show that. But certainly from a recovery, overall recovery, I think there is, it bears experimentation with. And I think there is now becoming more evidence to show that can be a viable strategy.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, that’s interesting. One final question coming back to these short rest periods. And I know you have to go in a minute, but you mentioned that you might even want to take training blocks and intentionally shorten your rest periods with this idea of increasing the buffering capacity.

Is that something that have you done that in your own training? 

Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, I have a book. I’m not trying to plug the book, but I have a book called the, I have a book called the Max Muscle Plan and it has a metabolic phase, a four week [00:49:00] phase that involves doing these types of very short rest period workouts to facilitate One of the things is to facilitate buffering capacity lactic acid buffering capacity.

Also, though, it’s using high repetitions, which, again, can help. So doing it not only short rest periods, but with higher reps you build up, you’re accumulating more acidosis. And there’s some evidence that also may help to target your type 2 muscle fibers. That is, again, a topic that has conflicting evidence on it, but certainly I can’t dismiss that based on the evidence we have.

And I think, again, without hard evidence one way or the other, these are things that may have a good cost benefit ratio. 

Mike Matthews: And specifically this point of shortening the rest periods may help target the type 2 fibers? 

Brad Schoenfeld: Certainly the higher repetitions, but look, the type one muscle fibers are endurance oriented.

I don’t know. I think that there may be something to the [00:50:00] short arrest as well, but certainly if you’re extending the set with more repetitions, you’re causing a greater endurance effect, which conceivably would target them. There’s actually, in blood flow restriction training, which uses very light loads with occlusion to tie off the venous backflow, type 1 fibrosis hypertrophy is something that’s been demonstrated fairly frequently.

Not consistently, but certainly a number of studies have shown that. 

Mike Matthews: And so with the higher up range, so targeting type one or type two. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Type one. Did I say type two? I thought type one. 

Mike Matthews: I might’ve misheard. That’s why I was like, did I might’ve heard, I might’ve heard that wrong. That’s why I wanted to ask.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Your endurance or your type 2 fibers would be not targeted, although certainly light load, I do also want to make the point before going that light load training also does target type 2 fibers, it’s not that you just get type 1 fiber, but there may be some preferential hypertrophy in type 1 fibers with [00:51:00] lighter load training that may make that more favorable.

Mike Matthews: Which is, of course, also an argument for varying rep ranges, especially as you get more advanced. 

Brad Schoenfeld: Correct. I certainly advocate that having some heavier load training interspersed with some lighter load training makes sense. It, on multiple levels, there’s certainly no negative effects that have been demonstrated, and there are at least potential positive effects.

So good, again, good cost, everything is cost benefit. 

Mike Matthews: Makes sense. This is as always, very enlightening. Really enjoyed the discussion. I know you got to run in a few minutes, but let’s just wrap up with where people can find you, find your work, if they would like to check out your research, your books, of course.

Brad Schoenfeld: I just say, Google me Google my name and you can, I’m on Instagram and and Twitter in particular. I’m on Facebook, but that’s mostly posting my doggy pictures. But but yeah, Instagram and Twitter, where X it’s called. Yeah, you can go on Amazon, but I have links on like I have a link tree on my Instagram where you can find stuff.

Mike Matthews: Okay, perfect. Thanks again for doing this, [00:52:00] Brad. I appreciate it. I enjoy it as always. We will terminate today’s episode shortly, but first I need to tell you about the biggest sale of the year going on right now over at my sports nutrition company, Legion. So from now until December 4th over at buylegion.

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So again, go to buylegion. com now, save some major coin on everything in our store and see for yourself why scientists, athletes, doctors, And Everyday Fitness Folk alike, trust Legion for all of their supplementation needs. I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don’t miss new episodes.

And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people. Who may [00:56:00] like it just as much as you. And if you didn’t like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email Mike at muscle for life.

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