Best ways to time rest periods

Why I'm writing this...

I have been using timed rest periods for all of my workouts since the beginning of 2012 and it has made a huge difference. I've noticed most people don't do any timing in their training. Those that do usually just use the fucking horrible chronograph (count up) function on their watch and eyeball the clock their entire workout (or worse, just look at the analog clock on the gym wall). It's time to discover more sophisticated timer methods. Break out the manual for your Timex watch or investigate the options in your phone's timer app! Here are some ideas,

LONG REST STRENGTH TRAINING SETS

First, here's a big secret: use timed rest periods to force yourself to rest longer than your intuition tells you to. That's the best way to use timed rest periods. It should be long enough where you get restless and begin to feel some concern about cooling down. So now, let's say you're training something heavy and hard (like heavy deadlifts). Do this:

• Set your stopwatch to countdown and then repeat mode.


• Set the time to your rest period + the approximate time it takes you to do your set (3:30 minute rest period + about 1:00 minute to approach the bar, lift, and finish the set = 4:30 minutes.)


• Hit go and begin your set.

Now you NEVER have to touch or even look at your stopwatch again. You will HEAR it. That's your cue to start your set. Then you will wait and rest until you hear it again. (btw, 4:30 is what I use for all my deadlift working sets)

TIMED SETS with TIMED RESTS

Imagine you want to hold a support on rings for 30 seconds and then rest 2 minutes exactly between sets.

• Set your stopwatch to countdown and then countup mode.


• Set the time to 45 seconds.


• Hit go, you now have 15 seconds to get up over the rings and get into the support.


• The timer will go off and you'll get down. The stopwatch will be counting up now.


• While you are resting, wait until the stopwatch counts up to about 1:45 seconds.


• Reset the timer and begin the cycle again.


• Voila. Perfect timing.

For TRICKING

There are two good ways to use a stop watch while tricking. I covered one way to do it in a previous article. In that article I told you to just trick until you're winded and force yourself to rest 3 minutes as needed.  Here's another similar but slightly different way. This method is best used for those days you are tricking by yourself and doing really well!

• Set your stopwatch to countdown and then countup mode.


• Set the time to 15 minutes.


• Trick for 15 minutes off and on, catch your breath throw something else.


• Film and stop and whenever.


• You are doing really well! Getting good footage and killing it!


• After fifteen minutes is up, the timer will go off.


• Force yourself to rest for at least 5 minutes. Do nothing!


• Restart the clock for 15 minutes.


• Throw a couple quick'n'easy warmup tricks first thing after the rest.


• Now do something HUGE!


• Repeat this 3 times for the average hour long session.

Why does this work? Simple. When was the last time you forced yourself to rest for 5 minutes during an exciting solo tricking session? Probably never. Try it, you'll thank me for it I promise.

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Time your rest periods!

It's common to think that timing your rest periods is only used for restricting rest, but that's for cross fit, circuit training and things like that. For people interested in more strength (and more muscle) or better tricks; for people interested in doing things the Acrobolix way, your timed rest periods will almost always be used to force yourself to rest more than you want to. Set the timer for at least 3 minutes. Don't you dare start your next set of reps or actions until it chimes!

My android phone is actually my music player when I strength train, I use ear buds. I use an app on this phone called StopWatch & Timer+ The advantage to using my phone as my music player and this app together is this: if I am listening to music with earbuds in my ears, I might not hear the timer go off if the timer was some generic stop watch. But if I'm using an app like this one, it interrupts my music for a split second to beep, I can't miss it and I never have to look at it.