Rest Periods

For this first blog, I am going to begin a series of posts detailing how an athlete should workout differently than the general population. In my experience working with athletes, the biggest difference (between athletes and the general population) is the need for consistent rest periods.

At any given time, an athlete should be focusing on sport-specific strength and conditioning goals for his or her sport. Now remember that the number one rule that an athlete’s workout should adhere to is the principle of overload. The overload principle states that our bodies will adapt to whatever stress we place on it, therefore to continue to make gains, we must GRADUALLY expose our bodies to greater stress each and every workout. When most athletes (and exercisers in general) follow this principle, they mainly do it by increasing the intensity of their workouts by either adding more weight or increase their set/rep scheme (training volume). Keeping these facts in mind, we need to realize that most athletes will benefit most from a reduction of body fat (which increases speed and conditioning) and an increase in muscle endurance and speed strength (i.e. power). The best way to improve both of these areas is by implementing consistent rest periods. We can apply the overload principle by GRADUALLY decreasing the rest periods between the sets and exercises of each workout session.

Let say for example that you played defensive tackle last season, but your coaches told you that you will be given the opportunity to tryout for linebacker next season. They want you to bust your butt this summer to prepare you to battle for the linebacker position this fall. Now you realize that at linebacker, you are going to need to be leaner, faster, more conditioned and more explosive (arguably) than when you played tackle. How can you manipulate your training program to improve these areas? The simplest way is to employ short rest periods during your strength training and gradually decrease them each week. At linebacker, you are going to need to carry your strength, power, and explosiveness throughout the entire game. This is where performance-based conditioning comes in. We can train these athletic training variables by using consistently short rest periods. Did you know that if you squatted 350 pounds 10 times for three sets with 90 seconds rest between sets one week, and then next week you squatted 365 pounds 10 times for three sets with 150 seconds rest in between, you actually DECREASED the intensity of the workout in week two than week one? You training variables are backwards as you are now training pure strength at the expense of muscle endurance, conditioning, and possibly power (depending on the speed of your reps). The above example would be how someone switching from lineback to tackle should be training and not the other way around.

Here is a one-day sample workout plan for an athlete switching positions from tackle to linebacker following the principles discussed in this post (please not that if the athlete cannot complete at least 8 reps with perfect form and with the same weight as the first set after the short rest period - the weight MUST BE LOWERED)

Squat - 3 sets of 8-12 reps with 90 seconds off

Romanian Deadlift - 3 sets of 8-12 reps with 90 seconds off

Standing Push Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps with 80 seconds off

1-Arm Bent-over DB Row - 3 sets of 8-12 reps with 80 seconds off

Incline DB Bench Press - 3 sets of 8-12 reps with 70 seconds off

Pullups - 3 sets of as many reps as possible with 70 seconds off

*Each time the athlete completes this workout, the rest period drops 5 seconds for each exercise

Good luck with your training,

Leland

Tags: rest periods

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 7:38 pm and is filed under Strength Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.