Incorporating Rest Into Your Muscle Building Programme
It is important when devising a bodybuilding training programme that you take into account the rest periods between sets. An crucial variable for obtaining an overload effect in multiple set training programmes is the amount of rest time allowed between sets. Muscle fibers will only experience physiological change if they have been both recruited and exhausted. If too much time is allowed between sets, the exhausted muscle fibers may well recover and be used in the next set, and therefore training the same set of muscle fibers over and over. The theory behind the concept of multiple sets states that, as long as the time between sets is not sufficient for the muscle fibers to recover from exhaustion, a different set of fibers will be recruited and overloaded during the following set.
