Expert: Ken Alan - 6/15/2007

Question
I just started the Body For Life weight training program after about a year and a half doing a full-body program 3 days a week.  If you're not familiar with the Body For Life program there is a link below, or if you don't want to click that link I outlined the program below.

http://www.bodyforlife.com/exercise/weighttraining.asp

-  Weight train intensely, three times per week on alternating days with aerobic exercise three times per week. Make sure to hit your "high points" during your workout.
-  Alternate training the major muscles of the upper and lower body.
-  Perform two exercises for each major muscle group of the upper body and lower body.
-  Select one exercise and conduct five sets with it, starting with a set of 12 reps, then increasing the weight and doing 10 reps, adding more weight and doing 8 reps, adding more weight for 6 reps. Then reduce the weight and do 12 reps. Immediately perform another set of 12 reps for that muscle group using the second selected exercise.
-  For each muscle group, rest for one minute between the first four sets. Then complete the final two sets with no rest in between, wait two minutes before moving on to your next muscle group, complete this pattern five times for the upper body training experience and four times for the lower body training experience

The thing I don't understand with the Body for Life program is how you can only rest a minute between sets. I was trying to do that and keep up with going up in weights and keep up with doing the certain reps. I had so much lactic acid buildup that I needed more than a minute in most cases, sometimes like 2-5 minutes before I fully recuperated, and could move on to the next set. Is this ok to do? Also, after you do the 12 rep set, 10 rep set, 8 rep set, 6 rep set, why do you go back to doing a 12 rep set. Would it be ok if you only did the 4 sets of 12, 10, 8, 6? Also, why do you do another exercise right after that, with no rest, for 12 reps? It seems to me that you're muscles are just too tired from the last exercise to do another one for the same bodypart, let alone with no rest.  On upper body day it's taking me about 1 1/2 hours to complete.  That seems too long.  Can I modify this program where it will only take between 45min-1 hour to complete, and if so, how would I modify this and still get maximum benefit?  Thanks for your help.
Dave

Answer
It's okay to rest 2-5 minutes between sets. It's also okay to do 4 descending sets and not do a 5th set.  You can modify the program where it takes between 45 - 60 minutes to complete, but you wouldn't get the maximum benefit as the program outlined unless you did the same amount of work as outlined.  That means you can't rest 5 minutes between sets - that's what eats up your time.  Yet you say you have to rest that long.  That's fine, but it will take 90 minutes to complete as you know. So it's a choice you have to make.  If you're happy with the results you're getting, stay with what you're doing.  If you want to spend less time working out, you'll need to shorten your rest periods.  But you're thinking you have to go from 4-5 minutes rest to 1 minute rest.  No, cut your rest period by 20 seconds.  A few weeks later, take off another 10 seconds.  Take 5 months to go from 4-5 minutes rest between sets to 2 minute rests between sets.  That will cut your workout time down substantially.  Plus, it won't feel like it's killing you the way it does now.  It's because you're not trained for that kind of conditioning (anaerobic).  Like anything else, you have to progressively train for it.  You can't just jump into 1 minute rests between sets because the book says so!

Hope this helps.