Bill Star's 5x5 - rest between sets

brianon

Anyone following this ? http://www.geocities.com/elitemadcow1/table_of_contents_thread.htm

I know I saw this recently (thats how a came upon it) either here or another forum but a quick search didn't find anything.

So my main question is... how long to rest between sets and exercise.

So if I do my 5x5 squats how long should i rest before moving onto the Bench 5x5 ?

And also, after I do 5 reps: squat, how long should i rest before my next 5 reps: squats ?

I guess the question is relevent for more than just the 5x5 programme.

Cheers,
Brian.

justsomebloke

ye I am doing it at the mo with my progress being journaled in the journal section.

The rest periods are generaly upto yourself with anything between 2-5 minutes being fine between sets, that said I generally have small rests between the first few sets but as the sets get harder my rest periods become longer and longer and I would easily take around 4-5 minutes rest between the last and second last set of reps on squats (on bench and BOW I generaly don't rest as long though) espeically on the first day of week when you have had to jump all your weights and are doing your new top weight for 5.

However I generally don't rest between one exercise and the other as I generally just do a couple of quick warm up sets with just the bar so even after a heavy set of squats I will generally just unrack the bar and go straight over a do a warm up set on the bench

brianon

jsb wrote:

ye I am doing it at the mo with my progress being journaled in the journal section.

The rest periods are generaly upto yourself with anything between 2-5 minutes being fine between sets, that said I generally have small rests between the first few sets but as the sets get harder my rest periods become longer and longer and I would easily take around 4-5 minutes rest between the last and second last set of reps on squats (on bench and BOW I generaly don't rest as long though) espeically on the first day of week when you have had to jump all your weights and are doing your new top weight for 5.

However I generally don't rest between one exercise and the other as I generally just do a couple of quick warm up sets with just the bar so even after a heavy set of squats I will generally just unrack the bar and go straight over a do a warm up set on the bench

Thanks. I am just finding my 5RM weights this week and then start into the programme on Monday.

Reyman

brianon wrote:

So if I do my 5x5 squats how long should i rest before moving onto the Bench 5x5 ?

And also, after I do 5 reps: squat, how long should i rest before my next 5 reps: squats ?

Simple answer from what I've seen - 4 mins rest for serious strength gains. 90 secs rest for serious bodybuilding

justsomebloke

personally I have to say I wouldn't use a 90 sec rest period on this programme as after the first few weeks you will be at the point where week in week out you are doing PB's on 3 big heavy compound lifts in one session (actaully in every session you should be doing PB's be it for weight or reps) and that is going to put serious strain on your body so if you don't give yourself enough time between sets you will burn out pretty quickly and a lot of the weeks you won't be able to increase you weights and so you won't be getting the most out of the plan.