Do you add sets and reduce rest time at the same time?

[Philemon]

Hello everyone,

I've been using Darebee for the past 4 months, and things are going great so far (even though I won't lie, I'm having some difficulties motivating myself these past few weeks, but overall it's going well). I've gained 4.5 kg, starting from 50, my goal being to get to ~57-58 by April if possible. As I still have a lot of margin for improvement in the food department, I think I'm going to be okay. After April, I'll have an internship and I'll be paid, so I will go to a gym to go further in my fitness journey.

Right now I'm doing 4 sessions a week, full body (Hermit) on Monday, upper body (Upperbody) on Wednesday, lower body (Maximus) on Thursday, and abs (Ab Crunch) on Saturday. So I'm doing difficulty 2 workouts, I started with difficulty 1 and I'm doing this "algorithm" to steadily augment difficulty:

• 1 week Level I (with 2 minutes rest)
• 2 weeks Level II (with 1 minute rest)
• 3 weeks Level III (with 30s rest)
• 4 weeks Level III + EC (with usually 15s rest, even though it depends on what the EC says)
• Then I'll go to the next difficulty workouts.

However I'll be honest, the jump from difficulty 1 to difficulty 2 was hard, especially in the upper body department, as it's my weakest point. Right now I'm in the "Level III phase", so I should do, in total 150 knee push-ups when doing upper body sessions, and that's just too hard for me right now. I can do ~90 on a decent day, and ~120 on a good day but even then my form suffers after 60-70.

I also have another problem with the Ab Crunch workout. The thing is, I have a very long neck, and even when doing my best to keep good form, doing a lot of crunches is really taxing on my neck. So I'm gonna go with plank-based workouts for the abs.

While I'm seeing the effects on my body, I feel like my performance when working out is not keeping up with the rhythm at which I improve the difficulty of the workouts. But I also feel guilty when trying to slow things down a bit, I feel like I'm being too easy on myself.

I will definitely try to be more rigorous with what I eat, as I tend to not eat enough calories if I don't pay attention to what I'm eating. Regarding calories, what do you think about the 80/20 rule which says that if you're very diligent about what you eat 80% of the time, you can afford 20% of meh foods?

Thank you for reading me, if you have any advice, or anything to share in general, I'd love to read it.

Have a great day!

 

[Ratio Tile]

You've got a nice algorithm, but don't treat it like a sacred law written in stone. Adjust it to what you're capable of at the moment.

I'd say don't decrease your rest times when advancing to the next level. See how your body reacts. Maybe then you'll be able to do those reps you mentioned. Experiment and see what works for you.

Also, remember that you don't have to run to the top. Take it slow and gradual, because you will probably have to stay on higher difficulties (3 and above) for longer then the amount of weeks you do now. E.g. mastering difficulty 4 might be a year-long challange.

I can't really tell you much about eating tho. I'm still putting convenience over substance

 

[Nevetharine]

Well, I'm not sure if this will be helpful but my rest times/sets vary during the workout depending on how difficult it feels to me.

I like training my body to failure...in the sense that either I get a spleen ache from cardio (or my leg muscles give up before my lungs do),

or with strength training, until I can't do another rep with proper form. Because what's the point then? It's better to strengthen than to strain.

At the level I'm currently at, which I suppose is somewhere between level II and level III, I kind of see how I feel after a couple of sets, and then go from there. If it's not hard enough, I'll either lower the resting time, or add more sets, or both.

I guess I'm trying to say that, I don't judge a workout by it's level. It has to provide me with a certain amount of fatigue. So I adjust it as I go along and get a feel for it.