How to Optimize Rest Intervals | Pavel Tsatsouline & Dr. Andrew Huberman
Chapters
0:0 Walking & Relaxation Exercising During Rest Periods2:30 Do Not Sit in a Slouch During Rest
3:42 The Benefits of Walking on Recovery for Strength
00:00:00.000 | What should I do during my rest periods?
00:00:04.340 | All right.
00:00:05.340 | Well, first of all, whenever your heart rate is high, the very first thing is to not to
00:00:09.800 | suddenly stop.
00:00:11.680 | Because you want to...
00:00:13.600 | There are valve, one-way valves in the veins that whenever you contract the muscles of
00:00:19.040 | the legs, they help to milk the blood back through to the heart, so basically they reduce
00:00:23.320 | the stress on the heart.
00:00:24.840 | So just walk it out first, the first step.
00:00:27.220 | Even if your heart rate was high.
00:00:29.840 | Then the second thing is you want to do exercises.
00:00:32.740 | You want to do relaxation, myorelaxation, muscle relaxation exercise.
00:00:37.920 | What they are is if you watch boxers, how they, you know, shake off their shoulders
00:00:42.920 | and drop their hands and do things like that.
00:00:46.480 | These exercises go back to the 30s, Soviets used them since the 30s, and they used them
00:00:50.520 | with elite athletes, kids in grade schools and everybody.
00:00:55.640 | So these exercises serve several functions.
00:01:00.200 | One is if you are doing an exercise that is strength exercise in nature, some of the cross
00:01:06.640 | bridges are stuck pretty much.
00:01:09.040 | And so your muscle is thixotropic, it's like gel.
00:01:12.240 | So by moving your muscle in a passive manner, you get it unstuck.
00:01:16.760 | And so you restore circulation obviously.
00:01:20.440 | And the other reason is, again, control of muscular tension is very, very important.
00:01:25.560 | It's important to learn how to contract the muscle for strength.
00:01:28.280 | It's very important how to relax for speed, for endurance, just for a happy life.
00:01:34.760 | If you look at the best sprinters, note how relaxed their faces are when they run their
00:01:39.120 | jaws.
00:01:40.120 | Relaxed, how relaxed their necks are.
00:01:42.220 | So relaxation is something that's practiced, just like tension.
00:01:45.840 | So regardless of what exercise that you just did, shaking off, we call this fast and loose
00:01:50.100 | drills.
00:01:51.100 | Shaking like passive, like turn your muscles to fat.
00:01:54.000 | So you want to do this for a little bit.
00:01:56.200 | Then after that, it depends how long is your rest.
00:01:59.800 | So if you're taking, it depends which exactly that you're doing.
00:02:04.680 | In some extreme examples, let's say that you're a sprinter, remember we talked like doing
00:02:07.880 | sprint repeats with, let's say, 100 meters in 15 minutes.
00:02:10.760 | You think, wow, sounds like a great, great training session.
00:02:13.800 | Well, the problem is these guys do need these 15 minutes to get the acid out of the system
00:02:21.020 | and have some other functions to recover.
00:02:23.820 | But after a couple of minutes, the CNS excitability goes down.
00:02:28.420 | So what the Soviets figured out back in the '40s still is what you do then after you walked
00:02:33.540 | it off, after you shook it off, you here and there, you insert some very kind of like enlightened
00:02:39.540 | easy hops or whatever using the same muscle groups.
00:02:43.100 | So these poor athletes really have a complicated rest protocol.
00:02:46.180 | There's really no rest for the wicked there.
00:02:49.220 | If you are a lifter who's taking very long rest periods in between, let's say you take
00:02:54.500 | those 10 minutes, then after your heart rate is down and after you shook off and after
00:03:00.540 | you walked a little, you can just sit down, you can do whatever you want.
00:03:03.740 | Do not sit a slouch because obviously, Stu McGill explained why that's not a good idea.
00:03:11.080 | And speaking of slouching, one reason that runners get their backs jacked up after running
00:03:17.420 | or some endurance event is, again, they go into their knees and they get into that collapsed
00:03:22.300 | posture and their discs are really pliable and warm after the run and then suddenly put
00:03:28.200 | them into flexion and they get messed up.
00:03:30.060 | So yeah, you also got to, like you point out, to watch your posture, but you really got
00:03:33.740 | to watch your posture during recovery because you slump between your sets of squats and
00:03:39.100 | then you could blow something out right there.
00:03:41.580 | - Interesting.
00:03:42.580 | I used to think that I would have this recurring sort of lower back hip thing that I finally
00:03:47.460 | feel is under control and I used to think that it correlated with travel and something
00:03:51.820 | about maybe not sleeping as well and traveling perhaps.
00:03:54.780 | But what I've noticed is even if I just sit too much after training my legs hard, I end
00:03:59.980 | up with this back issue.
00:04:01.680 | So just moving to a standing desk configuration after training legs, irrespective of travel,
00:04:05.700 | has really helped.
00:04:06.780 | And I think, I mean, nowadays there's all this excitement about walking.
00:04:10.060 | I don't know if you, I don't know how much time you spend on social media, but like walking
00:04:13.580 | is the new thing for 2024.
00:04:15.860 | People discovered walking can lower post-meal blood glucose.
00:04:18.940 | I mean, all stuff that's intuitive, great thing to do.
00:04:22.780 | We'll see what happens in 2025, what the new thing is.
00:04:26.160 | And I'm a fan of walking, but in no small part, because it just feels like it loosens
00:04:31.540 | up everything after training and I like to train early in the day if possible.
00:04:35.460 | And I know it's a dramatic reduction in kind of aches and strains as a function of just
00:04:40.700 | adding some muscle.
00:04:41.700 | - Also the other thing you can do, I remember when I watched your podcast with Stu McGill,
00:04:44.940 | you mentioned that the upward facing dog, Cobra, Cobra helps you, right?
00:04:50.580 | - Yeah.
00:04:51.580 | - By putting yourself in extension.
00:04:52.580 | - And hanging into extension, yeah.
00:04:53.580 | - So for people who, for whom that works, it's, you can just lie on the, lie on the
00:04:57.900 | floor in your elbows and just read a book.
00:05:00.460 | So for example, at Strong First courses, when people do exercise and then we teach them,
00:05:06.240 | so we have several authorized postures.
00:05:08.340 | So you either have to sit ramrod straight, you know, you can sit in a Lotus or a Seiza
00:05:12.900 | or something like that, or you can, you know, half kneel still upright, or you can lie on
00:05:19.100 | your stomach.
00:05:20.100 | So we do not allow this collapsed posture because this is a great, great way to get
00:05:24.100 | hurt.
00:05:25.100 | Plus, you know, you look like a slacker when you're a slacker, mentally you're not gonna
00:05:28.780 | be focused on whatever you're supposed to be doing.
00:05:31.020 | So I think that's, I think that's a good idea.
00:05:32.940 | - Yeah.