This tip is for anybody that has trouble timing their rest when they are lifting weights, either due to being distracted or not remembering when they finished their last set or just not being able to keep track of when to start the next set.
I am a fan of circuit training, but for the past 4 or 5 months I have been donig straight sets at the gym. When doing circuit training, it is not very difficult to figure out how long you have for rest: you finish an exercise, you start the next one; you finish the circuit, you just glance at the clock and go as appropriate. You only have to do that 1 or 2 or 3 times, usually.
Straight sets, though, can get confusing, especially if you are going for more or less rest than 1 minute. If it is one minute, you can generally look to see how many seconds have elapsed since the last minute, and just go when it gets back there; but you have to remember. If you are doing something like 3 minutes or 45 seconds or 90 seconds or anything else that involves that whole “math” thing, then you have to keep straight what you are waiting on for this particular set and not confuse it with your last set. For some people this may be easy. For others, maybe not.
Fear not; I have found a quick and easy method for knowing when to start the next set. Using a cheap (or expensive) running watch that has a lap counter (it doesn’t even need lap memory as long as it can display the current lap) then you can time your rest by click the lap button after each set. I do not really care how long it takes me to do a set, so by clicking it after I finish, I can just glance and once it reaches 45 seconds, or 1 minute, or 90 seconds, or whatever, I start the next set. Very easy, no confusion, and I can concentrate on what I am trying to accomplish and not on when I finished my last set.
I hope this helps a bit.
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