Reading more ... it seems if you start doing 7+ minutes between sets tehre is risk of injury due to "cool down".
Back to the orignal question, would there be any risk in terms of gains? Or shoud lI make the same gians 6 months from now.
I keep hearing 2 minutes...
The world is full of insane advice in regards to strength training. Take the time you need. If you are missing your sets and feel another minute or two of rest would help, take it. If you take ten minutes to hit on chicks and checking out the back acne on the guy next to you then speed things up.
Most info I have read states that for bodybuilding you should aim for <1 minute (better for hypertrophy and building overall muscle mass). Basically this is for a low weight/high rep strategy that people use to build a lot of mass.
For strength and power most studies recommend that you rest for and 3-5 minutes, which allows your ATP system to replenish energy for the heavier reps.
I don't think it really matters either way. You learn to listen to your body after a while and know how long the rests should be naturally.
Mass comes from heavy lifts
In general, bodybuilders are more muscular than powerlifters, but powerlifters are stronger. How does training with weights that are 90% of 1RM develop strength and power, but do very little for hypertrophy? Studies have shown an intense set of 5 reps involves more fibers than an intense set of 1rep. Research has shown that using loads in the 90% range causes failure to occur before a growth stimulus has been sent to the cells. Therefore other factors besides muscle fiber fatigue result in termination of the set. The muscle simply does not have sufficient time under tension to stimulate the growth process. High rep training produces high levels of phosphate and hydrogen ions, which enhance the growth process. Research has shown heavy lifting enhances neural efficiency (improved motor recruitment, and firing rates), which enhances strength, but does not necessarily result in muscular growth.
Sure, if you can do heavy lifts at high reps
Lots of articles out there on this (it's actually the main difference between bodybuilding and power/strength training), but here is one that better explains it:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/hale6.htm
5 reps IMO is the sweetspot. I don't know what it's like for the rest of you but strangely enough, at the gyms I go to, it's somewhat of a rarity to see people lifting for 5. Most of the time, I see them going for 10 or more.
I (and everyone at my powerlifting gym) rest a minimum of five minutes between work sets. We also consider doing five reps to be a cardio workout. However, given the number of people with state/national/world records at this gym, I'd say its safe to assume the long rest period is not inhibiting their long term gains.
I'm sorry but without a link to bodybuilding.com you can't expect anyone to take your post seriously.
I (and everyone at my powerlifting gym) rest a minimum of five minutes between work sets. We also consider doing five reps to be a cardio workout. However, given the number of people with state/national/world records at this gym, I'd say its safe to assume the long rest period is not inhibiting their long term gains.
I don't know how many times people have asked me why I do so few reps and I explain it to them and they look at me like I'm crazy or tell me I'm wrong then months later they see me moving considerably more weight while they're still basically where they were before and come up and ask me what I'm doing and when I tell them the same thing, they still look at me like I'm crazy. anything more than 6 reps is going to start to promote hypertrophy more than strength.