There are some tables in here to illustrate the principles. Feel free to skip past them.
I’m bad at freestyling rest times. I need a timer, or I’ll just sit around for minutes, regardless of how easy the set was. Too much thinking, to little doing.
The main sources of inspiration are a couple of T-Nation articles, in particular Glenn Pendlay's on EMOM training and Charles Staley's articles on Escalating Density Training.
The point of both is to shove a lot of work into a set period of time. My adaptation here is to sort of marry the two approaches and take a more flexible approach to timer length, while making EDT more sturctured - sometimes I’ll strive to do the same amount of work in less time, other times I’ll add work and extend the session length.
Fixed rest times just don’t work for me. I’ll always inevitably start second guessing myself. Did I start this set after exactly one minute? Do I count unracking and reracking? And so on.
Intervals remove a lot of thinking. If the timer goes, you go. If you go a few seconds late, you're also punishing yourself by just shortening the next rest period. Thinking was left for the planning phase, and the training time was purely about executing the plan.
Often I see people talking about doing a 20 minute EMOM of Armor Building Complex as a separate workout, or tack a 5-10 minute EMOM at the back end of their workout for some conditioning.
My issue with that is that is that there's no progression. If you just do the same 10m EMOM with your 20s at the end of your workout you'll eventually have to do more to keep improving.
What if, instead of doing the same 10 rounds EMOM, you were to gradually reduce the rest times?
I've made my own pretty compact notation, so here is some terminology:
Improve Your Conditioning With This One Weird Trick!
I'd first done Dan John's Armor Building Complex in the autumn of 2021 and found 5x1@2x20 EMOM to be a decent conditioning finisher. April rolled around, and with it the ABC competition. My pressing had improved a lot, so I started out with 30x1@2x24 EMOM, which was really hard, but I'd have to improve a lot to be even remotely competitive. I started cutting rest times until it was unsustainable, and @cocolee-Bausin asked me if I'd tried chaining sets together. Mind blown. I went from 30x1@2x24 E45S to 15x2@2x24 E1M45S.
In the end I ended up doing 15@2x24 and 10@2x32 in 5 minutes. The fastest set with 2x24 was down from 11 seconds to 8 seconds.
Waving Density intervals are an attempt to apply the principles of EDT in a way that works for me. With EDT I'd end up wasting a lot of effort judging whether I'm going too soon or have rested for too long, but with this approach there is no going too soon; you go when the timer tells you to. If you go too late, congratulations - you've just cut your next rest period short!
Having a fixed amount that you increase intervals by reduces the amount of thinking, which is a plus. In practice, I sort of go by feel - for 2x16 ABCs I’ll generally add something like 30-40 seconds.
Eventually you may want to alternate weights. They each have different bottle necks, where 2x16/20/24 are all about the lungs, while 2x32 is limited by my press.
Examples:
Exercise
Workout 1
Total reps/complexes
Next workout
Total reps/complexes and notes
ABC
EMOM 30x1@2x24
30
E0M55S 30x1@2x24
30. Progression: Interval length reduced by 5 seconds
ABC
E0M45S 16x1, 0, 8x1, 0, 6x1@2x24
30
E1M45S 15x2@2x24
30. Progression: +1 rep/complex per interval, +1 minute per interval
ABC
EMOM 10x3@2x16
30
E50S 30x1@2x32
30. Switching to a different weight because you’ve grown tired of pushing the same weight for weeks
ABC
E1M20S 4x3, 2, 2x3, 2x2, 1, 2x2, 1@2x24
30
E0M45S 30x1@2x24
30. Returning to previously failed interval/set lengths and busting through the old plateau
Kb front squat
E0M35S 6x3, 0, 4x3@2x32
30
EMOM 10x4@2x32
40. Keeping the number of sets constant, and adding a rep to each set. This part is more experimental, and I don’t feel strongly about it yet. There will probably be some time investment creep.
Eventually my approach got more flexible.
I often go by feel when picking weights. The 28s and 32s are very heavy if I've already done The Giant, weighted dips and barbell press, so I'll often use double 16/20/24 instead. Sometimes I'll use the same weight multiple workouts in a row (like when I was chasing 100@2x16 in
Motivation
I’m bad at freestyling rest times. I need a timer, or I’ll just sit around for minutes, regardless of how easy the set was. Too much thinking, to little doing.
The main sources of inspiration are a couple of T-Nation articles, in particular Glenn Pendlay's on EMOM training and Charles Staley's articles on Escalating Density Training.
The point of both is to shove a lot of work into a set period of time. My adaptation here is to sort of marry the two approaches and take a more flexible approach to timer length, while making EDT more sturctured - sometimes I’ll strive to do the same amount of work in less time, other times I’ll add work and extend the session length.
Rest times vs. intervals
Fixed rest times just don’t work for me. I’ll always inevitably start second guessing myself. Did I start this set after exactly one minute? Do I count unracking and reracking? And so on.
Intervals remove a lot of thinking. If the timer goes, you go. If you go a few seconds late, you're also punishing yourself by just shortening the next rest period. Thinking was left for the planning phase, and the training time was purely about executing the plan.
Moving beyond EMOM
Often I see people talking about doing a 20 minute EMOM of Armor Building Complex as a separate workout, or tack a 5-10 minute EMOM at the back end of their workout for some conditioning.
My issue with that is that is that there's no progression. If you just do the same 10m EMOM with your 20s at the end of your workout you'll eventually have to do more to keep improving.
What if, instead of doing the same 10 rounds EMOM, you were to gradually reduce the rest times?
I've made my own pretty compact notation, so here is some terminology:
- E1M20S means the interval length is set to 1 minute 20 seconds, and so on
- Sets and reps:
- 4x5 means 4 sets of 5. 4x5@2x20 means 4x5 with double 20s
- 5, 5x3@2x20 means 1x5@2x20, 5x3@2x20
Enter Waving Density
Improve Your Conditioning With This One Weird Trick!
I'd first done Dan John's Armor Building Complex in the autumn of 2021 and found 5x1@2x20 EMOM to be a decent conditioning finisher. April rolled around, and with it the ABC competition. My pressing had improved a lot, so I started out with 30x1@2x24 EMOM, which was really hard, but I'd have to improve a lot to be even remotely competitive. I started cutting rest times until it was unsustainable, and @cocolee-Bausin asked me if I'd tried chaining sets together. Mind blown. I went from 30x1@2x24 E45S to 15x2@2x24 E1M45S.
In the end I ended up doing 15@2x24 and 10@2x32 in 5 minutes. The fastest set with 2x24 was down from 11 seconds to 8 seconds.
Waving Density intervals are an attempt to apply the principles of EDT in a way that works for me. With EDT I'd end up wasting a lot of effort judging whether I'm going too soon or have rested for too long, but with this approach there is no going too soon; you go when the timer tells you to. If you go too late, congratulations - you've just cut your next rest period short!
Putting it all together
- Pick any exercise/complex and any interval. For simplicity let's say you're doing EMOM Armor Building Complex for 30x1@2x24
- Next time you aim to repeat the performance with 5s shorter intervals
- Once you start failing sets, do one more rep or complex per set and increase the interval length. If you fail 30x1@2x24 E0M45S, you can do 15x2 E1M45S.
- You can also return to previous set lengths and smash through old plateaus!
Having a fixed amount that you increase intervals by reduces the amount of thinking, which is a plus. In practice, I sort of go by feel - for 2x16 ABCs I’ll generally add something like 30-40 seconds.
Eventually you may want to alternate weights. They each have different bottle necks, where 2x16/20/24 are all about the lungs, while 2x32 is limited by my press.
Examples:
Exercise
Workout 1
Total reps/complexes
Next workout
Total reps/complexes and notes
ABC
EMOM 30x1@2x24
30
E0M55S 30x1@2x24
30. Progression: Interval length reduced by 5 seconds
ABC
E0M45S 16x1, 0, 8x1, 0, 6x1@2x24
30
E1M45S 15x2@2x24
30. Progression: +1 rep/complex per interval, +1 minute per interval
ABC
EMOM 10x3@2x16
30
E50S 30x1@2x32
30. Switching to a different weight because you’ve grown tired of pushing the same weight for weeks
ABC
E1M20S 4x3, 2, 2x3, 2x2, 1, 2x2, 1@2x24
30
E0M45S 30x1@2x24
30. Returning to previously failed interval/set lengths and busting through the old plateau
Kb front squat
E0M35S 6x3, 0, 4x3@2x32
30
EMOM 10x4@2x32
40. Keeping the number of sets constant, and adding a rep to each set. This part is more experimental, and I don’t feel strongly about it yet. There will probably be some time investment creep.
How I program it in practice
Eventually my approach got more flexible.
I often go by feel when picking weights. The 28s and 32s are very heavy if I've already done The Giant, weighted dips and barbell press, so I'll often use double 16/20/24 instead. Sometimes I'll use the same weight multiple workouts in a row (like when I was chasing 100@2x16 in
