timer recommendation

Other Discussions Training Discussion
1

Hi, not sure if anyone else has had issues timing their sets and rest periods? I tend to get distracted when working out at home and tend to go too fast when in a commercial gym. I’ve been using a repeat timer app on my phone for a few years that works really well for me. I promise I’m not affiliated with the app and they have a free lite version you can test. I think it might be iphone only: http://www.repeattimerapp.com/

It has three key features:

  1. It has the main timer and a secondary “interval” timer. I set the interval for 90 seconds to perform my set and then set the rest-time depending on what I’m doing. Generally 2-3 minutes for warmups and 5 minutes for heavy working sets.
  2. You can set how many times it repeats. For those of us who are challenged by counting, never lose your set count again. The app does it for you.
  3. You can hear the alarm while listening to music, podcasts, etc…

For a 90 second interval and a 3 minute timer, it works like this: Do a set, start the timer, it counts down 3 minutes and sounds a brief alarm, it then automatically starts counting down 90 seconds while you do your set, after the interval expires it then starts automatically counting down 3 minutes again. It repeats this pattern for as many times as you choose.

Of course, you could leave off the interval feature and just set it to repeat every four and half minutes, but I like the rest time isolated for some reason. It helps me keep on schedule if I force myself to finish my set before the 90 second interval expires.

This app is really easy and keeps my workout efficiency on schedule.

thanks

2

Meh, I just use the baked in iphone timer app. Select my rest time before the set, and mash start immediately after getting out from under the bar.

3

For rest time: “Hey Siri, count down 3 minutes” works for me (mostly on my Watch, but sometimes on my iPhone). :roll_eyes:

For the reps, I don’t have the need to time them.