Rest, and how long for, is a key part of any weight or cardiovascular training, impacting how well you are able to recover in the pursuit of your goals. How long you rest will depend on whether you want to grow muscle mass, lose weight, improve your strength, power, or endurance. If you look online there are lots of different recommendations which are quite general, and this blog will differ from those, suggesting rest times for specific exercises. Resting in the most optimal way will benefit your progress in the long run, so it’s something everyone needs to pay attention too.
The Science behind Rest
Your muscles are fuelled by something called adenosine triphosphate. This is found in all living cells and plays a fundamental role in various biological processes, serving as the primary energy carrier within cells. Muscles receive energy (ATP) through the phosphagen system, the anaerobic (glycolytic system), and the aerobic (oxidative) system. The phosphagen system comes into play during exercise which demands high force output, supplying your muscles energy for about 30 seconds of exertion. After that, the glycolytic system is involved in exercise requiring moderate force production and provides energy for efforts lasting between 30 seconds and 3 minutes. The majority of resistance training activities aimed at increasing muscular hypertrophy and strength include these two systems. When an exercise session lasts more than three minutes, the aerobic system kicks in and is involved in lower force production activities.
Resting for your goals
How long you rest for is going to vary depending on your specific goals. Here is an overview of how this varies for different styles of training:
Strength Training: For maximal strength development, rest periods of 2-5 minutes between sets are commonly recommended. This allows for full recovery of the neuromuscular system and replenishment of ATP stores, maximizing performance on subsequent sets.
Hypertrophy Training: To stimulate muscle growth, rest intervals of 60-90 seconds between sets are often recommended. This balance between adequate recovery and metabolic stress helps optimize muscle hypertrophy.
Endurance Training: For endurance-focused workouts, shorter rest periods of 30-60 seconds between sets may be appropriate. This helps maintain elevated heart rate and metabolic demand, enhancing cardiovascular and muscular endurance.
Circuit Training: In circuit-style workouts, where multiple exercises are performed consecutively with minimal rest, rest periods can vary depending on the intensity and duration of the circuit. Rest intervals of 15-30 seconds between exercises may be sufficient to maintain intensity while allowing for brief recovery.
Exercise Rest Table
Above is a table with different rest times for varying exercises which I have found to be the most optimal for strength purposes during my 2 years of powerlifting. For isolation movements that target smaller muscles, I tend to rest for one minute, as they don’t need as long to recover. Exercises that require 2 minute rest periods are more intense accessories, such as hamstring curls, leg extensions, and most shoulder, tricep, and chest orientated exercises. I use 3 minute rest periods for intense exercises that increase the heart rate more than some of the isolation exercises mentioned before, and these are things like split squats, Romanian deadlifts, dumbbell presses etc. These are compound movements which target larger muscle groups, meaning they need a longer rest period to recover from. Lastly, the longest I rest in between sets is for squats and deadlifts, the most intense exercises which target many different muscle groups, and sets will generally be of 4 or 5, and repetitions of 5 or less. The reason I rest for 3 minutes on barbell bench press is because it is not as intense as the squat and deadlift, and the chest is a much smaller muscle group compared to the legs and back, which need longer to recover. Most people will say a good rule of thumb is to rest for as long as you feel like, but this is not always easy to gage, hence why I made this table. I recommend keeping track of your rest periods with a timer on your phone, following these rest times for the different exercises. This is what has worked for me, and I’ve seen great progress in my 2 years of training, in which time I have experimented with many different rest periods.
Conclusion
The amount you rest in between sets is going to vary depending on your goals, but in general, you should rest as long as you think you need to in order to perform your next set as well as possible. I would recommend that you use the table as a guide, but remember that everyone is different, and what works for some people may or may not work for others. The basis of the table should be followed though, as it has put most weight training exercises into different categories based on their intensity. Also time yourself so that you can accurately rest, as it may be easy to jump the gun or wait too long, which in the long run, will affect your progress.