How long should I rest between sets? - Joe Matthews

This is an area of training that can often be overlooked and left unstructured. Generally, most people tend to figure it out fairly quickly by feel, especially when using heavier loads in their training.

If rest is too short, there isn’t sufficient time for your phosphagen energy system to recover and performance will drop. If rest periods are excessively long, training density decreases and the session becomes less time-efficient, although performance per set is typically maintained or improved.

As you progress in your training, recovery between sets can become a crucial variable in how well your body performs in the next set. However, time (and how much of it you can allocate to training) is often the limiting factor in how long you can afford to rest between sets during your gym sessions. So, as a general guide:

• Consider shorter rest periods when training for hypertrophy: 45–90 seconds

• Consider longer rest periods when training for strength: 90–120+ seconds

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There are very specific reasons for the length of rest periods between sets. These relate to your goals for the session and energy system recovery required to achieve those outcomes.

If you are directly targeting improvements in strength and power, using compound (multi-joint) movements, then 3–5 minutes of rest would likely yield better results than shorter rest periods.