Rest Periods & Gains: Why Timing Matters in Your Workout

As coaches, we typically program or offer up a general guideline for our clients on how long they should rest between sets of their exercises. This is a vital part of programming workouts as most people simply don’t think about how long they truly should rest between sets.

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First, let me state that rest periods are extremely goal dependent. I like to think of prescribing rest periods into two main categories:

• Conditioning or Metabolic – Shorter rest.
• Strength or Hypertrophy – Longer rest.

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This is a simplification, but just know that rest periods will directly affect your ability to chase a certain goal.

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Let’s Dive Into This a Bit More…

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If your goal is to make a workout more metabolic in nature or to be geared towards conditioning and cardiovascular fitness, then shorter rest periods will absolutely be a necessity.

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If your goal is to put on muscle mass or gain strength, longer rest periods are almost always going to be needed. This isn’t to say you can’t achieve progressive overload with semi-short rest periods, but it isn’t going to be optimal if you’re chasing specific numbers or wanting to put on mass quickly. The reason for this is our ability to maintain mechanical tension during each successive set is greater with longer rest periods.

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Example:

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If I am aiming to do 3 sets of 10-12 reps on squats with 90% of my 10-rep max, I am going to need to rest for at least 2 minutes between sets. That’s the minimum! For some people, this will seem like an eternity, especially if you come from a background of training HIIT style, using circuits, or doing some sort of exercise class.

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Remember: If you are using loads that are heavy enough to achieve a training stimulus, you will crave the 2 minutes or more of rest! AKA, you should work so hard that you need it!

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Does This Mean I’ll Need to Work Out for 2-3 Hours With All This Rest?

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By now you may be saying to yourself, “Does this mean I’ll need to work out for 2-3 hours with all of this rest?” Well, not really.

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During compound exercises, we work multiple joints and use multiple muscle groups to move heavy loads. This causes us to exert a lot of energy and thus need more rest to recover between sets. However, during isolation exercises, we can typically get by with a slightly shorter rest interval of 60-90 seconds.

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This is a good time to remind you that a well-designed program for strength or hypertrophy really only needs to have 4-6 exercises using 2-3 sets per exercise per session. This means the longer rest periods shouldn’t result in longer workouts. If anything, they should make your workouts more efficient because you can focus on hammering out quality sets from start to finish!

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TL;DR:

• Shorter rest intervals (< 60 seconds) for conditioning or metabolic workouts.
• Longer rest intervals (> 2 minutes) for building muscle or strength gains.
• Keep your workouts efficient – focus on 4-6 exercises with 2-3 sets each.
• Set a timer to stay on track!

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Train hard, rest smart, and get the most out of every workout!

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