Resting Between Sets, What Do We Know?

I'm often asked how long we should rest between sets and as always, the answer isn't exactly black and white. Fortunately, there is a lot of research in this area from which we can draw some sturdy guidelines.

Related: Does Stretching Between Sets Help?

How long you should rest between sets for full recovery is dependent on a few factors.

These include:

• training intensity
• training volume
• exercise complexity 
• exercise order
• type of muscle contraction
• activated musculature
• training status 
• training goal
• strength level

We do know that the length of your rest interval can significantly influence performance in subsequent sets.

For instance, shorter rest periods tend to result in a sharp performance decline and fewer repetitions completed in the sets to follow. This is more suited to strength endurance outcomes.

Longer rest intervals allow greater interset recovery, higher intensity across all sets and more repetitions completed. This is more suited for maximising gains in strength and hypertrophy.

It was thought that shorter rest intervals were associated with a better hypertrophic response. However, recent studies have reported similar magnitudes of growth, with a slightly better strength advantage in longer rest intervals. 

Current research suggests that the minimum rest needed for compound movements like the squat or bench press is 2-3 minutes. 5 minutes rest or more is recommended to maintain maximum training intensity and volume across all sets when training close to failure. 

When performing assistance or single-joint exercises, generally, shorter rest intervals of 1-2 minutes may be enough.

To summarise

To achieve the desired adaptations, a range of rest interval durations can and should be used across the broader training plan. Therefore, the greater share of focus should go towards more critical training parameters. Such as volume and intensity for hypertrophy and strength. 

There were a few other interesting details gleaned from this study.

Which, we'll cover another time. Stay tuned.

Reference

1. Effect of Interset Rest Interval Length on Resistance Exercise Performance and Muscular Adaptation. Gonzalez, 2016.
2. Static Stretching and Performance in Multiple Sets in the Bench Press Exercise. Ribeiro, et al. 2014.