We have heard for a long time now that resting between sets is important. Taking a rest between sets gives your muscles a chance to remove waste and replenish their energy supply. Is there a hard-and-fast truth for how long? The simple answer is no. How long you rest depends on your goals. In this article, we will break down how long you should rest for the particular goal you might have.
Do you want to tone, lose weight, or increase endurance?
Then rest 30 to 60 seconds between sets.
If your goal is to get in better shape by improving your muscle fitness or boosting your muscular endurance, then taking smaller rests is ideal. You could even look at these rest periods as more of active rest. Like transitioning from one exercise to another if you are performing a circuit-type workout.
Do you want to build strength?
Then rest 2 to 5 minutes between sets.
Think of this rest period for sets that consist of 10 reps or less. This enables muscles to replenish the energy they need for contraction and allows the nervous system to properly recover. Essentially, heavy lifting creates mechanical damage, and the body needs proper rest for the hormones to help repair the damaged tissue and initiate growth.
Do you want bigger muscles?
Then rest 1 minute between sets.
The big thing to pay attention to when wanting bigger muscles is resting enough but not too long to compromise the metabolic stress aspect of training. If you rest for a shorter time than 1 minute then it doesn’t allow enough recuperation for the muscle to perform well in the next set. This rest period really is the sweet spot for muscle growth.
Do you want to try strength training or are newer at it?
Then rest longer than you think.
If you are still new to strength training then the idea here is not to completely work yourself to exhaustion or worse yet, nausea. What you can do is pay attention to your heart rate or body temperature. You want to give yourself enough time that your heart rate has dropped back down but not to a complete rest. Same with your body temperature, you want to keep your body temperature increased without it cooling completely back down.
Optimize your rest between sets & help your body recover
There are a number of key reasons you will get more out of your workouts by choosing the right rest period and one of those reasons is your body needs time to recover. Effort is critical but so is efficiency and effectiveness, we assume that like us you want better results sooner rather than later.
While we are on the subject of giving your body time to recover between sets why not sip on your EBOOST RESCUE during your well-earned rests? RESCUE is an instantized vegan BCAA formula that helps support muscle recovery and promote lean muscle protein synthesis for men and women. At EBOOST we are constantly hard at work perfecting the products that support those that want more out of life.
