The National Strength and Conditioning Association recommends 30-second rest intervals between sets to improve muscular endurance.
"Three seconds is the ideal amount of time [to rest] between reps," he tells me. "If you are consistently going over 10 to 15 seconds in between each rep, you're not going to keep your heart rate in its optimal zone. In turn, you won't make the best use of your workout."
“If you're doing one to five reps using a very heavy load, then I'm probably going to give you four minutes between sets,” Tumminello says. “If you're doing six to 20 reps and going to failure, I'll give you three minutes between sets.” Supersetting lighter upper body workouts is rather safe.
What happens if you rest too long between sets? If you're into bodybuilding, resting too long will take the tension away from the muscles. In bodybuilding, the longer amount of tension, the better for hypertrophy. For powerlifters, resting too long only means their training session will be longer.
Adequate rest between sets helps to maintain a high level of force production for the next set. Thus, typical rest periods for increasing strength are between 2–5 minutes, which research shows to be optimal for strength development.
More weight lifted for more sets means more mechanical tension, higher training volumes, and thus more muscle growth. Because of this, most bodybuilders rest 2–5 minutes between sets.
Sets of anywhere from 4–40 reps will stimulate muscle growth quite well, but most research shows that doing 6–20 reps per set is the most efficient way to build muscle. Bodybuilders often use the middle of that range, favouring 8–12 reps per set.
Reps in the 1-5 range build super dense muscle and strength. Reps in the 6-12 range build equal amounts of muscular power, strength, and size. Reps in the 12+ range primarily build muscular endurance and size and also cardiovascular health.
To get bigger quicker, the best rest period is 1 to 2 minutes between sets. Typical bodybuilding/hypertrophy training (moderate-heavy weight, 6-12 reps) draws energy from the ATP-PC and glycolytic system (the glycolytic system gets most of its energy from the carbs you eat).
Short Rest Periods
Tiring your muscles through weight training is key to getting them bigger. By limiting rest periods to about 30 seconds between sets of strength training exercises, you'll do just that.
Key Points: Short rest periods (<1 minute) between sets sharply decrease the number of reps you can do with a given weight. Resting 3–5 minutes between sets leads to greater muscle growth and strength gains than resting one minute, given that you perform the same number of sets.
48-72 hours is the recommended time for muscle recovery. In order to speed muscle recovery, you can implement active rest after your workout session and have the right macronutrients in your diet.
To increase strength and power, the best rest period is 2-5 minutes between sets. To increase hypertrophy (muscle growth), the best rest period is 30-90 seconds between sets. To increase muscular endurance, the best rest period is 30 seconds or less between sets.
It turns out that 8-12 reps is actually good advice. It sits in the Goldilocks Zone of reps and loading, it's time efficient in that it can maximize the number of tough reps per set, it's energy efficient in that it doesn't require too many reps to stimulate hypertrophy, or involve loads that are unnecessarily heavy.
Train like a bodybuilder: If you're looking to maximize muscle size, target 8-12 reps per set (on average) and choose multijoint movements like the bench press, squat, overhead press, bent-over row, and deadlift, which recruit more total muscle mass than single-joint moves, thus allowing you to lift heavier weights.
A classic way to do so is the 12-10-8-6-15 sequence. You start with a lighter set of 12 reps, slap some weight on the bar, bang out 10 reps, add another plate, hit eight reps, then load another plate until you're up to your heaviest set of six reps.
Generally, exercises with higher reps are used to improve muscular endurance, while higher weights with fewer reps are used to increase muscle size and strength.
The 5×5, also known as the “Strong Lifts 5×5,” is a simple and effective workout plan for building strength, muscle, and athleticism. Despite the apparent simplicity, the 5×5 program is designed to push you to your limits and drive incredible gains in your maximal strength and muscle mass.
A new method (3/7 method) consisting of five sets of an increasing number of repetitions (3 to 7) during successive sets and brief inter-set intervals (15 s) was repeated two times after 150 s of recovery and compared to a method consisting of eight sets of six repetitions with an inter-set interval of 150 s (8 × 6 ...
The biceps and triceps should be trained using rep ranges between 5-20 reps to best maximize strength, muscle growth, and overall development of the muscles.
Three sets are not enough to build muscle. Increasing the number of sets of each exercise, even while only performing 10 reps, can build muscle because you will be pushing your muscles to fatigue because they are under tension longer.
Furthermore, in terms of chronic adaptations, resting 3-5 minutes between sets produced greater increases in absolute strength, due to higher intensities and volumes of training. Similarly, higher levels of muscular power were demonstrated over multiple sets with 3 or 5 minutes versus 1 minute of rest between sets.
“Short rest periods have the advantage of inducing more metabolic stress, which is important since we know it's one of the main drivers of muscle growth. However, long rest periods have the advantage of enabling you to achieve more total workout volume since you're better rested for each of your sets.”
The best number of reps for you will depend on your training goals. If you are new to exercise and looking to improve your current level of fitness, doing 12 to 15 reps should be sufficient. Improving your fitness and strengthening your muscles will help you burn calories, which can lead to weight loss.