Rest Between Sets: How Much Is Needed?
Some workout routines specifically define how many seconds your rest between sets should be. These are usually HIT (High Intensity Training) programs. However, when it comes to raw muscle gaining, the rules are a little bit different. In this article you’re going to learn exactly what the rules are and why they’re there (or aren’t at all…).
Here’s the big secret… There is no magical rest period required between sets. Your rest can be anywhere between 30 seconds and 8 minutes. There is only one key factor that you need to accomplish. You need to make sure that you are fully recovered before you start your next set, that’s it.
To fully understand the science behind this concept, let’s look at why the body builds muscle in the first place. Gaining muscle is nothing more than an adaptation process. It’s to help to ensure that survival is prolonged. The body perceives that this weight that you’re lifting is very heavy and could crush you. For this reason your body is convinced that it needs to be stronger and larger to make sure you don’t crush yourself.
So for this reason alone, it makes sense that you would want your muscle to be fully recovered so that you can really maximize the weight of your lift within the desired rep range. The more weight that you can lift, the more that muscle is triggered to grow.
The reason that some programs use specific rest periods is because they need to be short to heighten the intensity of the workout. Typically, these HIT programs are targeted to cause a good amount of hypertrophy, but not necessarily rapid muscle growth. HIT programs are great for burning fat, but are not always considered a great workout routine to gain muscle.
Of course at the same time you shouldn’t be taking excessively long breaks. You need to keep in mind that you should only be performing your hypertrophy phase for a maximum of 60 minutes in the gym. Any longer than that and you risk flooding your body with too much cortisol levels causing your body to be in a catabolic state as opposed to an anabolic state. So make sure to keep an eye on the clock and be aware of time as you work out.
To sum up, your rest period can be anywhere between 30 seconds and 8 minutes, the key here is to simply be, or at least feel, fully recovered. You must be able to exert yourself 100% again for each and every set that you do to maximize your results. Train smart with a solid workout routine to gain muscle and you will be rewarded.
Tags: Rest Between Sets
