How To

Do This Between EVERY Set for More Muscle Growth!

Posted on by
04
Sep

If you want to see faster muscle growth, you must start doing this between every set of your workouts. This is one of the most overlooked variables when it comes to tracking your workouts and is perhaps one of the most important. I’m talking about your rest between sets and how long you should be resting between sets to see the best results from your training.

The problem is, most of us don’t pay enough attention to this when we train. Instead, we aimlessly browse social media between sets and don’t realize how much time passes between sets of an exercise, which can greatly diminish the effectiveness of your workout.

The best thing you can do is simply start setting the timer app on your phone.

If you are given a rest range between sets, say 2-3 minutes for maximum hypertrophy, then you could either set it for the low end of that range and determine whether you needed a little extra time before jumping into the next set or sync it to the maximum rest for that range and simply jump into the next set earlier if you feel ready to go.

That being said, it is important to point out that there is great variability in the recommendations for interset rest periods depending on the goal of your training.

If you are training strictly for strength you are going to require much more rest to ensure that you are fully recovered and ready to perform at peak effort in your next set. Because of the high demands of strength training, you will often find lifters resting at minimum, 3-5 minutes but even as high as 10 minutes before heading into their next set of the exercise.

When hypertrophy or muscle growth is the goal you can see a big departure from these numbers but still a great deal of variation. For instance, here you will often see studies that point to either 60-90 seconds between sets as the optimal length that you should be resting after completing a set of an exercise or others that recommend this number be pushed closer to 2 to 3 minutes.

The largest determinant of this is the exercise that you are performing and your overall cumulative fatigue up to that point in the workout. Larger, compound exercises will need more time to recover from between sets while smaller, isolation or accessory exercises will likely need far less time.

Taking this even further however is the idea that muscle growth and getting bigger muscles isn’t always about the weight that you are lifting. In fact, we know that accumulating metabolic stress is one of the better ways to grow muscle. Here, you would lift much lighter weights for much higher reps to failure. It is common that the reps be even as high as 20 here. The rest taken between sets when this is your training style could be as short as 30 seconds.

The idea is that you want to accumulate metabolites as a byproduct of muscle contraction, which serves to place an intracellular stress on the muscles that causes a need for repair and regrowth.

Finally, others simply want to get in better shape from their workouts. Sets are treated less individually and more as one combined effort in an attempt to reach physical exhaustion and to improve overall cardiovascular conditioning. Here things like HIIT training and barbell complexes done with light weight can help to achieve this end goal with very very short rest times.

The rest between exercises here can be minimal and the rest between completed circuits or rounds is kept to a maximum of 60 seconds.

Regardless of what your training goal is right now the key is that you need to adopt a method for accurately measuring your rest periods. Keeping track of how long you rest between sets is something that can not only keep you on pace for a high intensity workout but it gives you a comparison just like your weight and reps logged that you can go back to as a way to see how you are improving from your training.

Don’t overlook the importance of timing your rest period between sets if you want to build muscle and see faster muscle growth. Just like everything else you track with your workouts you want to not neglect how important this one is to your overall results.

If you are looking for a complete program that spells out every set, rep and rest time between sets to ensure you see your best muscle growth and results, be sure to head to athleanx.com and pick the program that aligns with your specific goals.

For more videos on how long to rest between sets for most muscle growth and the best rest period between sets for strength, be sure to subscribe to our channel via the link below and remember to turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.

Build Muscle in 90 Days – http://athleanx.com/x/my-workouts
Subscribe to this channel here – http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24

67 thoughts on “Do This Between EVERY Set for More Muscle Growth!”

  3. ATHLEAN-X™ says:

    *NOTIFICATION SQUAD GIVEAWAY* – It’s back!! Alright guys, I’m giving away a complete 30 Day Workout program to 100 lucky clickers within the first hour this video is published! Remember, this is NOT THE FIRST 100, but those randomly selected within the first hour the video is published. Click the link to see if you’ve won. No strings attached! 
    https://giveaway.athleanx.com/ytg/rest-between-sets

    If you don’t win, no worries, you’re not going away empty handed. Just be sure you have your notifications turned on so you can get to my next video quickly and try again. Good luck and thanks for being a loyal subscriber…

  15. NitSUj says:

    There’s a guy at my gym who sets a timer for his rest period. He doesn’t put headphones on or anything and just lets it ring out loud and it’s the most annoying thing once you hear it for the 10th time

    • Himmarshee Street Live says:

      Olympic Silver Medalist Oleksiy TOROKHTIY!!!
      He toured the U.S. and overseas giving seminars on how to Olympic lift, primarily the Clean and Jerk, and the spectacular Olympic Snatch!
      He has also been on various Olympic lift channels in the U.S., such as California Strength and Barbell Shrugged [we think].
      You can find his videos on YouTube under his name.
      The crazy thing is this, he lost to Dmitry Klokov, but became more famous than him!
      Torokhtiy learned English a year or two ago. He is very funny too. Klokov is funny too, and learned English before Torokhtiy.
      But as we said, the latter is now more famous and recognized than the former. He even has his own gym!
      He got into CrossFit after Olympic lifting to see how it worked. In return, he taught the CrossFitter how to Olympic lift.
      Jeff definitely choose the right athlete to insert into the video at the 48 second mark!!! He recognizes greatness!!!

    • Himmarshee Street Live says:

      @Gabriel Santos Thank you for getting the facts straight. We watched the 2011 competition, and Klokov won Silver, Torokhtiy won Bronze. Torokhtiy is dominating YouTube with his videos. Just read they revoked his 2012 championship. He is doing fine without it. He is the most popular Olympic powerlifter on YouTube!

Leave a Reply