Rest between sets: how many minutes for muscle and for strength
The short answer is in this table. The last column says where each figure comes from, because much of what gets repeated in the gym is habit.
| Goal | Rest | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Building muscle | More than 60 s; in practice, 90 s to 2 min | Evidence for the minimum (Singer et al., 2024). The 2 min is our own margin. |
| Strength, already training | More than 2 min | Evidence (Grgic et al., 2018) |
| Strength, new to lifting | 60 to 120 s | Evidence (Grgic et al., 2018) |
| Very heavy lifts, 1 to 5 reps | 3 to 5 min | Convention. The 2 min floor has support; this ceiling does not. |
| Isolation exercises | 60 to 90 s | Convention. These abstracts do not split by exercise size. |
| Muscular endurance | 1 min is enough; no significant gap between 1 and 3 min | One study (Schoenfeld et al., 2016) |
| Warm-up sets | As long as it takes to change the weight | Convention |
For hypertrophy: over 60 seconds, and past 90 it hardly matters
Singer et al., 2024 pooled 9 randomised studies and 19 measurements in healthy adults. Effect sizes for short and longer rest overlapped heavily (0.48 vs 0.56). The conclusion: a small benefit from resting more than 60 s and no appreciable difference beyond 90 s.
| Measured at | Estimated difference | 95% credible interval |
|---|---|---|
| Arm | 0.13 | −0.27 to 0.51 |
| Thigh | 0.17 | −0.13 to 0.43 |
| Whole body | −0.08 | −0.45 to 0.29 |
All three intervals cross zero, so the advantage is small and uncertain. The authors suggest it may come down to total load: with short rest, you lift less. Going to failure or stopping short did not meaningfully change this, a topic covered in the guide to RPE and RIR.
A made-up example to show that mechanism: 3 sets at 60 kg. With 60 s of rest you do 10, 8 and 6 reps: 24 in all, 1,440 kg lifted. With 2 min you do 10, 9 and 8: 27 in all, 1,620 kg. That is 180 kg more, or 12.5%, without touching the weight.
Schoenfeld et al., 2016 points the same way, with few people: 21 young trained men, 8 weeks, 3 full-body sessions a week of 3 sets of 8 to 12 rep max across 7 exercises. Those resting 3 min gained more strength on squat and bench press than those resting 1 min, and more muscle thickness at the front of the thigh. The triceps showed only a trend (p = 0.06).
For strength: over 2 minutes if you already train
Grgic et al., 2018 reviewed 23 studies with 491 participants. Strength went up clearly even with less than 60 s, so short rest does not cancel the gains. To get the most from it, people who already train seem to need more than 2 min. People without experience seem fine on 60 to 120 s. Bear in mind that 413 of those 491 participants were men, or 84%.
The 3 to 5 minutes often recommended for very heavy sets does not appear in that abstract. It makes practical sense, since you do not want the clock costing you a rep on those sets, but it is a habit.
What each option costs in time
Put numbers on your session. Say 16 sets of about 45 s each: 12 min of work and 15 rests.
| Rest between sets | Time resting | Whole session |
|---|---|---|
| 60 s | 15 min | 27 min |
| 90 s | 22.5 min | 34.5 min |
| 2 min | 30 min | 42 min |
| 3 min | 45 min | 57 min |
With 40 minutes, you can spend the long rests where they count most: 2 min for 8 rests on big exercises and 90 s for the other 7 comes to 16 + 10.5 = 26.5 min of rest, about 38.5 min in all. That split is practical judgement, not a study result. If you still cannot fit it in, our view is to drop a set before going under 60 s. Warm-up is extra: the warm-up calculator tells you which sets to do.
Using it in the gym
- Time it. That way you do not rest 90 s one day and 4 min the next without noticing.
- Keep rest the same from week to week if you want to compare. Otherwise you cannot tell progressive overload from having simply rested longer.
- If you lose a lot of reps from the first set to the second, try resting longer. This is a rule of thumb with no validated number behind it.
In GoForIt
GoForIt is not out yet: it is listed as «Coming soon». It shows working-set volume and personal records, the figures you can compare to see whether shorter rest is costing you reps.
Frequently asked questions
- How long should I rest between sets for hypertrophy?
- More than 60 s. Beyond 90 s no appreciable difference shows up (Singer et al., 2024), so 90 s to 2 min is a comfortable range. The 2 min end is a practical margin, not a result.
- How long should I rest between sets for strength?
- If you already train, more than 2 min. If you are new, 60 to 120 s (Grgic et al., 2018). The 3 to 5 min for very heavy lifts is a reasonable convention.
- Does shorter rest build more muscle?
- These studies do not support it. Short rest is traditionally linked with hypertrophy, but in Schoenfeld et al., 2016 the 3 min group gained more thigh thickness than the 1 min group, and Singer et al., 2024 sees a small benefit from going past 60 s.
- Is rest between exercises different from rest between sets?
- These abstracts do not separate them. People usually apply the same logic and rest as long as they need to do the next thing well, a bit longer for a big, heavy exercise. That is habit, not evidence.
Sources
- Singer et al., 2024. Give it a rest: a systematic review with Bayesian meta-analysis on the effect of inter-set rest interval duration on muscle hypertrophy. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 2024. 10.3389/fspor.2024.1429789
- Schoenfeld et al., 2016. Longer Interset Rest Periods Enhance Muscle Strength and Hypertrophy in Resistance-Trained Men. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2016. 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001272
- Grgic et al., 2018. Effects of Rest Interval Duration in Resistance Training on Measures of Muscular Strength: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine, 2018. 10.1007/s40279-017-0788-x