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Taking 2-min rest between strength training sets works better than 1-min rest

If strength athletes want to get stronger they'll do better taking 2 minutes' rest between sets or even longer. If they want to build muscle mass, the books say take short, 1-minute rests. This advice may need adjusting, according to American sports scientists Brad Schoenfeld. He published the results of a study in which experienced strength athletes not only build up more strength but also more muscle mass when they rested for 2 minutes between sets.

More at the jump..

https://ergo-log.com/taking-2-min-rest-b ... -rest.html

What's the concensus here? How long do you guys rest between sets??

As short as possible, to keep total workout time down while keeping a good volume. I manage to fit 2x20 minutes and 1x15 minutes workouts per week only. I need to make them count.

????? in first paragraph LONG = 4 minutes... subsequently it is two minutes ????

Conclusion
"...
susceptibility for adaptations may be specific to the individual and/or muscle group
..."

so...

I'm raking my limited brains for what bio-chemical signalling would be significantly altered by one more minute of rest across a population.
Anyone got any ideas?

I would also guess that these effects would also vary across 'body type' and experience tiers.

My own loose guidelines vary. Typically, especially with weights, more rest duration for heavy, slow training and less for lighter, faster work. Other times and conditions, (work and ) rest duration is dependent on how much form I can hold and how fast I can recover good form when it fails...

I rather like the 15-20 min workout idea put for here, lemme tell you why..

First, it forces you to get a lot of work done per unit of time. If you've only got 15 minutes, you need to be moving during that time! Second, it's much easier to recover from. Getting in, hitting hard and getting out is the common denominator in all successful warfare. Training is no exception..

Coach Rob wrote:I rather like the 15-20 min workout idea put for[th] here, lemme tell you why..

First, it forces you to get a lot of work done per unit of time. If you've only got 15 minutes, you need to be moving during that time! Second, it's much easier to recover from. Getting in, hitting hard and getting out is the common denominator in all successful warfare. Training is no exception..

...idea 'supported' by
https://ergo-log.com/progress-with-short ... actor.html

the more I think about this issue, the more I conclude it is
highly individualized AND training situation AND goals specific...

rest time used to modulate factors like
'oxygen'...
'rates and degrees of glycogen depletion'
'optimizing JIT lactic acid (etc, etc.) processing'
etc, etc.

I've always only rested a max of 1 to 1 1/2 mins between sets. Any more than that and I feel like I lost my pump and my workout suffers...

For max strength, I rest at least 3 min between sets and more like 5 most times. If I'm working with strong range partials or static holds, that's more like 10 min, sometimes 15 or more!

fairytellyn wrote:I've always only rested a max of 1 to 1 1/2 mins between sets. Any more than that and I feel like I lost my pump and my workout suffers...

My gym workouts are mostly with my college aged son these days and he's like you but worse, always wanting to rush through sets.

The other week he was complaining about how his triceps were "too fatigued too fast every workout", so I tricked him into taking a couple extra minutes before his last biggest set the next time we hit them by pulling him over to the window and distracting him with some random talk about the band on the radio... he finally says, damn we are wasting time and rushes to do his last set... which he knocked out with ease, plus added two reps.

Proud of himself, he say's "I broke the plateau!".

I replied, funny what a couple extra minutes recovery gets you when you need it, eh?

He got the point.