# How long to rest between sets for muscle and strength

> Rest over 60 seconds for muscle; studies detect no extra growth past about 90. Trained lifters need over 2 minutes for strength. Trials and Povver's timer.

Published 2026-10-21 by Valter Andersson (https://povver.ai/about). Canonical: https://povver.ai/blog/how-long-to-rest-between-sets

## Short answer

- For muscle, a 2024 meta-analysis of 9 trials in healthy adults found a small benefit from resting longer than 60 seconds and did not detect an appreciable difference beyond about 90 seconds.
- For strength, a 2018 review of 23 studies and 491 people found trained lifters needed rests of more than 2 minutes. Untrained lifters did fine with 60 to 120 seconds.
- Rest matters because it buys reps. In a 2025 crossover of 23 active adults, 5 minutes of rest gave more bench pull reps than 3, and 3 gave more than 1.
- Povver, a strength training app, times your rest: 3 minutes by default after a compound lift, 90 seconds after an isolation lift, 60 after a warm-up, all adjustable.

Healthy adults training for muscle should rest more than about 60 seconds between sets, and the best evidence did not detect extra growth beyond about 90 seconds. That comes from a 2024 Bayesian meta-analysis (Singer) of 9 trials in healthy adults, which found a small muscle benefit from rests over 60 seconds (its intervals for arm and thigh include zero) and did not detect an appreciable difference past about 90. For strength, a 2018 review (Grgic) of 23 studies and 491 people found that trained lifters needed rests of more than 2 minutes.

## How long should you rest between sets?

For muscle, rest more than 60 seconds: the 2024 meta-analysis saw a small benefit there and did not detect an appreciable difference past about 90. In practice, rest until you can hit the same reps again: 2 to 3 minutes on heavy lifts and 60 to 90 seconds on light ones (our picks, explained below).

| Goal | Rest the studies support | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Muscle size | More than 60 seconds. No appreciable difference detected beyond about 90 | Singer 2024: 9 trials, 19 measurements, healthy adults |
| Strength, trained lifters | More than 2 minutes | Grgic 2018: 23 studies, 491 people |
| Strength, untrained lifters | 60 to 120 seconds | Grgic 2018 |
| Strength and growth, ACSM 2026 | Short (under 1 minute) against long (over 1 minute) rests did not affect strength; too little data to judge growth | 2 reviews (982 people) for strength |

*Findings from the abstracts of two reviews and the full text of the 2026 American College of Sports Medicine position stand, an overview of 137 reviews. Healthy adults. Rest means the time between sets of the same exercise.*

## Is the old 30 to 90 seconds advice still right?

Partly. The 2024 meta-analysis did not detect an appreciable difference beyond about 90 seconds, which is the top of that range. It also saw a small benefit from resting more than 60 seconds, so rests under 60 seconds are where it saw a possible cost. For trained lifters' strength, the 2018 review points to more than 2 minutes, well past 90 seconds.

## Does resting longer build more muscle?

Slightly. The trials disagree on how much, and every estimate is close to zero.

| Review | What it covered | What it found |
|---|---|---|
| Singer 2024 | 9 randomised trials, 19 measurements (thigh 10, arm 6, whole body 3), healthy adults | Central estimates favoured longer rests for arm (0.13, 95% CrI -0.27 to 0.51) and thigh (0.17, CrI -0.13 to 0.43), and sat slightly the other way for whole body (-0.08, CrI -0.45 to 0.29). The trials varied a lot (substantial heterogeneity) |
| Grgic 2017 | 6 trials comparing rests of 60 seconds or less with longer ones, at least 4 weeks | Both short and long rests may be useful. A possible edge for long rests in trained people, with more research needed |
| Henselmans 2014 | A narrative review of trials that measured long-term growth | None found more growth with shorter rests, and one found the opposite |

*Effect sizes are standardised mean differences, with 95% credible intervals (CrI, the range the true value likely sits in) from the Singer abstract. A value of 0 means no difference. Positive favours longer rests.*

Singer's authors saw a small benefit from resting more than 60 seconds, maybe because shorter rests cut how much total weight you lift. Past 90 seconds they did not detect an appreciable difference, and going to failure or stopping short did not meaningfully change the pattern.

## What do the individual trials show?

Three trials point different ways, and they differ in who trained and how.

| Trial | Who | Weeks | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schoenfeld 2016 | 21 resistance-trained young men | 8 | 1 minute against 3 minutes, 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps. Squat and bench press 1RM and anterior thigh thickness were greater with 3 minutes. Triceps thickness showed a trend (p = 0.06). Upper-body muscle endurance rose the same |
| Villanueva 2015 | 22 men, mean ages 65.6 and 70.3 | 8 (after 4 of hypertrophy training) | 60 seconds against 4 minutes on a strength programme. The 60-second group gained more lean mass, bench press and leg press 1RM |
| Fink 2018 | 20 people (10 per group), volume-matched | 8 | 30 seconds with a 20-rep-max load against 3 minutes with an 8-rep-max load. Arm size rose 9.9% against 4.7%. Rest and load changed at once, so the trial cannot separate them |

*Each row is one trial, read from its abstract. Sample sizes are about 10 to 11 per group.*

These trials are small. Schoenfeld's trained men did better with longer rests and Villanueva's older men did better with shorter ones.

## Why does rest length change anything?

Longer rests let you do more reps. In a 2025 crossover (Janicijevic), 23 active adults (15 men and 8 women) did four sets of prone bench pull at 75% of 1RM with 1, 3 or 5 minutes between sets, and the longer rests gave more reps before bar speed fell below the cut-off.

| Rest | Reps before bar speed fell below 0.55 metres per second (1.8 feet per second) | Reps before bar speed fell below 0.65 metres per second (2.1 feet per second) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 minute | 28.4 | 24.2 |
| 3 minutes | 36.4 | 25.4 |
| 5 minutes | 41.1 | 28.3 |

*Mean reps from one acute crossover of 23 active adults on a Smith machine, from the abstract. The slower cut-off shows the bigger gap.*

Singer's authors suggest the small muscle edge may come from lost volume load, and this fits that idea. But it is one exercise in acute sessions, not a growth trial, so it does not prove it.

## What rest do you need for strength?

If you are trained, plan on more than 2 minutes. Grgic's 2018 review found that you can still make solid strength gains with rests under 60 seconds, but that trained lifters needed longer than 2 minutes to maximise them. Untrained lifters did fine on 60 to 120 seconds.

The 2026 ACSM position stand is more cautious. Its full text says strength was not affected by short (under 1 minute) against long (over 1 minute) rests between sets, and that there were insufficient data to say whether inter-set rest changes muscle growth. Neither says short rests ruin strength work. The ACSM wording splits rests only at 1 minute and does not separate trained from untrained lifters, while Grgic does.

## How should you choose your rest?

These picks are Povver's judgment, based on the studies above. Nobody has tested them head to head.

On heavy compound lifts such as squats, bench press and deadlifts, take 2 to 3 minutes, enough that your last set matches your first. On light isolation lifts such as curls and lateral raises, 60 to 90 seconds is enough for most lifters. If you are short on time, trim isolation rest first. The 2024 meta-analysis did not detect extra growth beyond about 90 seconds, but it did not split lifts by type, so applying that to isolation work is our inference.

## How does Povver time your rest?

Povver is a strength training app. After you tick a set, a rest timer starts by itself, shows how long is left, and has a +30 s button.

| Set type | Default rest |
|---|---|
| Compound lift | 3 minutes (180 s) |
| Isolation lift | 90 seconds |
| Warm-up set | 60 seconds |
| A lift not in the catalog | 2 minutes (120 s) |

*Povver's defaults, which are its own convention and not from the studies. Each class can be set between 30 and 600 seconds or turned off, and a plan can set its own target of 15 to 900 seconds for an exercise. Core exercises use the isolation time, and a warm-up set always uses the warm-up time.*

The timer uses a template's own rest target if there is one and the lift's class otherwise, so your plan is where you say how long a given lift needs. See [how many reps build muscle](/blog/how-many-reps-to-build-muscle) for the rep range the timer is protecting, and [training to failure](/blog/training-to-failure) for how close to go.

## What have the studies not tested?

The single trials ran 8 weeks with about 10 to 11 people per group, and most participants in the strength review were men (413 of 491). Singer reports substantial heterogeneity, and its intervals for arm and thigh include zero. Of the three single trials, only one used older adults (Villanueva), and the ACSM full text says the data on rest and hypertrophy are insufficient. We know of no trial that compares resting by feel with fixed rests.

Last reviewed 21 October 2026. Cite as: Povver, "How long to rest between sets for muscle and strength", povver.ai/blog/how-long-to-rest-between-sets, 2026.

## How long to rest between sets: common questions

### How long should I rest between sets to build muscle?

More than 60 seconds. A 2024 Bayesian meta-analysis of 9 trials in healthy adults found a small benefit above 60 seconds and did not detect an appreciable difference beyond about 90. In practice, rest until you can hit the same reps again: 2 to 3 minutes on heavy lifts and 60 to 90 seconds on light ones, which are our picks.

### How long should I rest between sets for strength?

Trained lifters need more than 2 minutes, according to a 2018 review of 23 studies and 491 people. Untrained lifters did well on 60 to 120 seconds. The 2026 ACSM stand found strength was not affected by rests under 1 minute against over 1 minute, so a short rest does not wreck strength work.

### Is 1 minute enough rest between sets?

For muscle, it may cost you a little, because the 2024 meta-analysis found a small benefit from resting more than 60 seconds. A 2016 trial of 21 trained men got more squat and bench strength with 3 minutes than with 1. A 2015 trial of 22 older men went the other way and favoured 60 seconds.

### Is 30 seconds enough rest between sets?

One 8-week trial of 20 people found more arm growth with 30-second rests and 20-rep sets than with 3-minute rests and 8-rep sets (9.9% against 4.7%), but load and rest differed together. Sets of 20 reps with short rests can build muscle, but the trial does not show that short rests are better.

### Can I rest less to save time?

Yes, but you get fewer reps. In the 2025 bench pull crossover, people got 28.4 reps with 1 minute of rest and 41.1 with 5 minutes. Povver's judgment is to shorten rest on isolation lifts first, since the meta-analysis did not detect extra growth past about 90 seconds.

### Does rest matter more when you train to failure?

Taking sets to failure or stopping short did not meaningfully change how rest length related to growth in the 2024 meta-analysis.

### Do you need to rest longer on compound lifts?

Povver's timers assume so, with 3 minutes for compound lifts and 90 seconds for isolation lifts, but that is a convention of ours. No trial in this post compares compound and isolation lifts directly.

## Sources

1. Singer A, Wolf M, Generoso L, et al., Schoenfeld BJ, "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. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2024.1429789
2. Grgic J, Schoenfeld BJ, Skrepnik M, Davies TB, Mikulic P, "Effects of Rest Interval Duration in Resistance Training on Measures of Muscular Strength: A Systematic Review", Sports Medicine 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-017-0788-x
3. Grgic J, Lazinica B, Mikulic P, Krieger JW, Schoenfeld BJ, "The effects of short versus long inter-set rest intervals in resistance training on measures of muscle hypertrophy: A systematic review", European Journal of Sport Science 2017. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2017.1340524
4. Henselmans M, Schoenfeld BJ, "The effect of inter-set rest intervals on resistance exercise-induced muscle hypertrophy", Sports Medicine 2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-014-0228-0
5. Schoenfeld BJ, Pope ZK, Benik FM, et al., Krieger JW, "Longer Interset Rest Periods Enhance Muscle Strength and Hypertrophy in Resistance-Trained Men", Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 2016. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000001272
6. Villanueva MG, Lane CJ, Schroeder ET, "Short rest interval lengths between sets optimally enhance body composition and performance with 8 weeks of strength resistance training in older men", European Journal of Applied Physiology 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-014-3014-7
7. Fink J, Kikuchi N, Nakazato K, "Effects of rest intervals and training loads on metabolic stress and muscle hypertrophy", Clinical Physiology and Functional Imaging 2018. https://doi.org/10.1111/cpf.12409
8. Janicijevic D, Miras-Moreno S, Morenas-Aguilar MD, Garcia-Ramos A, "Does the Length of Inter-Set Rest Periods Impact the Volume of Bench Pull Repetitions Completed before Surpassing Various Cut-Off Velocities?", Journal of Human Kinetics 2025. https://doi.org/10.5114/jhk/188366
9. Currier BS, D'Souza AC, Singh MAF, et al., Phillips SM, "American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Resistance Training Prescription for Muscle Function, Hypertrophy, and Physical Performance in Healthy Adults: An Overview of Reviews", Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 2026. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0000000000003897