Taking longer breaks between sets helps your muscles grow more than taking short breaks.
Scientific Claim
Inter-set rest intervals exceeding 60 seconds promote greater skeletal muscle hypertrophy compared to rest intervals of 60 seconds or less, when training volume and intensity are matched.
Original Statement
“As shown in previous videos at the House of Hypertrophy, we have evidence that resting for longer than 60 seconds between sets tends to produce more muscle hypertrophy than resting for less. But to drop sets, particularly the style where you perform just one set but have multiple load reductions, might be thought of as having virtually no rest between sets.”
Context Details
Domain
exercise
Population
human
Subject
Inter-set rest intervals exceeding 60 seconds
Action
promote
Target
greater skeletal muscle hypertrophy compared to rest intervals of 60 seconds or less
Intervention Details
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (0)
Contradicting (2)
When people lifted weights with either 20-second or 2-minute breaks between sets—while doing the same total amount of work—both groups grew their muscles just as much. So longer breaks didn’t help them get bigger.
Acute and Long-term Responses to Different Rest Intervals in Low-load Resistance Training
The study found that whether people rested 30 seconds or 150 seconds between sets, they gained about the same amount of muscle—so resting longer didn’t help them get bigger muscles.