. Not hurrying between sets is the most practical way for most people to
train—about two minutes between work sets of the smaller exercises, and
more like four minutes between work sets of the biggest exercises. Shorter
breaks can be taken between warmup sets. Make ninety minutes the upper
limit for a workout, with an hour being a better ceiling, excluding the general
warming up work, and cooling down. Organize your workout design, num-
ber of sets, and rest periods accordingly.. For many people the most practical between-sets rest period is the time it
takes for a training partner to perform his set, and for weights to be changed.
If there is no partner, then the time to change weights and catch one’s breath
is what many people apply. e more demanding a given exercise is, the
more time that is needed to catch one’s breath between sets. So naturally
more time is taken between sets of squats than calf raises.One-minute rest periods
. Taking one-minute rests between sets is a quite fast pace of training, but not
a back-to-back pace. When taking only a minute of rest between sets you
cannot maintain the same poundage for all your work sets in a given exercise
unless you let your reps drop with each set, or unless you hold back on the
first set(s).. Take an example of being able to do three sets of six reps with pounds
in the squat if you rest five minutes between sets. But if you take only one
minute between sets, your three sets will be something like × , ×
and × . To keep the reps up, reduce the poundage each set and be rigor-
ous about only taking one minute between sets—use a clock.. Experiment to see what reduction you need in order to keep the reps up.
Using the same squat example, to keep the reps up to six in each set, you may
need to use weights of , and . You may prefer to use a percentage
method, or a fixed poundage drop per set for a given exercise. e percent-
ages or fixed poundage drops will not be the same for all exercises because
the big movements suffer more from short rests between sets than do
smaller exercises. Once you have found what suits you for a given exercise,
be consistent. Keep records of your poundages, and concentrate on progres-
sive poundages across all the sets.. Intensity of effort in each individual set is more important than rushing
between exercises. Do not compromise on the quality of a set by rushing