Rest and Recovery is Crucial for Muscle Growth in Bodybuilding

Rest and Muscle Recovery is very important in Bodybuilding in order to build the most Muscle Growth possible. When done incorrectly, it might be the number one reason why beginners never see any results. There are key times you have to rest when building muscle. Knowledge of how long and when is very important to the growth of your muscles.

• Rest Time Between Sets
• Rest Time Between Workouts – Days
• The Length of your Workout
• Rest Time Between Sets in Circuit Training

Rest Time Between Sets

The time between sets is very important and changes depending on whether you want to build muscle or tone your muscle.

When building Muscle Mass, your rest time between sets should be between 60 to 90 seconds. You don’t want to go past 90 seconds cause the muscle will recover too much and will already be starting to heal. Below 60 seconds will not allow the muscle to recover enough to push out the energy required to break down the cells.

When you want to tone your muscles or want to lift to burn calories, a good rest time is 30 seconds. This is ideal because you will allow the muscle to recover enough so it isn’t completely fatigue and you don’t allow your body to fully recover giving you a more of an aerobic exercise.

Rest Time Between Workouts – Days

The rest interval between days is also important. A lot of people are so gun ho that they workout everyday and do the same muscle groups day after day. This is the worst thing you can do because you will shrink your muscles instead of growing them.

When you work your muscles to the maximum, your muscles need time to recover. After you workout, you have teared down the muscle cells and actually split the cells in two. When you rest, the two new cells grow from the protein in your body and become bigger. If you do not give the muscle enough time to fully recover, you cease the growth progress and the two new cells remain small. That’s how your muscle will shrink. It’s always good to give about 48 hours of rest between muscle groups. You can even go up to 72 hours when you are first starting out. It is always better to rest more then to rush into your next workout.

The Length of your Workout

Since we are talking about time periods as well as rest periods, the total time of your workout plays a roll. You should not workout more then an hour straight when lifting weights. This is because you will start to lose the necessary energy that you need to push those weights to your max. When you are not pushing as hard as you can, you are not getting the full benefit of your workout.

Rest Time Between Sets in Circuit Training

When you are doing circuit training, you will need a little bit more time of rest between the sets. Since you are doing between 5 to 9 exercises back to back without any rest for a set, you need to extend your rest period. I usually like to keep my rest period around two minutes between sets. This will give you the benefit of an aerobic exercise with the benefit of muscle growth.

Henry Chervenka