How Long Should You Rest Between Strength Workouts?

Having a proper amount of rest in between your workouts is just about as important as the workouts themselves.

If you improperly structure these rest periods…

At best your results won’t be as good.

At worst your risk of injury increases more than you’d like it to.

However, there isn’t one clear-cut answer to this question.

So, the aim of this article is to clearly lay out all the pieces of nuance you’d need to know here to properly plan out the rest in between your workouts.

PLUS, I aim to lay out practical strategies you can use to improve recovery so you don’t need as much rest time, if desired.

If you have questions left unanswered you are welcome to email me at info@fitnesssimplified.org or comment below!

The answer you don’t want to see…

It depends.

There, I said it.

What it depends on is how much volume you put into a muscle in a workout.

Someone who performs 6 sets for a given muscle is not going to need as much time in between workouts as someone who put 3 sets in for a given muscle.

It also depends on, your current fitness level.

Someone who is more fit, particularly higher in cardiovascular fitness, may have a higher capacity to recovery and may not need as much time in between workouts.

It also can depend on how long you’ve been running a given program.

One of the biggest drivers of soreness is novelty.

If you’ve been running the same weekly routine for a while, you won’t need as much recovery time as if you were doing brand new movements or workouts.

To put all of these variables into practical pieces of advice…

You should rest 48-96 hours (2-4 days) before you train a muscle again. [source]

I recommend you experiment with 48, 72, and 96 hours to see what you personally feel best with

Even with everything equated, there is some individual variability as to what’s best.

The higher volume (more sets) you put into a single workout for a muscle, the more rest you should give yourself (and vice versa)

The higher your overall fitness is, the less rest you may need (and vice versa).

The more accustomed you are to your current training routine, the less rest you may need (and vice versa).

It’s also worth noting that these are rest times in between when a muscle is trained.

Of course, if you trained upper body today, you don’t need to wait 48-96 hours to train your lower body.

Strategies you can use to improve recovery (and decrease the needed rest time)

As you know, the purpose of resting a given period of time between your strength workouts is to allow for a full recovery of the muscle.

If your body is more capable of recovery, then you may not need as much time to rest.

Or, if rest time stays the same, your subsequent workouts will be of a higher quality as a result of improved recovery.

So, the aim of this section is to provide practical tips and strategies to help you achieve this.

Calorie & protein intake

From a nutrition standpoint, the best levers you can pull are eating enough calories and eating enough protein.

Regarding protein, you should aim to eat at least 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram body mass.

To convert this to pounds, this comes out to 0.72 grams of protein per pound body weight.

So, multiply your bodyweight in pounds by 0.72. That is the number of grams of protein you should aim to eat (minimum) each day.

Regarding calories, it depends on your current goals.

If you currently aiming to lose fat, and therefore are in a calorie deficit, then you should eat as many calories as you can while still being in a calorie deficit.

Usually, this means a 5-10% deficit of calories.

If you are not currently aiming to lose fat, then you should make sure you are eating at your total daily energy expenditure (‘maintenance calories) at least.

Sleep

A boring topic, but it makes more of a difference than almost anything else.

Somewhere between 7-9 hours per night is best for most people. The more physical or mental strain you endure in a day, the more you may need.

Arguably more important is having a regular sleep/wake cycle.

This means going to bed and waking up at similar times each day.

This teaches your body when it’s time to get sleep, when it’s time to wake up, and helps to ensure that the time you spend asleep is of a high quality.

They don’t call it a circadian ‘rhythm’ for nothing.

A supplement that can help greatly help is ‘Sleep’ from OutWork Nutrition (not sponsored, just a fan of the product).

It contains 2 mg of melatonin (low dose, but enough to induce drowsiness) as well as L-theanine and saffron extract (both of which enhance sleep quality and induce calmness).

Improve your cardiovascular fitness

One of the main adaptations of improving your cardio is an increased ability to deliver blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the working muscles.

Coincidentally, this is exactly what you need to happen for recovery to take place.

Incorporating cardiovascular training into your program in ways that don’t interfere with your strength training can be massively helpful.

[source]

Don’t program hop

In other words, don’t constantly change up your workouts.

As we discussed previously, the novelty of a movement can drastically increase the soreness experienced from that movement.

If there is a high degree of novelty every week in your training, you’re going to find yourself significantly sorer than you need to be.

Creatine supplementation

I’ve written extensively about creatine.

One of the reasons I am such a fan of it is that it has been shown to greatly aid in recovery from various forms of exercise.

You can find a larger breakdown of creatine supplementation here.