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Rest is a crucial part of strength training. Depending on the exercise and your goals, you may find yourself resting 30 seconds, or one minute, or three to five minutes. So what do you actually do during that time? Let’s talk about your options, both in terms of training effectiveness and gym etiquette.
You can literally do nothing between sets
As awkward as it may feel at first, this is the best option for most people, most of the time. Actually rest. Don’t stretch, don’t work a different muscle; just allow your body to recover.
Some gyms will have stools, benches, or folding chairs near the platforms where people are lifting heavy (and thus need the longest rests). I’m mostly thinking of powerlifting and weightlifting gyms, but I’ve been to big-box gyms like Crunch that provide seating as well. And impromptu seats are common in many other places—who hasn’t sat on a plyo box or some other convenient surface?
You can do these minor chores between sets
There are plenty of little actions that you take at the gym (or should take) that are not explicitly exercise. The rest between sets is the perfect time to do these little maintenance tasks. Things like:
Change the weights to what you’ll need for your next set.
Write down what you just lifted in your notebook or lifting app.
If you took a video, watch it to give yourself feedback for the next set.
Trim that video so that you (or your coach, or your friends) don’t have to watch all 20 seconds of you fumbling with the camera and adjusting your belt before you actually lift.
Have a drink of water and, if needed, a snack.
Clean up after yourself! Rack any plates and dumbbells you aren’t using.
Start warming up for your next exercise
During the last few sets of an exercise, it’s time to start thinking about what you’ll do next. This could mean grabbing the equipment you’ll need or changing your shoes, but it's also an excellent opportunity to start warming up—especially if it’s an exercise that can benefit from a little gentle mobility work.
Let’s say you have a few sets of squats left, but after that you’ll do some overhead press. You probably want to warm up your shoulders with some mobility work so that you won’t be so tight when you hit that nice stable overhead position. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and you’re pressing, but next you’ll do squats. It’s a great time to start doing some ankle mobility work so that you’ll be able to comfortably hit a deeper squat.
Walk (or dance) between sets
When the weights are routine, I sit and chill. When they get heavy, I need to pace. (At weightlifting competitions, I not only stake out a warmup platform, I also pick out a walking path that I can pace between attempts.)
Or if you’re more of a cheerful, high-energy person, maybe you just want to dance. You’ll see this most often from people who lift at home, or at a chummy small gym where an impromptu dance party might occur between friends. Alone in my garage gym, I’ve been known to put on some good karaoke songs and sing along, with or without dancing.
The idea is not to get some extra cardio or get your steps in, but just to stay busy and loose and have fun—or, if you’re nervous about a big lift, to keep your head. At a busy commercial gym, make sure not to walk too far away, and consider leaving your water bottle or gym bag on your equipment to let people know it’s still taken.
Read or scroll on your phone while you're waiting
I promise that it is actually OK to look at your phone between sets. You’re probably doing it anyway. There’s your lifting app, your videos that you took to check your squat form—and, yes, your usual texting and social media stuff.
The risk you’re taking here is that you’ll get distracted and rest too long. Too much rest, say more than 10 minutes, can make you feel both mentally and physically unprepared. Long rests can also lengthen your workout. Sticking to the minimum necessary rest times will get you in and out of the gym a lot faster.
From others’ perspective, a person who sits on a machine for 10 minutes scrolling is committing an unforgivable sin in gym etiquette. Don’t take longer rests than you need, if you’re holding up equipment. (That said, if you’re polite to others who approach, and you accept requests to “work in” (take turns) while you scroll, you’re morally in the clear.)
For your own sake, set a timer when you do anything that might distract you between sets. I like how I can program rest times into a Garmin watch workout, but Hevy also has a timer, and you can always use the regular timer function on your watch or phone.
Another tip: Be mindful about what you’re doing on your phone. Now is not the time to get into an argument on the internet, or check your work email and see what will be waiting for you back at the office. It is a good time to play little games on your phone, or read an ebook, or put together your next great workout playlist.
You can superset (sparingly)
I’m leaving this option for last because I don’t want it to be your go-to. Just because you can do one exercise while resting for another, doesn’t mean you should.
Why not? If you really want to give squats your full energy, for example, don’t do pull-ups on the squat rack in between. You’ll fatigue yourself more than you realize, and you won’t do your best on those squats.
But supersets can be great if you’re willing to sacrifice a little weight for a lot of time. They’re best for exercises where the exact weight doesn’t matter—you can pair bicep curls with tricep extensions, or pull-ups with dips (so long as you’re a person who can bang out multiple reps of each with ease).
To do a superset, you just do a set of the first exercise, then a set of the second, then rest a short time (if needed at all), and repeat. I have a list of the best superset pairs here—usually you’ll want to do opposing muscles, like a push exercise with a pull exercise.