When setting new fitness goals or starting your fitness journey, it’s common for people to ask which exercises they should do, but many people don’t ask how many they should perform or how to structure their workout for it to be most effective. That’s where sets, reps and rest come in!
What are reps?
In strength training, reps is an abbreviation for repetitions and refers to the number of times you complete an exercise before taking a break. If you complete 12 squats before you rest, that would be 12 reps.
What does high, medium and low reps mean?
Here is a rough idea of what people mean when they say high, medium or low reps. This is just a general guide, not a rule.
- High reps: 15+
- Medium reps: 6-12
- Low reps: 1-5
What are sets?
Completing several reps or repetitions of an exercise in a row is called a set. If you complete 12 squats before you rest, that would be one set. After a short rest, you might perform another 12 squats which would be your second set, and so on.
What is a superset?
A superset is when you complete two exercises back to back with minimal rest in between. One type of superset would involve exercises that use opposing muscle groups (such as a bench press and a leg press) to minimise your rest period and improve your endurance. Another kind would involve exercises that use the same muscle groups to encourage fatigue and really challenge your muscles.
What is rest?
Your rest period is the time between sets where you rest before you begin another set. Your rest period is important because you need to give your muscles time to recover to minimise the risk of injury and make your workout as effective as possible! No matter how strong you are, rest periods are still important in strength training.
How long should you rest between sets?
This will depend on your individual abilities as well as your fitness goals. Your rest period might be anywhere between 30 seconds and five minutes depending on your training style and how heavy you’re lifting.
Research has shown that for strength goals, training with weights between 50% and 90% of your one rep max with 3-5 minutes of rest between each set allows you to complete greater repetitions. Higher levels of muscular power were demonstrated over multiple sets with 3-5 minutes of rest between sets compared to one minute of rest.
When the training goal is muscular hypertrophy (an increase in muscle size), a combination of moderate-intensity sets with short rest intervals of 30-90 seconds may be most effective due to greater levels of growth hormones during such workouts.
Ways to make your workout easier:
- Reduce the number of reps in each set (keeping the number of sets the same)
- Reduce your total number of sets (keeping the number of reps the same)
- Reduce the number of sets and reps
- If you are using additional weights, pick lighter options
- Take a longer rest period in between your sets
Ways to make your workout harder:
- Increase the total number of reps in each set
- Increase the number of sets you perform
- Increase the number of sets and reps
- Lift a heavier weight
- Reduce the rest period between your sets
