How long should a workout last?

[kellytd]

How long should a strength workout last? Also, how long should you rest between sets? I heard a lot of people accidentally transform a strength training session into cardio by not resting enough, so how does this work? Clearly, I'm rather new to weightlifting, so I appriciate any advice on the subject.

[dynamicyandere]

You want to have longer rests between sets if you don’t want it to become a cardio session.


So, no circuit-training unless you intend to be throwing in some cardio.



For example, HIIT cardio usually only allows 30-60 second rests.


If you want something that’s more strength-based you’re going to want to rest beyond 90 seconds.


For me personally, 3 minutes was my sweet spot and I made pretty good strength gains on that. But, 5 minutes can work too.


For cardio, you want shorter rests between sets.


For strength, you want longer rests between sets.


For in between. Well. In between.


As for the total length of your workout, it’s simply going to take as long as it’s going to take to finish all your reps and sets.


Different training plans will lay out how many reps and sets of each exercise you’ll be completing on a day. Finish that, you finish your workout.


Typically for me, I finish a full-body weightlifting session in about 45-60 minutes.


I hope that helps!

[dynamicyandere]

Also for reps, assuming you are doing reps until failure (or just before failure), you’ll want to lift heavier for strength (which will force you to have a low rep range before you gas out and need to rest) and lighter weight if you want to work on cardio (much more reps per set).

For strength, I’d recommend choosing a weight that you can only lift 3-5 times (with good form) before you need to take a rest.

And all these things about reps and sets and rest are just ways that you can signal your body to tell it how to adapt. Different combinations will send your body different signals, different instructions for how to change.