About Rest Between Sets

About Rest Between Sets
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When you train with short rest intervals, you feel a greater pump and muscle burn while working out. Whereas if you take longer rest between sets, you are able to lift more weights and perform better. What is more important for building muscle?
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Instead of focusing on getting a pump, it makes sense to prioritize your performance. A 2016 study compared resting 1-minute between sets with resting 3-minutes between sets [1]. The group resting 3-minutes was able to gain more muscle, likely because they were able to lift more weight and perform more repetitions. Resting just 1 minute was not enough for performance recovery. These findings are in line with those of a 2009 study [2].
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But it is important to make a distinction between compound lifts and isolation lifts. Compound movements are inherently more fatiguing, whereas with isolation lifts, you recover more quickly. So I like to use the general guideline of resting 2-3 minutes between sets on compound lifts and 1-2 minutes on isolation [3].
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Also, as a side note, there is a time and place for even longer rest intervals of ~5 minutes, like after heavy deadlifts or squats. See the last slide of this post for practical takeaways and scientific references.