Most people track weight and reps but leave rest to chance. Then they wonder why the same exercise feels different from week to week. Rest duration is part of the training dose.
Match rest to the work
Heavy, demanding sets generally need more recovery than small accessory movements. Supersets can alternate exercises, but that does not mean recovery disappears. The relevant muscles, breathing and concentration still need enough time.
Use the AnyGear timer as a guardrail, not a starting gun. If technique or breathing is not ready, wait. If you are ready and scrolling, the alert helps you return to the session.
Unilateral exercises need special attention
For one-sided work, decide whether the timer starts after each side or after both sides. Keep that rule consistent. Otherwise, one week may include much more recovery than the next even though the log looks identical.
A useful experiment
For three workouts, keep rest roughly consistent on one key exercise. Watch what happens to repetitions, RIR and technique. You may learn that you were rushing—or that a long break was simply habit.
Rest long enough to repeat quality, but deliberately enough to protect the time you set aside.
Evidence note
Rest needs depend on the goal, load and exercise. An established review of between-set rest explains why demanding strength work often benefits from longer recovery, while a newer Bayesian meta-analysis examines rest duration specifically for hypertrophy.