12 Major Workout Mistakes To Avoid In 2018

Sometimes you just need to catch your breath between sets or sprints, but sitting for too long could backfire. According to Raddatz, taking long rests between sets during your workout lowers your heart rate. Although, she said the amount of necessary rest does depend on the type of exercise you're doing. 

"If you are lifting, resting between sets for 30 to maybe 75 seconds is probably plenty of time," she said. Raddatz noted that people who do interval style training, where the workout is shorter overall, typically recover and rest for 30 seconds to a minute. "It really depends on how quickly your heart rate can recover and come down, so heart rate monitors can be really helpful since the quicker it comes down the quicker we can hit it again," she said. "If you're looking at [heart rate] as a guide, you can see how conditioned somebody is pretty fast. You want to stay in an active recovery zone if you are focusing on cardio and you want to come down to 60% during rest periods."

[Photo via @victoriasport]