How Many Sets Should You Do Per Week to Maximize Muscle Growth?
Plus some practical strategies & considerations to apply to your muscle building workout programs.
By: Dylan Dacosta
6 min read
This is actually a surprisingly frequent question I’ve gotten when I do Q&A’s on my instagram. People (understandably) seem confused on how much training volume they should be doing.
I think we make this more complicated than we need to, so I’m going to aim to simplify this by using some data from exercise science research combined with some practical and individual components that can’t be forgotten about.
Looking at a meta-analysis (study of relevant studies) from 2016, the data showed that higher training volumes tended to yield better muscle growth than lower training volumes.
This is when you say “Uhm… no shit?” 😂
But what was helpful was that there was a dose-response to the data they had. Meaning the greater the dose, the greater the response in this case.
Specifically, in studies where participants did less than 5 total sets for a muscle within a given week, they gained 5.4% from baseline in muscle size.
Where they did 5–9 sets per week for a muscle, they gained 6.6% from baseline in muscle size.
Lastly, when they did 10+ sets per week for a muscle, they gained about 9.8% from baseline in muscle size.
The 10+ set group nearly had double the gains as the less than 5 sets per week group.
If you’ve ever seen the recommendation to do a minimum of 10 sets per week for a muscle group you’re trying to maximize growth with, I’d bet it came from this paper. Which is fair and I think is a generally decent target to aim for with a lot of folks.
One thing to note is that most of the studies in this paper were on untrained folks. A more recent meta-analysis on more trained individuals showed 12–20 sets per week for a given muscle to be an optimal target to maximize muscle growth, with some evidence showing 20+ sets per week to yield sightly more gains.
To summarize this, I’d say:
For less trained folks, aiming to train a muscle for 10 weekly sets at a high level of effort is a great target to optimize muscle growth.
If you have more experience in the gym, 12–20 high effort sets is probably a better range to optimize muscle growth
Lastly, if you’re more advanced, 20+ sets might be what you need.
It’s key to remember that every individual will have a varied response. Doing 10 sets of legs per week may be optimal for some folks, while being too little or even too much for some others — even if they have some experience in the gym.
The reason I wrote “high effort sets” above is because most resistance training literature is standardized to take sets to failure.
Meaning most of this data is taken from training sessions where each set was taken to failure, or at least, very close to it.
I’ve mentioned in previous articles that we don’t need to train to failure and probably shouldn’t most of the time, but we do need to train near failure. And I think too many of us train farther from failure than we should. This often results in folks doing massive amounts of training volumes which are more so what would be called “junk volume”.
If you feel like you’re doing way more sets per week for a given muscle than 10, it would be worth looking at how close you’re taking these sets to failure. In a lot of cases, people are doing more total sets than they need to when they could do less total sets and make them more challenging to get similar gains.
If you aren’t sure if you’re training close to failure, watch this video of one of my clients damn near take a set right to failure and examine whether or not you’re ever in that ball park. If not, that’s okay! But it does mean that you might be best suited to increase your effort per set rather than just adding more sets.
It is important to note that training near failure may look different for different exercises. Given this was a machine hack squat, you can generally take this closer to failure (or literally to it) with minimum risk compared to taking a barbell back squat right to failure, where it’s more likely you can get into some trouble.
Programming Implications
Finally, I’ll give a brief and simple example of what this may look like with an actual program.
Here is an example how a program could look like if you were focused on maximizing quad and chest growth while training 3 x per week.
This would be the breakdown of the program on a weekly basis:
12 sets of quads
12 sets of chest
12 sets of glutes
6 sets of hamstrings
6 sets of lats
And we’ll leave out some of the muscles that would also be trained here, but not as directly. Such as the shoulders, arms and some upper back muscles.
This program is incredibly basic, but honestly, would be very effective for a lot of folks in the gym looking to gain muscle — especially with a focus on maximizing quads and pecs gains.
Depending on how advanced you are, you’ll probably still make gains with your hamstrings and back too, but just likely to a smaller degree.
Training programs do not need to be complicated in order to be effective.
If this looks too simple or like too little, then I’d first ask you to assess how hard your sets are in the gym.
If you had to (imagine ome serious money was on the line), how many more reps could you do with that weight you’re using for sets of 8?
If the answer is above 5ish, then I’d say it’s time to start practicing training closer to failure.
As you get more comfortable with this uncomfortable skill, you may be able to do less total volume and instead, do more effective volume.
I’ve had several clients tell me their workouts now have less total volume but are getting them better gains.
This is most commonly due to doing too many sets far from failure before. Now, their workout might look more similar to what I put above, yet more simple and also more effective.
And who wouldn’t want better gains from more efficient workouts? I know I do.
Cheers,
Coach Dylan🍻
References:
1. Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27433992/
2. A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35291645/