How Many Sets Does It Take To Build Muscle
How many sets does it take to build muscle?, shorter, more intense workouts might be the way to go to build muscle and strength.1 Increasing the volume of sets in a resistance training session is helpful, but only up to a certain point.
How Many Sets Should You Do in Each Workout Session?
“Quality and intensity of effort matter more than sheer quantity of training,” Jeremy Swisher, MD, a member of the Sports Medicine Fellowship Program at UCLA, told Health.
Few studies have investigated how people should actually divide up their activity into different workouts, said lead study author Jacob Remmert, a PhD candidate at Florida Atlantic University.
To answer that question, Remmert and his colleagues examined 67 studies involving over 2,000 participants. They defined strength sets in each as either:
- Direct sets: Exercises that train a specific muscle (it’s the primary one working). For example, a bench press to build chest strength.
- Fractional sets: This includes “indirect sets”—or those in which a muscle is working, but it’s not the one being primarily targeted. These are counted as a “half” set. This means a triceps extension, which indirectly works the chest, would be added to this total value.
After analyzing all the research, Remmert and his colleagues found that people saw muscle and strength increase as they added more sets per workout session.
However, the data also showed that:
- After about two direct sets in any given session, strength gains plateaued.
- After about 11 fractional sets in any given session, muscle growth plateaued.
This means that “for both strength and muscle growth, the first few sets you do in a workout offer the greatest return on your investment,” Remmert said. “More sets do seem to bring greater outcomes—but only up to a point.”
How Do You Build an Ideal Strength Routine?
The results of this study may be helpful for people looking to make their workouts more efficient or those looking to build an optimized weight training plan, Remmert said.
“For strength, it makes sense to adopt a higher frequency approach—on average, around two to three times per week—with fairly low per-session [set] volume,” he explained.
That approach would work for muscle growth, too, Remmert added, or someone could try going to the gym fewer times per week, but doing a slightly higher number of sets.
Even for those who aren’t super detailed about their resistance training routine, “rest assured that even moderate consistent bouts of strength exercise can make a great impact on our health,” Jordan Boreman, MS, CES, exercise physiologist at Cleveland Clinic and owner of Boreman Performance Training, told Health.
A Jumping Off Point for More Research
This new study may help people craft their strength routines, but it has limitations.
For one, the study is not yet peer-reviewed, so the results are considered preliminary.
Beyond this, the study was a meta-analysis, so “the results are fully dependent upon the included studies it is analyzing,” said Remmert. The quality and quantity of the data included could be leaving some stones unturned.
There was also a lot of variation across the different types of workouts included, added Boreman, from equipment type to level of instruction.
The study participants were also predominantly young and healthy, and the studies featured examined “short-term outcomes,” Swisher added.
Future studies should investigate how these strength routines affect people in the long term, particularly those from more diverse demographic groups, he said.
Why Can Fewer Reps Lead to More Gains?
It may seem counterintuitive that fewer sets may be better for building strength, but these results align with previous research, Boreman said.
Fewer sets with greater loads have long been shown to increase strength over time, he said, as it helps you “[improve] force production.”
Swisher added that fewer, more intense reps may be effective because the initial challenging sets help “recruit a maximal number of muscle fibers and stimulate most of the strength-building processes.”
Essentially, once you’ve done one or two hard sets, additional ones add minimal extra stimulus, “but pile on significantly more fatigue and lengthen recovery time,” he said.
Using Research to Inspire Your Next Workout
Regardless of whether you’re an experienced fitness fanatic or just beginning, research like this can serve as a guidepost for making the most of your resistance training workout.
Try focusing on just a few sets, repeated about three times throughout the week.
For beginners in particular, Remmert suggested starting with fewer sets and adding more as your results plateau.
When it comes to the ideal number of reps in each set, Boreman said it depends on your fitness goals:
- Fewer reps, about 1-5, are recommended for strength and power.
- About 6-12 reps would be best for building muscle.
- Doing between 13 and 20 reps is recommended for muscular endurance.
However, Boreman and Remmert agreed that people shouldn’t get too hung up on the numbers. The ideal workout volume varies by person.
“Allow adequate rest between workouts for the same muscle groups, typically at least 48 hours, so your muscles can recover and grow,” he advised.