Research review: How many sets should you do to build muscle?

The key findings:

1. Scientists wanted to see how performing more or fewer sets per training session affected strength, endurance and muscle growth.
2. Broadly speaking, the more sets you do per session, the more strength, endurance and muscle you will build.
3. If you want to maximize strength and muscle gains or break through a plateau, then you should do more sets, not less.

How many sets should you do to build muscle

On the one hand, minimalists say that you should do as few sets as possible to make progress.

Some even say that you should do one set per training session until muscle failure and that anything beyond that is overtraining. These people say that long-term progress is all about increasing the weight and not the volume (the number of sets).

"Train smarter, not harder," is their credo.

On the other hand, the maximalist camp says that you should do as many sets as you can do without hurting yourself.

"No pain, no gain" is their motto.

Who is right?

That's exactly what scientists from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil wanted to find out in a 2015 study (1).

Let's take a look at what they did.

The scientists had 48 men with no previous weight training experience follow a strength training program for 6 months.

• The men were divided into 4 groups:

• One group performed 1 set per exercise.
• One group performed 3 sets per exercise
• One group performed 5 sets per exercise
• One group performed only bodyweight exercises.

The reason scientists included the bodyweight-only exercises in the study was because they needed a control group to compare the other groups to. They found that the bodyweight-only group could serve as a good representation of what people can achieve with a moderate amount of resistance training.

Each group trained 3 days per week with at least 2 to 3 rest days between workouts. All groups performed the same exercises, training in the 8 to 12 repetition range and resting for 1.5 to 2 minutes between sets.

The only difference between the groups was how many sets per exercise were performed.

The strength training program included multi-joint exercises such as bench presses, shoulder presses and leg presses and some isolation exercises such as leg extensions, leg curls, bicep curls, crunches and tricep presses.

Each set was performed to muscle failure and the weight was increased for each exercise when the upper end of the repetition range was reached.

The scientists performed a series of tests to determine the progress of the exercisers. They measured:

• How much weight the exercisers could perform 5 repetitions with (to measure muscle strength
• How much weight the exercisers could perform 20 repetitions with (to measure muscle endurance)
• How high people could jump (to measure speed strength)
• How thick the exercisers' muscles were in different places (to measure muscle growth).

The team of scientists were extremely meticulous in how they took all the measurements and performed the measurements twice on each subject to ensure they got accurate results.

Unfortunately, the scientists did not control how much the subjects ate. Calorie and macronutrient intake can make a big difference in body composition.

What did the scientists find?

The group that performed 5 sets per exercise built more strength, endurance and muscle than the groups that performed 1 or 3 sets per exercise or only bodyweight exercises.

The main finding of the study was that the more sets the subjects performed, the better their results.

Let's look at the highlights before we go into detail:

• Subjects who performed 5 sets built more muscle than everyone else.
• Subjects who performed 5 sets built more strength than everyone else on almost every exercise.
• Subjects who performed 3 sets built more muscle than people who performed only 1 set or bodyweight exercises.
• Subjects who performed 3 sets built more strength than people who performed only 1 set or bodyweight exercises
• Subjects who only performed bodyweight exercises actually lost strength on the bench press and leg press.
• All groups lost the same amount of fat (which makes sense - none of the subjects followed a structural diet)
• Each group built the same amount of speed strength (which also makes sense, as none of the groups trained specifically for this.

Now let's get into the details.

How your training volume per training session affects muscle growth

Technically, there was no statistical difference in muscle gains between the groups. However, there was a clear trend towards greater muscle gains in the groups that performed more sets.

The results were as follows:

• 5 sets: 7.3 pounds of muscle gain
• 3 sets: 6.5 pounds of muscle gain
• 1 set: 1 pound of muscle gain
• Bodyweight exercises: 6.4 pounds of muscle gains

The group that performed 5 sets also increased their biceps and triceps size more than any other group.

It's important to keep in mind that none of these groups built as much muscle as they could have. If you do everything right, muscle gains of 10 pounds within 6 months are realistic.

Nearly everyone (except the bodyweight exercise group) lost 10 pounds of body fat, which means the subjects were in a calorie deficit most of the time.

High-volume training requires more calories for recovery, which is why the group that performed 5 sets would have benefited the most from a diet that provided more calories.

How your training volume per training session affects strength gains

It's a common notion that to get strong, you just need to focus on increasing the weight on the bar and that as long as you only perform the bare minimum of sets - say 1, 2 or 3 per training session - and focus on progressive overload, you won't benefit from performing additional sets. The study shows otherwise.

When it comes to strength gains, the subjects who performed the most sets got the strongest on the most exercises.

The maximum weight for 5 repetitions changed as follows for the groups over the course of the study:

5 RM weight for bench press

• Bodyweight exercises only: -6%
• 1 set: +12%
• 3 sets: +17%
• 5 sets: +11%

5 RM weight for leg press

• Bodyweight exercises only: -2%
• 1 set: +16%
• 3 sets: +15%
• 5 sets: +18%

5 RM weight for shoulder press

• Bodyweight exercises only: +13%
• 1 set: +22%
• 3 sets: +24%
• 5 sets: +35%

5 RM weight for lat pulldown

• Bodyweight exercises only: +3%
• 1 set: +19%
• 3 sets: +12%
• 5 sets: +17%

Average change in 5 RM weight

• Bodyweight exercises only: +4%
• 1 set: +17%
• 3 sets: +17%
• 5 sets: +20%

As you can see, the differences are not very large, although one piece of background information is important here. Everyone in the 5-set group started significantly stronger than the subjects in the 1-set and 3-set groups, which means that these subjects were probably already closer to their genetic limit for strength gains.

Normally, the rate of strength gains slows down as you get stronger - and yet in this study, the strongest subjects still progressed faster as they performed more sets.

Of course, you still need to get stronger to become more muscular.

You can't just do more sets with lighter weights and expect to make greater progress. Performing more sets with a focus on consistently increasing your training weight will give you the best of both worlds.

How your training volume per training session affects your muscle endurance When it comes to how much weight people can perform 20 repetitions with, the group that performed 5 sets again performed the best.

In this case, the scientists only measured muscle endurance on the bench press and leg press (probably because performing 20 reps on all exercises would have been too exhausting).

The maximum weight for 20 repetitions changed as follows for the groups over the course of the study:

20 RM weight for bench press

• Bodyweight exercises only: +5%
• 1 set: +5%
• 3 sets: +17%
• 5 sets: +24%

20 RM weight for leg press

• Bodyweight exercises only: +5%
• 1 set: +12%
• 3 sets: +7%
• 5 sets: +36%

Average change in 20 RM weight

• Bodyweight exercises only: +5%
• 1 set: +9%
• 3 sets: +12%
• 5 sets: +30%

As can be seen, the group that performed 5 sets increased their muscle endurance by 18% more than the group that only performed 3 sets and the group that performed 3 sets achieved better results than the group that only performed one set.

The final analysis

In the final analysis, the 5-set group built more muscle, more endurance and more strength in almost every measurement than the 3-set group. There were a few measurements that were similar, but when looking at everything together, the group that performed 5 sets had the best results in all areas.

The conclusion of the scientists was that there was a "dose-dependent" relationship between the number of sets completed and the results.

In other words, the more sets the subjects performed, the more strength, muscle and endurance they built up.

What does this mean for you

The bottom line and what the scientists concluded is more or less what you would expect

The more sets you do, the better your gains will be. Does this mean that you should do 5 sets of every exercise at all times and under all circumstances?

Does this mean that more sets are always better than fewer sets?

Not necessarily. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. there is a point of diminishing returns when you perform more sets

Performing more sets usually results in greater gains, but the increase in muscle growth, strength and endurance is not proportional to the number of additional sets you perform.

This means that beyond a certain threshold, you will get diminishing returns for more and more effort.

If you have already achieved most of the natural strength and muscle gains that your genetic potential allows you and are chasing the last 5 or 10% of improvements, then you will need to substantially increase your training volume to achieve this goal. But if you've just started training or are trying to break through a plateau, then at a certain point the extra results probably won't be worth the extra effort.

In this case, you'll probably be better off focusing on intensity (weight) while doing sufficient volume (sets), which for most people is in the range of 9 to 12 heavy sets per week.

2. more sets can be counterproductive

Performing more and more sets beyond a certain point is not only less beneficial, but in some cases can even be devastating.

In a recent study by scientists at the University of Sydney, novice exercisers who used 5 sets in their multi-joint exercises built more strength and muscle than novice exercisers who used 10 sets.

The group that performed 10 sets also spent significantly more time in the gym.

These people were complete beginners and going straight into a program that included 10 sets for each exercise put them in a state of overtraining.

3. gradual increases in volume are better than sudden jumps

When you increase your volume, you should only do so to the extent necessary to continue making progress.

This is the real message of the study.

In general, it is clear that the more sets you perform, the greater strength and muscle gains you will make when several conditions are met:

1. You can also increase the weight in your exercises over time.
2. You can recover effectively from your training sessions.
3. You increase your volume because you have reached a plateau and not because you want to see how much abuse your body can take.

You also don't need to do 5 sets of all your exercises to achieve benefits. What you can do instead is add 1 or 2 sets to the exercise where you have reached a plateau or where you want to increase the most.

The bottom line is that performing more sets up to a certain point is better for gains in strength, muscle and endurance and that your best strategy for long-term gains is to gradually increase your training volume over time.

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25546444
2. https://legionathletics.com/eric-helms-interview-german-volume-training/

Source: https://legionathletics.com/how-many-sets-build-muscle/