How many sets per muscle per week

What counts as a set

Only working sets: at a working weight and close to failure — with roughly 0–3 reps in reserve. Warm-ups don't count, and neither, really, does a set after which you could have done eight more. The weight and reps within it — anywhere from 5 to 30 — matter less for muscle growth than proximity to failure: both 6 and 15 reps build muscle if the set is hard.

Sets are counted per muscle, not per exercise. The bench press is a chest set, but it does something for the triceps and front delts too. How to count that is below.

What research says

The Schoenfeld, Ogborn and Krieger (2017) meta-analysis pooled 15 studies and found a dose-response relationship: each extra weekly set gave a little more growth on average — about 0.37% more increase in muscle size. Groups doing 10 or more sets a week per muscle grew more on average than those doing fewer than five — though in that comparison the difference fell just short of statistical significance.

A newer and larger analysis by Pelland et al. (67 studies, over 2,000 people) refined the picture. Muscle size and strength both grow with volume, but returns diminish: the first sets give a lot, each next one less. For strength the drop-off is steeper — frequency and heavy work matter more than endless volume. And one important detail: the data fit best when a set on a "helper" exercise counted as half — more on that below.

Both are averages across groups of people. Your own optimum may be higher or lower, and the only way to find it is your log.

Where to start

• Beginner (under six months) — 6–10 working sets per muscle a week. You grow from almost any sensible volume, and extra sets only get in the way of recovery and learning technique.
• Intermediate — 10–15 sets. That's where most people grow.
• Advanced — 15–20 or more for lagging muscles, if you recover in time. More than 20 on everything at once is rarely a good idea.

Legs are a special case: several large muscles, and the quads, hamstrings and glutes each need their own volume, not "12 for legs" in general. Shoulders are the same: the front delt gets plenty from presses, but the side and rear delts need their own work. I've counted the volume each ready-made program gives every group in the muscles section.

An example from my programs: one pass through "Full body — 3 days" gives the chest 9 working sets, the back 13 and the quads 6. That's a good start for a beginner; at an intermediate level, top up your legs with leg presses or lunges, say. The two-day "Upper / Lower" gives the chest 4 sets per pass — it's meant to run twice a week, which makes 8.

How to count sets on compound lifts

Count every bench set as a full triceps set and your triceps look overtrained on paper. Don't count it at all and they look neglected. The Pelland et al. analysis found the middle works best: a set where a muscle helps counts as half.

In practice:

• presses — a full set for chest or shoulders, half for triceps;
• rows and pulls — full for back, half for biceps and rear delts;
• squats and leg presses — full for quads and glutes.

I count the deadlift separately: it sits under back, but it's mostly glutes and hamstrings doing the work. So a deadlift set is half a set for back and half for legs, a quarter each for hamstrings and glutes. That's how the diary counts weekly volume, and how the coach builds a program.

How many times a week

Frequency — how many times a week a muscle gets loaded — barely matters for growth on its own when total volume is the same. But an earlier study by Schoenfeld et al. (2016) found that training a muscle twice a week gave more growth than once, largely because it's easier to get the volume in without losing quality. In the Pelland et al. analysis, frequency clearly mattered only for strength.

A practical rule: if a muscle gets more than 8–10 sets, split them over two workouts. Twenty chest sets in one day means the last ten on a tired chest with less weight. Two workouts of ten each means twenty good sets.

How to know it's time to add

Look at your log every 4–6 weeks. If the estimated max on your main lifts for a muscle is growing and reps are going up, the volume is fine — change nothing. If it's flat and you're recovering well, add 2–3 sets a week. If it's flat or dropping, your joints ache and you don't feel like training, the volume is too high, and you need a deload first.

Add a little at a time and to one or two muscles at once, or you won't know what worked. And to skip the manual counting, just log your sets: I count the working sets for every group each week and show them on the main screen, and the coach sees the imbalances and tells you where you're short.

Read next

• Muscles
• Ready-made programs
• Working set
• Workout tonnage