Optimal volume (sets/reps) per week?

Asked by: Adam White

The ideal training volume for building muscle is around 9–18 sets per muscle per week. And if you’re choosing good lifts, doing 6–20 reps per set, and bringing those sets within 1–2 reps of failure, the bottom end of that range is often enough to maximize muscle growth.

How many sets per week is optimal?

If you’ve been training properly for less than a year, perform 10-15 sets per muscle group per week. If you’ve been training properly for one to five years, perform 15-20 sets per week. If you’re very advanced and have been training properly for over five years, perform 20-25 sets per week.

Is 8 sets per week enough?

Volume. Generally speaking, evidence suggests that at least 10 sets per muscle per week is the ideal number to induce hypertrophy. Not everyone will need that many sets, and some may need more, but 10 sets per muscle per week is the baseline to adjust from.

How many sets and reps is optimal?

Determining How Many Sets and Reps to Do

Is 12 sets per week enough?

Most evidence-based fitness professionals recommend a training volume of 10-15 sets per muscle group per week. I’ve recommended 10-30 sets in my interviews the past years for most individuals with some outliers using higher volumes, like IFBB Pro Nina Ross.

Is 20 sets too much?

So we know based on the 2017 meta-analysis mentioned earlier that roughly 10-20 sets per muscle per week is the sweet spot for maximizing growth. With beginners being at the lower end of this range and more experienced lifters being at the higher end of this range.

Is 5×5 good for hypertrophy?

Thus, if strength is your primary goal, you will love cluster training. Regardless, the volume is the same as a regular 5×5 program making the 5×5 cluster training program an excellent option for hypertrophy training as well. To further induce hypertrophy, just decrease the breaks in between each cluster.

Is volume better than intensity?

Intensity proponents claim that using heavy weights for low reps produces more tension on your muscles, which is ultimately what makes them grow bigger and stronger. Volume boosters contend that the total number of sets and reps you do is what drives muscle growth, not the weight on the bar.

How much volume is hypertrophy?

On average, hypertrophy appears to increase with increasing volumes of up to 6-8 hard sets in a single training session when taking long rests between sets, with a plateau at higher volumes. This is approximately 12 – 24 weekly sets when training each muscle 2-3 days per week.

How do you hit hypertrophy?

Hypertrophy is an increase and growth of muscle cells.



How often to lift to achieve muscular hypertrophy?

1. Lifting (especially heavy weights) three days a week. …
2. Lifting just two days a week, depending on your current fitness level.
3. Alternating between upper-body lifting and lower-body lifting on different days.

How many sets should you do per workout?

In general, a range of 1 to 3 sets of an exercise can provide benefits based on your goals, and even just one exercise per muscle group can give you results. To gain strength, it’s best to stick with a few foundational exercises and concentrate your reps and sets there.

Is 9 sets per week enough Reddit?

Generally speaking, 10-20 sets per week per muscle group is the best choice. If you do below 10 and the progres is a bit slow, then you should consider increasing the number of sets.

How many sets should I do?

No matter how many reps you’re completing per set, most fitness experts recommend performing between two and six sets for each exercise. Anything below two sets may not challenge you enough; anything over six sets could lead to overworked muscles.

How many bicep sets a week?

BICEPS TRAINING



Recommendations suggesting 12-20 total work sets per week for intermediate lifters. Performing as little as 6-8 sets per week can also suffice for some lifters who are performing a lot of pulling, as the biceps are also responsible for this movement.

Is 8 sets enough for biceps?

Most intermediate-advanced lifters need at least 8 sets of direct bicep work per week to make gains, and for some, it’s even more than that. If you’re training twice a week, that’s about 4 sets per session.

Is 6 sets enough for biceps?

For building bicep mass, perform two to six sets per biceps exercise for no more than six repetitions. It is also important to give your biceps adequate rest time between sets so that you can continue to lift heavy. Rest two to five minutes between your sets and increase the weight if you can do more than six reps.

Is 12 sets enough for biceps?

Anywhere between 12–20 sets is the optimal range for maximum growth of muscles . Dosent mean that if you do more than 20 you aren’t going to gain muscle . … Smaller muscles like biceps will give great result even with 16–18 sets per session and larger muscles like legs, back , chest you need a bit more volume .

Is 4 bicep exercises too much?

The number of exercises that make an effective arm workout can range from 1-3 movements per session, with any more than that resulting in excessive fatigue and inconsistent form and technique.

Are 21s the best bicep exercise?

Easier to get to 21 reps whereas if you're just doing 21 full length reps. For whatever reason it just seems more difficult from a mental perspective. So anyway it's a good exercise.

How often should you train biceps for maximum growth?

Their findings showed that there was plenty of evidence that suggested training more than 1x per week was more beneficial to maximize muscle growth. It showed that training 2-3 times per week resulted in approximately twice the growth in muscle from baseline (3.7% vs. 6.8%).

Do you need to lift heavy to get big arms?

“But to build bigger biceps and triceps you have to focus on perfect form, moving through a full range of motion and, crucially, never lifting too heavy. The key to adding arm size is to getting a good pump through lifting lighter for longer – and executing every rep as perfectly as possible.”

How can I increase my arm size fast?

8 Best Exercises for Bigger, Stronger Arms

1. Bicep exercises.
2. Concentration curl.
3. Cable curl.
4. Barbell curl.
5. Chinup.
6. Tricep exercises.
7. Triangle pushup.
8. Tricep kickback.

Are bicep curls a waste of time?

The short answer is no! Of course biceps curls are not useless. It’s become common place for trainers and some coaches to say that this classic and iconic exercise is a waste of time. You can thank CrossFit’s “we don’t do any movements that aren’t functional” line of bs for part of this shift in the industry.

Which is better hammer curls or bicep curls?

Hammer Curls – Which One Is Better? In the matchup against bicep curls vs. hammer curls, the latter is the clear winner for getting bigger muscles faster. Hammer curls work more muscle groups and work the biceps in ways that regular bicep curls do not.

Can you get big arms without curls?

Whatever the case, you can build your biceps without ever doing a curl, and you might even get better results that way. “It’s easy to overtrain the biceps, which can prevent some men from actually achieving the arm size they want,” says Hodges.

Do rows build biceps?

In contrast to lat pulldowns, rows don’t seem to work your biceps as well as curls do. The bicep thickness increased by 11.06% in the arms that had trained dumbbell curls, but only by about half (5.16%) in the arms that had trained dumbbell rows.

Are pull-ups better than curls?

Despite the isolation of the bicep curl vs the chin up, chin ups are actually the better exercise for your arms and your upper body as a whole. The practicality of the functional strength is a big factor, but not as big as the facts. Chin-ups are proven to have a greater bicep activation than curls.

How can I get thicker arms?

6 Keys to Wider and Thicker Arms

1. Focus on the Pump, Rather Than Presses. This is arguably the most important tip for building bigger arms. …
2. Don’t Forget Your Triceps. …
3. Preacher curls. …
4. Standing bicep curls. …
5. Give Your Forearms Some Love. …
6. Wrist curls. …
7. Reverse wrist curls. …
8. Eat Right to Get Big.