Need help dialing in your weekly volume? Match with a coach who’ll build your ideal hypertrophy split.
When it comes to building muscle, there’s no escaping the importance of training volume. Volume refers to the total amount of work you do, typically calculated as:
Sets × Reps × Weight
However, for muscle growth specifically, the number of hard sets per muscle group per week is one of the most practical and widely used measures of volume.
Muscle hypertrophy is primarily stimulated by:
Mechanical tension
Muscle damage
Metabolic stress
Volume is the vehicle that delivers these stimuli. More volume (to a point) generally means more growth—provided you can recover from it.
Research offers surprisingly consistent benchmarks for how many sets per muscle group you should perform to maximize growth:
10–20 sets per muscle group per week is the sweet spot for hypertrophy.
Beginners may grow with as little as 6–10 sets per muscle group weekly.
Advanced lifters may benefit from 15–25 sets, depending on their recovery ability.
A 2017 meta-analysis by Schoenfeld et al. concluded that:
Performing more than 10 sets per week per muscle group leads to significantly greater hypertrophy than doing less than 5 sets.
But there’s a caveat: more volume doesn’t always mean better—especially if you’re not recovering or using proper intensity.
Muscle Group — Recommended Weekly Sets — Notes
Chest — 12–20 — Compound lifts often hit triceps/shoulders too
Back — 15–25 — Includes horizontal and vertical pulling
Shoulders — 12–20 — Delts benefit from varied angles
Quads — 10–20 — Squats, leg presses are demanding
Hamstrings — 10–15 — Include both hip hinge and knee flexion
Glutes — 12–20 — Respond well to frequency
Biceps — 10–15 — Often hit during back work
Triceps — 10–15 — Get hit in chest and shoulder pressing
Calves — 12–20 — Need higher volume and frequency
Abs — 6–15 — Can tolerate high frequency
Spread this volume across 2–3 sessions per muscle group each week for optimal recovery and stimulation.
Understanding your training volume range helps you stay efficient:
Minimum Effective Volume (MEV): The lowest amount of volume that still causes growth.
Maximum Recoverable Volume (MRV): The most volume you can do without regressing or getting injured.
Your job is to train between MEV and MRV. Go above MRV, and you risk overtraining; go below MEV, and progress stalls.
As you gain experience, both your MEV and MRV typically increase—meaning you’ll need more volume to progress but also need more recovery to support it.
You don’t have to cram all your sets into one day. In fact, spreading them across multiple sessions improves:
Recovery
Performance
Muscle protein synthesis
Example: 10 sets/week for chest can be 5 sets on Monday, 5 on Thursday.
This makes training splits—like upper/lower or push/pull/legs—ideal for hypertrophy.
Experience Level — Recommended Sets/Week per Muscle
Beginner — 6–10
Intermediate — 10–16
Advanced — 15–25
As you become more advanced:
Gains come slower
Volume needs rise
Recovery must be managed more strategically
Not all sets are created equal. A “hard” set is one done:
Close to failure (within 1–3 reps)
With good form
At sufficient intensity
Doing 20 junk sets won't beat 12 quality ones. Focus on:
Effective reps: The final few reps in a set that actually stimulate growth.
Progressive overload: Each week, aim to increase weight or reps slightly.
Compound lifts often target multiple muscle groups. This leads to set overlap:
Bench press = chest + triceps + shoulders
Pull-ups = lats + biceps
Therefore, you might count a bench press set for both chest and triceps, but you'll still need isolation work to fully stimulate smaller muscles.
Balance:
70% of your volume from compounds
30% from isolation work for lagging areas
Too much volume can lead to:
Poor sleep
Decreased strength
Chronic soreness
Mental burnout
Solutions:
Deload weeks every 4–6 weeks
Drop sets or intensifiers to maintain stimulus with fewer total sets
Listen to your body and monitor fatigue
Sample 4-day split for intermediate lifter:
Monday — Chest + Triceps — 12 + 10
Tuesday — Back + Biceps — 14 + 10
Thursday — Legs (quads, hamstrings) — 18
Friday — Shoulders + Arms — 12 + 10
Weekly total: ~60 sets (distributed for recovery and balance)
Track:
Strength gains
Pump and soreness quality
Body composition
Progress pictures
If you’re not improving and your recovery’s in check, increase volume by adding 2–4 sets per week.
To avoid plateaus and burnout, periodize your training:
Linear: Gradually increase volume over time.
Undulating: Vary volume/intensity week to week.
Block: 3–4 week blocks focusing on a specific volume or intensity.
This ensures steady, long-term gains.
Myth: "More sets = more gains"
Truth: Only to a point—then it becomes counterproductive.
Myth: "You need to train every day"
Truth: Muscles grow when resting—not when training non-stop.
Ignoring small muscles (e.g., calves, rear delts)
Not adjusting volume based on fatigue or progress
Chasing volume without intensity
Keep your sets purposeful, progressive, and recoverable.
Leading hypertrophy researchers suggest:
Most people will maximize growth with 10–20 hard sets per muscle per week
Volume must align with recovery capacity
Quality over quantity always wins
A 2019 review in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research confirmed:
“Training volume is a primary determinant of hypertrophic adaptations.”
To grow muscle effectively:
Start with 10–12 sets per muscle group per week.
Adjust based on results, recovery, and soreness.
Increase gradually if needed.
Track your workouts and ensure intensity is high enough.
Remember, more isn’t always better—better is better.