How many sets per muscle per week, and how to count them

Start at about 10 sets per muscle per week, count what you already do, and go up only if you cope with it. The 10 is a practical reference. What has been measured is the direction: more sets, more muscle, and each extra set returns less.

What the studies say

Schoenfeld et al., 2017 analysed 34 groups from 15 studies. Each additional weekly set was linked to 0.37 more points of percentage gain. Comparing higher with lower volume within each study, the gap was 3.9 points. Grouped into under 5, 5 to 9 and 10 or more sets per muscle, the result was only a trend (P = 0.074), so the 10-set mark is not a proven cut-off.

Pelland et al., 2026 is larger: 67 studies and 2,058 participants, 79.1% of them men, with an average age of 25. Size and strength both rise with volume, with diminishing returns, and the drop-off is much more marked for strength.

Neither abstract gives a maximum number of sets. The 10 to 20 range you will see in many guides is a coaches' rule of thumb: useful for starting out, not a measured limit.

To put a size on that slope: if chest goes from 7 to 10 sets, the 2017 figure gives 3 × 0.37 = 1.11 more points of percentage gain over the length of a study. And since the curve flattens, according to Pelland et al., 2026, going from 20 to 23 would give less.

How to count a real week

Here is an upper/lower split over four days, 53 sets in all (Monday 14, Tuesday 13, Thursday 13, Friday 13).

How one row works, triceps: 3 from the cable extension plus 0.5 × (4 + 3 + 3) from the presses, so 3 + 5 = 8. The same week gives 3, 8 or 13 sets depending on the rule. That is why two people saying they do «12 sets of triceps» may be doing very different things.

Counting at 0.5, chest and biceps sit at 7 and hamstrings at 7.5. If chest matters to you, 3 more sets takes it to 10. There is nothing special about this week: it is there to show the method.

How to count an exercise that hits two muscles

Counting 1 for the target muscle and 0.5 for the helper is a convention. It has some backing: Pelland et al., 2026 tried counting indirect sets as 1, as 0.5 and as 0, and 0.5 fitted the data most closely. But that 0.5 is a modelling choice, not a measurement of how hard your triceps work in your bench press.

What counts as direct or indirect is also up to whoever is counting. We left the lower back out of the Romanian deadlift here, and someone else might include it. What matters is sticking to one rule so you can compare your own weeks. It is also usual to leave out warm-ups and sets very far from failure, again by convention; the guide to RPE and RIR explains how to judge that distance.

How to spread them across the week

However suits you. Schoenfeld et al., 2019 (25 studies) found no significant difference between frequencies when volume matched, and concludes you can choose by preference. When volume was not matched, more days came out slightly ahead, with a modest gap between 1 and 3 or more days. Pelland et al., 2026 agrees on muscle size, with an effect compatible with negligible. For strength it did find that higher frequency helps, also with diminishing returns.

How to adjust your number

1. Count your current week using one fixed rule.
2. Pick one or two muscles you want to prioritise and add 2 or 3 sets a week.
3. Hold that for about 4 weeks and look for progressive overload: more reps or more weight.
4. If reps fall for several sessions in a row or you struggle to recover, take sets away.

These steps and their numbers are practical judgement. No study in this guide compared them.

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