With so many different training programs and opinions on how to train for hypertrophy (muscle growth), it can be difficult to know what you should do and how you should be training. Very frequently, I get questions that are on the theme of: is this training program good? Should I train my legs twice or three times a week? Is 3 bicep exercises enough, or should I do more? All of these questions are centred around the same core of knowing whether or not the training program, including the volume (number of sets performed) and number of exercises are appropriate to grow.
However, although seemingly simple and indeed reasonable questions to ask, these are not easy questions to answer. Why? The current article will deal with this, by first briefly explaining how hypertrophy works, how to apply hypertrophy style training, and then explaining interindividual training differences in response to resistance training exercise programs. After these points, it should be clear why the above questions are basically impossible to answer without further context. Then, we will wrap up with explaining how to use this knowledge to guide our training to maximise our results and make better gains.
How hypertrophy works
My target audience with this article is beginners and intermediates, some of which may know this process and others not. In any case, it will be brief and minimally technical since knowing the ins and outs is not important. But knowing one principal is — progressive overload. Brian Minor, Eric Helms and Jacob Schepis — three influential names in the fitness industry definitely worth an Instagram follow — describe this as “imposing a stimulus sufficient for an adaptive response” (the stimulus being training) [1]. It is more colloquially described as getting stronger over time, although the authors in the previous citation refute this as a misapplication of the term in their article. Instead, they say: “Progressive overload could therefore be described as the observation of improved performance because of these adaptations” (and I agree that this is a better way to think about progressive overload). In any case, what this means in layman’s terms is: if you train correctly for hypertrophy, you can expect to see your performance increase over time.
Could you train in a way that facilitates growth of muscles without improved performance? Probably in some circumstances, but these will almost entirely be out of the norm. But instead, let’s think of the following situation: could you maximise your muscle growth without also the co-occurrence of progressive overload? Definitely not. Your muscles are responsible for exerting the force that allows you to do things like lifting a weight. All things (lifting technique, form, tempo, other variables like that) equal, a larger muscle will be a stronger muscle in the vast majority of circumstances. It then follows that, all things equal (more on the emphasis of this phrase later), if your training performance in a hypertrophy training program is increasing (usually tracked as more reps or weight than previously), you’re gaining muscle. Notice that I am ensuring to specify “performance in a hypertrophy training program” because you can make great strength or cardiovascular training progress without any muscular hypertrophy occurring [2]. We will discuss how to know whether your training program is hypertrophy orientated or not a little further down.
Summary: As a quick summary, we have defined progressive overload as performance improvements in current training due to the effects of previous training sessions on the muscles, and we have agreed that this manifests in the form being able to do perform superiorly to previous training sessions, usually via more reps, more weight lifted, or both.
How to apply hypertrophy style training?
So, we know we need to have progressive overload occurring, since this shows that our training style is causing adaptations in the muscle, and this will likely lead to hypertrophy. The question then is how do we do this? I.e., what should our training look like to facilitate this? Well, we established already that it shouldn’t be cardiovascular training, and that strength training is also not ideal for this. These are opposite ends of the scale, so let’s go for somewhere between them. Luckily, this zone has already been identified and there is a fairly clear consensus on what this is.
Resistance training in the 6–30 rep range with an adequate intensity will achieve this [2]. There may be some leeway on this — you will still grow muscle at 4 and 34 reps — but generally this range is a good range to shoot for. To make this even more certain, you could shoot for 8–20 reps per set, and this is indeed what a lot of people do. And what about “adequate intensity”. Well, intensity is used in different ways in different contexts. In scientific literature, it is thought of as absolute load being lifted. A high intensity would be, for example, performing reps at 80% of your one repetition max (RM), and a lower would be performing reps at 40%. Intensity is also used more colloquially to mean how hard your training is, which basically translates to proximity to failure. How close are you to not being able to do another rep, despite trying your absolute hardest? If the answer is very close, your training intensity is high. Right now, whichever definition we pick does not really matter, since we still arrive at the same end point. If you are training in the 6–30 rep range and your training is of adequate intensity (be it load in the bar or how difficult it feels), you’re on the right track.
Summary: Training with sufficient load and close enough to failure in the 6–30 rep range, with a bias on the 6–20 rep range, will provide the stimulus needed for progressive overload, and presumably hypertrophy, to occur.
Does the rep range within this broader range matter? This is a topic for a whole other article, but yes and no… From my understanding, lighter and heavier loads on average lead to similar hypertrophic responses. However, practically it is a good idea to use various rep range schemes in accordance with various factors. For example, exercises like squats and deadlifts are probably better off performed with a lower rep range, since performing upwards of 15 reps on these exercises could lead to cardiovascular performance or balance issues interfering with one’s ability to execute the exercise effectively. Rear delt flyes, however, will probably benefit a great deal more from higher rep ranges rather than lower due to the tendency of surrounding muscles to take over during heavier work. Other factors that influence this could be training status of the individual (bias towards medium-higher rep ranges); existing injuries; interindividual differences in response; and personal preference. But, in any case, we will not deliberate on this point. Just know that this is the rep range we are interested in.
Now we know how to distinguish between different training programmes. If the majority, if not all, of the exercises are in the 6–30 rep range, we have ourselves a hypertrophy orientated training program. But we are still missing crucial information, namely what exercise to do, how many of them to do, and how much volume (here meaning how many sets of each exercise) to do. Here is where things get more nuanced…
Interindividual differences in response to training volumes
I will assume you have the “what exercises to do” part covered and will not discuss that here. Knowing what exercises target which muscles can sometimes not be obvious, but in most cases, it is easy to find information on this. However, how many exercises and how many sets to do is another story. There’s some overlap between number of exercises and volume, in that more exercises often comes with more volume, however they are also different, since different exercises can train the muscles differently or incorporate different muscles, whereas more sets of an exercise just means doing the same exercise more times. For now, how many exercises to do will be grouped with “what exercises to do” since they both really would require separate articles to this one. Instead, we will focus mostly on how many sets to do.
Well then, how many sets should you do? There is no answer to this question. Let’s illustrate with examples using two of the greatest bodybuilders ever. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a man who needs no introduction. He was the king of the bodybuilding world through basically the whole of the 70s. He trained famously with a very high volume. He often trained twice a day, for hours on end, performing many sets for each exercise. Dorian Yates of the UK was the best bodybuilder in the world through most of the 90s. His training style, however, was famous for being very low volume and low frequency. Later in his career, he basically trained each muscle group once a week and performed only 2–3 sets. He trained for around 45 minutes to an hour and trained only several times a week. These two men were kings of their era but had vastly different training styles. Whilst it should be recognised that both (potentially) could have had better gains training in a different way, I think you’ll agree based on the pictures below that something was going right for them.
Research has now shown that people respond differently to different volumes of training. It is suggested that higher training volumes lead to greater hypertrophy gains [2], however this is not as conclusive as it may seem. Whilst in many cases more volume may lead to better hypertrophy response, this rests on the idea that the individual in question can recover from this adequately. Imagine a situation where an intermediate lifter — who is now fairly strong and capable of training hard — is running the popular “push, pull, legs” training program and training 6 days a week. He hears the news that more volume = more gains, and goes from a reasonable 8 sets per session for his chest to 14 sets per session, per week, equalling 28 sets a week in total. If one was training with a close proximity to failure, it could be difficult to recover from that. If you cannot recover between bouts of training sessions, then the adaptations necessary for progressive overload are not occurring, and you are sacrificing progression.
Now, in this scenario, our intermediate lifter has a choice — he either drops the volume, keeps his intensity high, and continues training the way he has been, or he reduces his training intensity a little in order to accommodate more training volume. Which should he pick? The answer, as most experienced lifters will know, cannot be known. Statistically, you could take the approach of saying the *most* people would benefit from dropping intensity a little to allow more volume, however you don’t care about what’s statistically relevant, you care about what’s relevant to you. Just like we now know about the interindividual differences that occur in response to diet [3], something similar exists for training. Although a weaker form of evidence, anecdotes in the bodybuilding world will demonstrate many instances where maintaining intensity but reducing training volume has allowed adequate recovery between sessions, and thus better long-term progress (myself included, in certain circumstances). Nice, but then how do *you* know what *you* should be doing?
Summary: People respond differently to different training volumes. Some will grow more will more volume, whereas some will grow more by reducing volume to facilitate recovery between training sessions.
Progressive overload as an indicator of training program efficacy
You can’t know which one you should be doing until you try. As with many things in life, experimentation provides information that can be used to guide decision making. You try various training styles and see which produces the best results, which in this case is muscular hypertrophy. The only objective direct way to assess this is of course by physical measurements of the muscles, although this is inconvenient and can actually be deceiving (certain training programs be provide a “pump” to the muscles, where they look bigger during the training program but will return to normal size when moving to another program). Plus, changes will occur on a very small scale which cannot be practically measured week-to-week. A much more convenient way to assess this is via performance changes over time. This is where the article comes full circle.
The best way to know if your training program is working is by reflecting on your performance over time, since, as we have already established, a larger muscle allows greater force output (and thus training performance) than the small prior version of itself. So, one of the best ways to know if your training program is working is to see if it allows you to progress over time. If you’re still performing the same way you were 3 months ago, something is going wrong somewhere. Assuming you’re meeting all of the other criteria to allow progressive overload to occur (e.g., such as training in the 6–30 rep range at an adequate intensity), and your lifestyle variables are in order (enough protein, overall calories, sleep, no hormonal issues, stress, etc.) then we look to volume. It may be that you’re doing too much and not recovering, which would be suggested by being often very sore and tired, amongst others. It may be that your training volume is too low, which would be suggested by often feeling very fresh (toooo fresh maybe) and leaving the gym feeling like you have much left to give. In any case, this is now your chance to experiment and see what you can do to improve. Try thinking about adding or removing training days, adding or removing exercises, adding or removing sets and seeing what this does to your progression on your lifts. If it is going up, then you’re in a good spot. If not, then try going in the other direction.
With enough persistence and meticulousness, you’ll start to find your answers. Note that this will vary between muscles, and it will vary within yourself depending on things such as your training status, stress, age, and other similar lifestyle factors, so you can’t expect to simply find a golden number of sets to perform and have that forever. Plus, it’s also probably sensible to cycle volume, since muscles become sensitised and desensitised to volume. For example, it’s often advised to run a primer phase wherein low volume is performed to resensitize the muscles to volume again, explained in more detail by Revive Stronger in reference number [4]. Others, such as Mike Israetel of Renaissance Periodization suggest adding sets through a mesocycle is a good idea [5]. Experiment with these ideas, see which ones allow you to progress best, and keep an open mind to trying to different things, since this will likely change throughout your life.
Despite my stress on the interindividual differences associated with training volume, some sensible estimates can be made. You can probably expect anywhere between 6–20 sets/muscle/week to be a good starting point, give or take. Larger muscles like legs and back can take more sets, mostly just because these muscle groups are composed of more individual muscles, which require different exercises (which usually means more total sets) to be adequately challenged. Smaller muscles recover faster but have a lower complexity and thus require fewer total exercises. So, it is a good idea to consider performing more sets of an exercise, rather than selecting multiple different exercise. Regardless, I’d expect many more sets than 25–30 per week, per muscle in someone training hard to be detrimental, just as I’d expect much less than 4 sets a week for a given muscle to probably not be ideal for most people. However, the cornerstone of this article is that interindividual differences exist and it’s up to you to find your own responses out — so take these only as rough guidelines.
Summary: Use progressive overload to gauge whether or not a training program is effective at growing muscle. If you’re progressing over time, this is an indication that the training program is working well. If not, you may need to modify volume.
How can you track this progression?
Hang in there, we’re almost finished. All this talk about progression is great, but how does look exactly and how does one track it? Progress in resistance training exercise for hypertrophy comes mostly in the form of increases in load on the bar or number of reps performed, or both, all other things equal. Again, I use this phrase. The reason is because one use different lifting form one week compared to the next; they may alter their rep speed; they may use a slightly different machine; these make it hard to know whether actual progression has occurred or not. Thus, if you want to get serious about your progress, you should do your best to standardise your training so that you get a more accurate reflection of how performance is really changing. Keep exercise order similar, keep form the same, keep rep tempo the same between *the same exercises* week-to-week. That way, if you are regularly performing better within the 6–30 rep range, you can take a good guess that came from extra muscle.
In terms of actually tracking this, it is highly advised to use some type of logging system. I prefer a notebook in which I write down every lift in every session, whereas others prefer their phone. It doesn’t matter how you do it, but doing it is very important. It allows you to stay objective and accountable. It may seem arduous at first, but it soon becomes something you feel lost without when training. All of that data can provide you with very important information on your training. It literally forces you to stay progressing, because it’s very clear to you when you’re not — you simply look back over the last few weeks. Without this accountability, it becomes too easy to settle on the same number of reps you did the last few times, especially when you’re tired or stressed, or something like that.
Finally, to quickly touch on how much progression you can expect, this again is not easy to state. Different exercises, obviously, have different progression schemes. However again we see differences between individuals here. The same amount of hypertrophy can result in different strength gains between people. This is not just a factor of, for example, absolute size of the person, but also simply differences between the muscles and the strength potential of an individual. Whilst it can be generally expected that one person who is stronger than another in the 6–30 rep range will have more muscle, this is not always going to be true. You will figure out what type of gains in performance you can expect as you track for a longer period of time.
Summary: Keep your training consistent and write down your lifts in your training sessions. This will provide accurate information on your progression, and thus whether you should consider changing your training program.
Conclusion
This is a pretty long article, but I wanted to explain everything thoroughly because this is probably the question I get asked most, even though it comes in different forms. Beyond it being obvious when a training program will not work (e.g., because it involved monstrous amounts of sets or poorly selected exercises, etc.), I hope you now realise how it is difficult to say with high accuracy whether a training program will work for an individual or not. I could take a guess for most training schedules, especially for beginners who grow very easily, but it’s probably not going to be optimum. For the late beginner or intermediate lifter who has now read this article, however, it should be fairly easy to know how effective your training program is at allowing you to increase your muscle size. Keep progressive overload at the forefront of your mind when assessing your training schedule. If you’re consistently progressing in performance over time, you can expect good results in hypertrophy to follow.
References:
[1] Minor, B., Helms, E., & Schepis, J. (2020). RE: Mesocycle Progression in Hypertrophy: Volume Versus Intensity. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 42(5), 121–124. https://doi.org/10.1519/ssc.0000000000000581
[2] Krzysztofik, Wilk, Wojdała, & Gołaś. (2019b). Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(24), 4897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244897
[3] Kirk, D., Catal, C., & Tekinerdogan, B. (2021). Precision nutrition: A systematic literature review. Computers in Biology and Medicine, 133, 104365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2021.104365
[4] https://revivestronger.com/primer-phase-practical-application/
[5] Israetel, M., Feather, J., Faleiro, T. V., & Juneau, C. E. (2019). Mesocycle Progression in Hypertrophy: Volume Versus Intensity. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 42(5), 2–6. https://doi.org/10.1519/ssc.0000000000000518
