How many sets a week does it take to build muscle?
More weekly sets build more muscle, but each extra set adds a little less. If you only do a few sets a muscle a week, a few more will probably help.
By Anthony Topalides, who lifts and makes Two Plates. Checked against the sources below on 27 October 2026.
What the research found
In 2017, Brad Schoenfeld's team pooled 15 studies. The more sets people did for a muscle each week, the more it grew.
A larger review in Sports Medicine, led by Joshua Pelland, pooled 67 studies and found the same, with the returns shrinking as the sets go up.
Counting your sets
Count the hard sets that train a muscle across the whole week, not per session. Squats and leg presses both count for your quads. If the total is two or three, a few more will probably help. If you're already doing a lot, more won't buy you much.
Next session
Before your next session, write down how many sets you do for each muscle across a whole week and decide whether it's worth doing more.
About the app
I make Two Plates, so I'm biased. Every set you log stays in your history for free, so the count is there when you want it.
Where this comes from
- Schoenfeld, Ogborn and Krieger, Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass, Journal of Sports Sciences 35(11), 2017
- Pelland and others, The resistance training dose response: meta-regressions exploring the effects of weekly volume and frequency on muscle hypertrophy and strength gains, Sports Medicine, 2026