How many sets per muscle group per week?
The short answer, the reasoning behind it, and a per-muscle table you can train from.
For most lifters trying to grow, 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group per week. Smaller muscles sit at the lower end, back and shoulders tolerate the upper end, and the number drops to roughly 6 to 12 when you are eating at a deficit and training to hold what you have rather than add to it.
That range is wide because the right number depends on the muscle, how many sessions you spread it across, and how well you recover. The rest of this page is how to narrow it down.
What counts as a set
A working set taken close to failure — roughly 0 to 3 reps left in reserve. Warm-ups do not count. Neither does a set you stopped well short of, because the last few hard reps are what drive the adaptation.
Sets are counted per muscle, not per exercise. A row trains back and biceps, so it contributes to both columns. This is the most common reason people believe they are doing 12 sets for biceps when the real number, counting rows and pulldowns, is closer to 20.
The four volume landmarks
Rather than one magic number, it helps to think in four thresholds. These come from the framework popularised by Israetel and colleagues, and they are what the numbers in the table below are built on.
- MV — maintenance volume. The least weekly work that holds the muscle you already have. Below this you slowly lose it.
- MEV — minimum effective volume. The fewest sets that actually trigger new growth. Between MV and MEV you tread water.
- MAV — maximum adaptive volume. The range where each additional set still buys meaningful growth. This is where productive training lives.
- MRV — maximum recoverable volume. The most you can recover from. Past it, fatigue accumulates faster than you adapt and progress stalls or reverses.
The practical instruction is simple: start near MEV, add sets over a block while progress continues, and stay short of MRV. More is not better once you are past the adaptive range — it is just more fatigue.
Weekly sets by muscle group
Population-level ranges. Use them as a starting point, not a prescription — individual MRV varies by roughly a factor of two.
| Muscle group | MV | MEV | Growth range | MRV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chest | 4 | 10 | 12–18 | 22 |
| Back | 6 | 10 | 14–20 | 25 |
| Delts (side/rear) | 0 | 8 | 14–20 | 26 |
| Quads | 6 | 8 | 12–18 | 20 |
| Glutes & hams | 4 | 6 | 10–16 | 20 |
| Biceps | 4 | 8 | 12–18 | 26 |
| Triceps | 4 | 6 | 10–14 | 18 |
| Calves | 6 | 8 | 12–16 | 20 |
Side and rear delts show an MV of zero because pressing already keeps the front delt busy; the side and rear heads are what need deliberate work. Biceps and delts tolerate high ceilings because the sets are short and cheap to recover from, whereas quads sit lower — squats cost far more systemically per set.
Frequency changes the answer
The weekly total is not independent of how you split it. Somewhere around 9 hard sets in one session for one muscle, extra sets stop contributing much — quality falls off as fatigue builds within the session.
So 18 sets of chest in a single weekly session is not 18 productive sets. Split across two sessions it is. Training a muscle twice a week is the simplest way to make a higher weekly volume usable, which is why a three-day upper / lower / full-body split beats push-pull-legs at that frequency: PPL over three days hits each muscle only once.
If you genuinely only train a muscle once a week, cap the expectation near the lower end of its range and push intensity instead — fewer sets closer to failure, or rest-pause work.
Bulking versus cutting
In a calorie surplus you can recover from more, so volume belongs in the adaptive range and the goal is to add tissue. In a deficit, recovery is compromised and the goal changes: hold the muscle you have. That means dropping toward the maintenance end of the range — roughly 6 to 12 sets for most muscles — while keeping the load on the bar. Cutting volume is fine; cutting intensity is what loses muscle.
How to adjust from here
- Pick a starting number near MEV for each muscle and log it honestly.
- Add a set or two per muscle per week while performance is still improving.
- When performance stalls, joints ache, or sessions start feeling dreadful, you are at or past your MRV. Deload, then resume lower.
- Judge over weeks, not days. Single sessions tell you almost nothing.
Get your own numbers
LoadPlan turns the above into specific targets from your body weight, goal and training frequency, alongside the calories and macros to support them — free, no account, and your inputs stay in your browser.