Even if you do a lot of leg workouts, your thigh muscles grow about the same amount whether you do 20 or 50 sets a week—just doing any consistent training makes them bigger.

Scientific Claim

Resistance training with any weekly volume between 22 and 52 sets causes significant muscle hypertrophy in the vastus lateralis and lateral thigh of resistance-trained males, but the magnitude of growth does not differ significantly between these volumes.

Original Statement

“All groups increased their vastus lateralis CSA after the intervention, indicating a main effect of time (F1, 28 = 48.48, P < 0.0001); however, there were no significant time–group interactions (F2, 28 = 2.98, P = 0.067).”

From study:Effects of Different Weekly Set Progressions on Muscular Adaptations in Trained Males: Is There a Dose–Response Effect?

Evidence Quality Assessment

Claim Status

appropriately stated

Study Design Support

Design supports claim

Appropriate Language Strength

definitive

Can make definitive causal claims

Assessment Explanation

The within-group time effect is statistically significant and supported by direct measurements. The absence of between-group differences is also statistically reported, allowing definitive conclusions about the sufficiency of moderate volume.

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (0)

No supporting evidence found

Contradicting (1)

Effects of Different Weekly Set Progressions on Muscular Adaptations in Trained Males: Is There a Dose–Response Effect?

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2024 Mar 1

The study found that different amounts of leg workouts led to similar muscle growth, but the results weren’t strong enough to say for sure that all volumes between 22 and 52 sets work the same.

Source Study

Effects of Different Weekly Set Progressions on Muscular Adaptations in Trained Males: Is There a Dose–Response Effect?

Score: 52

DOI: 10.1249/mss.0000000000003317

Similar Assertions

Doing a lot more leg workouts—over 50 sets a week—doesn’t make your thigh muscles grow bigger than doing 20–40 sets a week, even if you train for 12 weeks.

89%

Doing more sets of weightlifting each week helps you build more muscle, but after a certain point, doing even more sets doesn't help much more.

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When people who already lift weights train with different methods—like starting light and going heavy, or doing sets to failure—all of them get about the same muscle growth if they do the same total amount of work.

85%

Even though the guys doing the most workouts looked like they might have grown a little more, the difference wasn’t big enough to say for sure that more sets = more muscle.

84%

Higher weekly resistance training volume leads to greater muscle hypertrophy in trained individuals.

84%