Most of the research on how much to lift and how often was done on young men who already train—so we don’t know if the same rules apply to women, older people, or beginners.

If you want to get stronger, doing your workouts more often helps—more than if you just want to get bigger muscles.

Doing your workouts more often per week doesn’t seem to help you build more muscle, as long as the total amount of lifting stays the same.

If you're a young guy lifting weights, your muscle growth and strength gains might be easier to predict if you treat big multi-muscle exercises (like squats) differently in your workout plan than isolated moves (like bicep curls).

Doing more sets of weightlifting each week helps you build more muscle, but after a certain point, adding even more sets gives you less extra benefit.

If you're already used to lifting weights, doing more sets and reps over time will help you build bigger muscles and get stronger — but only if you keep training consistently.