Doing more sets in a workout helps you get stronger and bigger, but after a certain point, extra sets don’t help much—especially for strength. You hit your sweet spot for strength with fewer sets than you need for muscle growth.

Doing more sets of weightlifting in one session can help you build bigger muscles and get stronger, but after a certain point, doing even more sets doesn’t help much—around 2 sets is enough for strength, and 11 sets is enough for muscle growth.

The total amount of work done (weight × reps × sets) seems to matter for muscle growth — more work generally leads to more muscle, even if the weights are light.

The more you lift weights each week, the less extra strength you gain from each additional session—but your muscles keep growing a bit more even when you train a lot, so strength gains fade faster than muscle growth.

When you lift weights more often or heavier, your strength goes up fast at first but then slows down a lot quicker than your muscles growing — so strength gets tired of extra work sooner than muscle size does.

If you work out more often, your muscles grow bigger — but only if you keep increasing your workouts, because your body gets used to the same routine and stops responding as well.