The Study
Resistance Training Performed With Single and Multiple Sets Induces Similar Improvements in Muscular Strength, Muscle Mass, Muscle Quality, and IGF-1 in Older Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
This study is like a fair test where people were randomly put into different exercise groups to see what works better. It shows that doing one set or three sets of exercises might give similar benefits for older women's strength and muscles, but we can't be totally sure because we don’t know all the details about how the study was done.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Older women who did one set or three sets of each exercise got equally stronger and built similar amounts of muscle over 12 weeks.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 550 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes, these changes are meaningful and show real improvements in strength and health for older women starting resistance training.
- 2Strength went up 16–37%, muscle mass increased 5.6–8.8%, muscle quality improved 10.5–25.2%, and IGF-1 levels rose 7.1–10.1%—whether doing one or three sets.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Journal of strength and conditioning research
Year
2020
Authors
P. Cunha, J. Nunes, C. Tomeleri, M. A. Nascimento, B. Schoenfeld, M. Antunes, L. Gobbo, D. Teixeira, E. Cyrino
Related Content
Claims (3)
For older women who don’t usually lift weights, doing one set of each exercise is just as good as doing three sets for getting stronger and building muscle over 12 weeks — more sets don’t seem to help extra at this stage.
If older women who aren't used to working out do 12 weeks of strength training—using 8 exercises and doing 10 to 15 reps each time—they’ll get noticeably stronger in both arms and legs, gain muscle, and improve key health markers, whether they do one or three sets per exercise.
If you're new to lifting, doing three sets of an exercise might not build more muscle than just doing one set—as long as you push each set to the point where you can't lift anymore.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.