The Study
Is There Too Much of a Good Thing?
This study looked at lots of other studies about lifting weights and found that doing more sets per workout is usually linked to getting bigger muscles and stronger — but only up to a point. It doesn’t prove that doing more sets makes you stronger, just that they tend to go together.
Analysis score
Maximum 100 for a systematic review with meta-analysis.
Where the score came from
Doing more weightlifting sets in one session helps you get stronger and bigger muscles—but only up to a point. After that, extra sets don’t help much.
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 544 / 100
Quality score
The highest quality evidence. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that pool randomized controlled trials, giving the most reliable summary of experimental evidence.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes—doing more than these numbers likely won’t help you get stronger or bigger, so you can save time and energy.
- 2For strength: best results at about 2 sets per session.
- 3For muscle growth: best results at about 11 sets per session.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Authors
Jacob Remmert, Joshua Pelland, Zac Robinson, Seth Hinson, Michael Zourdos
Related Content
Videos (2)
Claims (10)
Doing around 11 sets of exercises per workout is the sweet spot for building muscle. If you do more than that, your muscles won't grow any noticeably faster or bigger.
Doing more sets of weightlifting for each muscle group in a workout generally helps you build more muscle, but after a certain point, adding extra sets gives you smaller and smaller gains.
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.
We don’t know yet if doing more than 20 sets of weight training in one session helps you get stronger or if it’s just too much and stops helping—so don’t assume there’s a clear cutoff point where more sets stop being useful.
If you're trying to figure out how much muscle you build from each workout, you need to account for how long you've been training and how long the program has been going—otherwise, the numbers won't make sense.
Indirect sets (where a muscle acts as a secondary force generator) stimulate muscular hypertrophy but contribute less to growth than direct sets (where the muscle is the primary force generator).
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.