"10-20 sets per week"

[CaptainAwesome]

I'm seeing this recommendation a lot. It's so vague and leaves out the other variables. Where does it come from?

[Famendoza1981]

Where are you seeing examples of this recommendation? I’ve never heard of this, is this supposed to apply to a single lift per week or across all lifts?

[ChasingCurls69]

I'm seeing this recommendation a lot. It's so vague and leaves out the other variables. Where does it come from?

Where are you seeing it? I've seen similar benchmarks for training volume from Renaissance Periodization guys and references to research. It's intentionally vague because there are a lot of ways to arrange the training volume, and it's just one part of making a structured program.

[CaptainAwesome]

Where are you seeing examples of this recommendation? I’ve never heard of this, is this supposed to apply to a single lift per week or across all lifts?

It's geneerally said "per muscle group" or "per body part". I've just been seeing it pop up in various spots a lot lately. I was wondering if there was some study this came from. I'm curious to see the actual meat of what led to this conclusion.

[5hout]

I think it's an obsession with optimal/minimal time/maximal efficiency. There are diminishing marginal returns in terms of benefit per set that kick in past that and people wrongly conclude (or are very time limited) that it means you should only do the maximum return sets instead of saying "fuck it, go and do 8 amrap sets 4 times a week" (as one of the linked-linked studies did).


http://mythicalstrength.blogspot.com/20 ... ng-to.html
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/more-is-more/
https://www.jtsstrength.com/new-minimalism/
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-n ... ng-volume/

Somewhere in the game of internet telephone the advice got translated from "this is optimal from a time/avoiding diminished marginal return per unit of time" sense" and accidentally turned into "this is optimal".

[quikky]

Where are you seeing examples of this recommendation? I’ve never heard of this, is this supposed to apply to a single lift per week or across all lifts?

It's geneerally said "per muscle group" or "per body part". I've just been seeing it pop up in various spots a lot lately. I was wondering if there was some study this came from. I'm curious to see the actual meat of what led to this conclusion.

Some people will respond phenomenally with a lot fewer than 10 sets, and some will not respond at all to 20 sets, or even regress. The number of sets is a subset of the volume equation (reps x sets), and volume alone is a meaningless metric. The number of sets alone is therefore even more meaningless.

You have to define what constitutes stimulus, then determine how stimulating a given exercise is to you, then use secondary variables such as volume or the number of sets to determine whether the stimulus amount needs to be scaled up or down. Absent this context, 10-20 sets is a useless training parameter.

[JohnHelton]

Nuckols uses hard sets as his preferred way of measuring volume. Using that metric, it seems in the hypertrophy world that people generally need 10-20 hard sets per week per muscle group to grow. Personally I've never found this recommendation that helpful, especially since I'm almost always doing compound lifts. Maybe it makes more sense using machines where muscle groups are more isolated. Also I'm strength focused in general, adhering more to the HVLF model. The HVLF model suggests that "hard sets" aren't really necessary for strength. With such a model, one would tend to lift with more sets that are further from failure (e.g. @3 vs @8). All of that said, measuring volume is a messy business. I wish I had a simple, mathematical approach that worked with high and low loads, but I don't.

[CaptainAwesome]

Some people will respond phenomenally with a lot fewer than 10 sets, and some will not respond at all to 20 sets, or even regress. The number of sets is a subset of the volume equation (reps x sets), and volume alone is a meaningless metric. The number of sets alone is therefore even more meaningless.

You have to define what constitutes stimulus, then determine how stimulating a given exercise is to you, then use secondary variables such as volume or the number of sets to determine whether the stimulus amount needs to be scaled up or down. Absent this context, 10-20 sets is a useless training parameter.

Thats why I wanted to try and hunt down where this came from, to get more specifics on that recommendation. I agree that it seems like there are people who fall outside that recommendation entirely. I feel like I've responded fairly well to volumes a lot of people have criticized as entirely insufficient in the past. And I don't just mean with neurological adaptation, which is what seems to be insisted upon that the low volume stuff does. Muscles that were involved grew noticeably. I still haven't done anything that would be considered 10-20 sets per week for any muscle group. I'd like to try something higher volume at some point, just to see. The HVLF approach is interesting. I also want to try some kind of dedicated hypertrophy program, to see if it really does create better growth. Even if it doesn't it'll probably provide some strength in areas the main barbell lifts don't stimulate so well.

[dw]

It's usually said in a hypertrophy training context. It's probably based on some studies, but it also coincides well with most peoples volume needs I think.

I personally go over 20 for arms and back and need at least 12 for everything.

[asdf]

Where does it come from?

Schoenfeld: "We carried out a recent metanalysis on the topic that found 10+ sets per muscle per week elicited greater hypertrophy than <10 sets. Thus, this would be a good starting point.... Personally, I feel there is a benefit to periodizing volume so that you push a lifter to the point of overreaching and then pull back on the volume to allow proper recovery. For instance, you might have 10 sets per muscle per week during the first month of a periodized cycle, go up to 15 sets the next month, and then culminate with a period of 20 sets for overreaching – then repeat."

https://barbend.com/brad-schoenfeld-hypertrophy/

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

The recommendation is usually per muscle group, so 10-20 sets for chest, 10-20 sets for back and so on and so forth. It's for sets taken "close to failure" that is RPE 6-10.

I think that this recommendation is only good if you've never lifted much before, and you're trying to design a template that you will use as a starting point. But if you have some experience you should not need this recommendation in the first place, because you should already know how much volume you need, based on how you respond to training (unless you're not logging your training but I'm assuming you are indeed logging diligently). But then again, if you are a beginner, I would not advise you to design your own starting template, instead buy a good template from a reputable source.

Aside from that, there are a lot of caveats:
- the exercise matters: 20 of leg press is a lot less stress than 20 sets of squats (same remark for every movement that loads your spine)
- proximity to failure matters: 20 sets of squats at RPE 6 is probably survivable 20 sets of squats at RPE 9.5 is going to kill you
- the muscle group size matters: for small muscle groups you can do a lot more than 20 sets, for large muscle groups even 10 sets taken close to failure might be too much
- the range of motion matters: the longer the range of motion the less sets you can do
- the recommendation only applies to hypertrophy: what about strength ?
- how you evaluate failure matters: is RPE 10 form breakdown ? volitional failure ? actual failure ?

So all in all, I think this recommendation is completely useless. If you want to know how much volume works for you, look at your training log, the answer should already be there in plain sight.

[MarkKO]

The recommendation is usually per muscle group, so 10-20 sets for chest, 10-20 sets for back and so on and so forth. It's for sets taken "close to failure" that is RPE 6-10.

I think that this recommendation is only good if you've never lifted much before, and you're trying to design a template that you will use as a starting point. But if you have some experience you should not need this recommendation in the first place, because you should already know how much volume you need, based on how you respond to training (unless you're not logging your training but I'm assuming you are indeed logging diligently). But then again, if you are a beginner, I would not advise you to design your own starting template, instead buy a good template from a reputable source.

Aside from that, there are a lot of caveats:
- the exercise matters: 20 of leg press is a lot less stress than 20 sets of squats (same remark for every movement that loads your spine)
- proximity to failure matters: 20 sets of squats at RPE 6 is probably survivable 20 sets of squats at RPE 9.5 is going to kill you
- the muscle group size matters: for small muscle groups you can do a lot more than 20 sets, for large muscle groups even 10 sets taken close to failure might be too much
- the range of motion matters: the longer the range of motion the less sets you can do
- the recommendation only applies to hypertrophy: what about strength ?
- how you evaluate failure matters: is RPE 10 form breakdown ? volitional failure ? actual failure ?

So all in all, I think this recommendation is completely useless. If you want to know how much volume works for you, look at your training log, the answer should already be there in plain sight.

This is a really, really good post.

[CaptainAwesome]

Where does it come from?

Schoenfeld: "We carried out a recent metanalysis on the topic that found 10+ sets per muscle per week elicited greater hypertrophy than <10 sets. Thus, this would be a good starting point.... Personally, I feel there is a benefit to periodizing volume so that you push a lifter to the point of overreaching and then pull back on the volume to allow proper recovery. For instance, you might have 10 sets per muscle per week during the first month of a periodized cycle, go up to 15 sets the next month, and then culminate with a period of 20 sets for overreaching – then repeat."

https://barbend.com/brad-schoenfeld-hypertrophy/

A meta-analysis? Oh boy, never mind, I'm not gonna try and figure out how that number was reached from it.

Aside from that, there are a lot of caveats:
- the exercise matters: 20 of leg press is a lot less stress than 20 sets of squats (same remark for every movement that loads your spine)
- proximity to failure matters: 20 sets of squats at RPE 6 is probably survivable 20 sets of squats at RPE 9.5 is going to kill you
- the muscle group size matters: for small muscle groups you can do a lot more than 20 sets, for large muscle groups even 10 sets taken close to failure might be too much
- the range of motion matters: the longer the range of motion the less sets you can do
- the recommendation only applies to hypertrophy: what about strength ?
- how you evaluate failure matters: is RPE 10 form breakdown ? volitional failure ? actual failure ?

These are why I was curious where the it came from, because yes, all these things matter a lot when it comes to a set.

[Allentown]