How Much Training Volume Builds Muscle?

Training volume is how much work you do in your strength sessions. More of it tends to build more muscle, up to a point: in the best-known meta-analysis, each extra weekly set per muscle added a little more growth, and 10 or more hard sets per muscle a week did better than fewer than 5. The useful way to count volume is in hard sets, with volume load (kilograms lifted) as a second view.

This article is general information, not medical advice.

Two Ways to Count Volume

• Weekly sets per muscle. The number of hard sets that train a muscle group each week, not counting warm-ups. It’s the measure most research on muscle growth uses.
• Volume load. Repetitions times load, summed over your working sets: 3 sets of 10 at 60 kg is 1,800 kg. It captures heavier loads and more reps in one number, but treats 30 easy reps the same as 30 hard ones.

Both are only comparable within the same exercise or kind of training: a kilogram moved in a deadlift isn’t a kilogram moved in a curl.

What the Evidence Shows

In a 2017 meta-analysis, Schoenfeld, Ogborn, and Krieger pooled 15 studies of resistance training and muscle size. They found a graded dose-response: each additional weekly set was associated with a 0.37% greater gain in muscle size, and the groups doing 10 or more sets per muscle a week tended to gain more than those doing fewer than 5. The studies were short, mostly in young men, and later research suggests the extra benefit shrinks at high volumes, so “more” isn’t limitless.

Sets must be hard to count. A 2024 meta-regression by Robinson and colleagues found that muscle growth increased as sets were taken closer to failure, while strength gains were similar across a wide range of effort. A set stopped many reps short of failure does less for muscle than its kilograms suggest.

Practical Ranges

• Start with what you can recover from. For many people, around 10 hard sets per muscle group a week, spread across two or more sessions, is a reasonable target.
• Add gradually. A set or two more per muscle every few weeks, if you’re recovering well and progress has stalled.
• Count hard sets. Most working sets should end within a few reps of failure; see What Are RPE and Reps in Reserve?

The World Health Organization’s guidelines recommend muscle-strengthening activities for all major muscle groups on at least two days a week, which is a minimum for health rather than a target for growth.

Following It in Kaizora

Strength training on Fitness is logged set by set: exercise, reps, load, RPE, and the set’s type. Strength Training Volume Load adds up repetitions times load over every set except warm-ups, and Strength Training Sets Logged counts every set. Both are summed, so a week’s value is its total. Break volume load down by exercise from its chart’s header to see each lift’s share. A habit such as “at least 20 strength training sets in 7 days” turns weekly volume into a target; see Habits.

The Short Version

• More weekly hard sets per muscle tend to build more muscle, with diminishing returns.
• 10 or more hard sets per muscle a week did better than under 5 in a meta-analysis.
• Volume load counts kilograms but not effort; sets near failure count most for growth.

Sources

• Schoenfeld BJ, Ogborn D, Krieger JW, “Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” Journal of Sports Sciences 35, no. 11 (2017): 1073–1082. doi:10.1080/02640414.2016.1210197
• Robinson ZP et al., “Exploring the dose–response relationship between estimated resistance training proximity to failure, strength gain, and muscle hypertrophy: a series of meta-regressions,” Sports Medicine 54, no. 9 (2024): 2209–2231. doi:10.1007/s40279-024-02069-2
• World Health Organization, WHO guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour (2020).