When it comes to building muscle, most people focus on the types of exercises they perform, the weights they lift, or the number of reps they complete. However, one of the most crucial factors in maximizing muscle growth is often overlooked: exercise volume.

What is Exercise Volume?

Exercise volume refers to the total amount of work performed during a workout, which can be calculated as the number of sets completed for each exercise. In the context of building muscle, it’s important to understand the role that exercise volume plays in stimulating muscle fibers and encouraging growth.

How Much Volume Is Ideal for Muscle Growth?

For each major muscle group—such as your chest, back, legs, arms, and shoulders—the ideal volume tends to fall in the range of 12-20 sets per muscle group per week.  There is ample evidence that more advanced lifters can benefit from higher volumes, while novice lifters should stick closer to the 12 sets range. These numbers are likely optimal for stimulating muscle growth while ensuring you’re not overtraining. Training each major muscle group twice a week is often the best approach to ensure you’re hitting the necessary volume for optimal results.

Why 12-20 Sets?

The general consensus is that 12-20 sets per week are effective for a few key reasons:

• Sufficient Stimulus for Hypertrophy: Muscles grow when they are subjected to stress and forced to adapt. When you perform enough sets, you’re providing enough stimulus to trigger hypertrophy (muscle growth). Too few sets, and you might not engage the muscle fibers adequately. Too many sets, and you risk overtraining and diminishing returns.
• Time for Recovery: Adequate recovery is essential for muscle growth. By splitting your volume across two training sessions per week, you ensure that muscles have enough time to recover between workouts. This strategy allows you to hit the optimal volume without exhausting your body, preventing the potential for injury.
• Consistent Progress: By consistently hitting the recommended volume across multiple sessions, you’re ensuring that you’re progressively overloading your muscles. This means that over time, you’ll be increasing the stress placed on your muscles, which is key for continued growth.

Here are a couple of recent studies (in case you’re interested) that provide evidence to this recommendation:

1. Systematic Review by Baz-Valle et al. (2022)
   This review concluded that a training volume of 12–20 sets per muscle group per week is optimal for increasing muscle hypertrophy in young, trained men. The study found no additional benefits from increasing training volume beyond this range. PMC
2. Meta-Analysis by Schoenfeld et al. (2017)
   This analysis indicated that performing 10 or more sets per muscle group per week resulted in greater muscle growth compared to lower volumes. While it didn’t specifically focus on the 15–20 set range, it supports the notion that higher volumes can be beneficial for hypertrophy. Tiger Fitness
3. Study by Aube et al. (2022)
   In this study, participants performed 12, 18, or 24 sets per week. The group performing 12 sets showed the greatest muscle thickness gains, while the 24-set group had the lowest response, suggesting that higher volumes may not always lead to proportionally greater muscle growth. EVIDENCE BASED MUSCLE

Why Train Each Major Muscle Group Twice a Week?

Training each muscle group twice a week offers several advantages, including:

• More Frequent Stimulus: When muscles are exposed to exercise more frequently, they receive more opportunities for growth. This increased frequency ensures that your body doesn’t have time to “forget” the stimulus, leading to continuous progress.
• Better Recovery: Training a muscle group only once a week can lead to long recovery times, especially for large muscle groups like the legs or back. By splitting your training up and focusing on each group twice a week, you allow for more efficient recovery and muscle adaptation.
• Improved Intensity: Splitting your total volume for each muscle group over the course of two sessions should allow you to maintain a higher level of intensity overall.  It is important to remember that the recommended range of sets is referring to true “work sets”, that is to say sets that challenge you and near a point of acute muscular fatigue.

The Breakdown of Major Muscle Groups:

• Chest: Focus on exercises like bench press, chest flyes, dips, and push-ups. Aim for 12-20 sets per week, divided between two sessions. You can include compound movements (such as bench press) to engage larger muscle groups and isolation exercises (like chest flys) for targeting the muscle from different angles.
• Back: Your back is made up of a variety of muscles, including the lats and traps. Incorporating compound movements like pull-ups, rows, and lat pulldowns, along with isolation exercises, will help you reach the target volume of 12-20 sets per week. These movements help ensure that all areas of the back are worked properly.
• Legs: The legs are made up of large muscle groups, including the quads, hamstrings, and glutes. Exercises like squats, lunges, leg presses, and deadlifts will give you the necessary volume to stimulate growth. Aim to spread your volume across different exercises to hit each area.
• Arms: The arms are smaller muscle groups, so 12-20 sets per week might be spread across a variety of exercises for the biceps and triceps. Barbell curls, dumbbell curls, tricep pushdowns, and skull crushers are just a few examples of exercises you can incorporate.
• Shoulders: With the shoulders being a relatively smaller muscle group, 12-20 sets per week can be broken up into exercises like overhead presses, lateral raises, and front raises. Make sure to work all three heads of the shoulder for balanced development.

How to Structure Your Workouts for Maximum Muscle Growth:

To ensure you’re hitting the right volume for each muscle group, consider a workout split that focuses on multiple muscle groups twice a week. One popular option is the push/pull/legs split, where you train push muscles (chest, shoulders, and triceps), pull muscles (back and biceps), and legs on separate days. Here’s a sample weekly split:

• Day 1: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)
• Day 2: Pull (Back, Biceps)
• Day 3: Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes)
• Day 4: Rest or Active Recovery
• Day 5: Push (Chest, Shoulders, Triceps)
• Day 6: Pull (Back, Biceps)
• Day 7: Legs (Quads, Hamstrings, Glutes)

This split allows you to work each muscle group twice a week while ensuring enough recovery time. By targeting 12-20 sets per muscle group, you’ll optimize your training volume and promote muscle growth.

The Bottom Line

Exercise volume is one of the most important factors in muscle growth. By targeting 12-20 sets per major muscle group each week and training each muscle group twice, you provide your muscles with the necessary stimulus for hypertrophy while allowing for proper recovery. Keep your workouts structured, progressive, and consistent, and you’ll be on your way to maximizing your muscle growth potential.

• • • Training Experience: The optimal volume may differ for beginners compared to advanced trainees.
    • Muscle Group: Larger muscle groups like quadriceps may benefit from higher volumes, whereas smaller muscle groups might require less.
    • Recovery: Adequate recovery is crucial when increasing training volume to prevent overtraining and injury.​
    • Individual Variability: Responses to training volume can vary among individuals; some may benefit from higher volumes, while others may not.  There is even evidence that indicates that some individuals can benefit from even higher volumes than the recommended 20 sets.

If you’re serious about building muscle, make sure you’re not just focusing on what exercises you’re doing but also on the volume you’re putting in. Remember, it’s all about finding the balance between intensity, volume, and recovery for the best results!