How Many Sets Should You Do Per Exercise?
This article was submitted by Mehdi, author of the strength training blog StrongLifts.com
Israel invited me to make a post about how many sets you should do per exercise. For a lot of people going to the gym, the amount of sets you should remains unclear. This post will help you out.
Benefits of Sets. What is the purpose of a set anyway? What is it good for?
- Improved Technique. The more sets you do, the more you can practice your technique. If you’re new to weight lifting, 5 sets leads to technical proficiency faster than 3 sets.
- Increased Stress. If you Squat 60kg for 3 sets of 5 reps, you have lifted 900kg. 5 sets of 5 reps with 60kg amounts for 1500kg volume. Volume stresses your body: it forces it to build muscle & strength.
The Problem with Sets. Your body needs to recover from all that stress. You can’t do high amounts of sets for a long time without overtraining. Some symptoms you might experience:
- Lack of motivation
- Strength loss
- Problems sleeping
- Injuries
How Many Sets Should You Do? Best is to shoot for 15 to 25 reps per exercise depending on how many reps you do. Your warm-up sets don’t count. Examples:
- 3 sets of 5 reps. Build strength, power & myofibrillar hypertrophy.
- 5 sets of 5 reps. Same as 3 x 5, but more stress & technical work.
- 3 sets of 8 reps. Less strength, more sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
- 2 sets of 12 reps. More endurance & sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
All rep ranges build muscle, strength & endurance. But some do it better than others. Start light, learn to do your exercises correctly & add weight each workout.
Unless you understand how sets & reps affect your body and thus the results you’re getting, stick to a routine proven to work. If you don’t know which one, check out StrongLifts 5×5. It takes 3×30mins per week.
This article was submitted by Mehdi, author of StrongLifts.com. Check out his blog for more tips on how to Deadlift, Bench Press, Overhead Press, gain weight & lose fat.
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Good information, thanks for sharing.
I do 5 sets to complete failure per exercise. This means that, with bench presses for example, I will use a weight of 165lbs and in the first set, I might get in 18 reps. I rest for 3 minutes, and do another set at which time I may be able to do 15 reps…etc. By the time I get to the last set, I can only do 1 rep.
Don’t know where I learned this, but I like it.
That’s something I used to do in high school. Way too many sets for what I want to accomplish.
Yeah, I learned that in HS also, I just don’t know who introduced it. I’m a little guy (height wise), so it works for me and doesn’t take too long because I start at a weight that will knock me out fairly quickly.
I just lost 30 pounds and won a contest! The thing to do is constantly challenge yourself by changing exercises.
Way to go!
Too bad warm-up sets doesn’t count..