How Many Sets and Reps Should You Do to Build Muscle? (2025)

In this article, you’ll learn the answer to the question many people, even experienced trainees, are confused about: “How many sets and reps to build muscle?”

Both the number of sets and reps you do can affect your training results. The key is to do just enough to stimulate growth and cause muscle fatigue but not so intense that you’ll be out of commission.

Key Points:

Reps: Aim for 6–12 reps per set. This is the sweet spot where your muscles can’t help growing bigger.
Sets: About 3–6 sets per exercise and ~10 weekly sets per muscle group is an excellent strategy for muscle hypertrophy.

However, things are not as set in stone as the numbers above might suggest. You have a great freedom of choice when planning your muscle-building sessions.

You want to read on for the details!

How Many Sets and Reps to Build Muscle: Key Terms You Should Know

In strength training,repsandsetsare like your workout vocabulary. When you understand them, you hold the key to planning your training routine effectively in your hands.

Here’s the breakdown:

What Are Reps?

Short for repetitions, a rep refers to completing one full motion of an exercise. If you do one push-up, bench press, or squat, you’ve done one rep of that exercise.

Let’s say you’re doing bench presses today. You lift the bar from the rack, lower it to your chest, and push it back up. That’s one rep completed. Good job!

What Are Sets?

Typically, you don’t do just one repetition and call it quits. Instead, you continue to perform rep after rep until you start to struggle and can’t do any more with good form.

And that’s a set: a group of consecutive reps.

For example, doing 10 bench presses without resting would be one set.

After a set, you rest for a bit (typically anything from 30 seconds up to several minutes), then perform another set until you’ve completed the number of sets for that exercise that your workout routine calls for.

For a beginner, their training program might call for only one or two sets of an exercise while experienced powerlifters can spend an entire afternoon doing set after set, even bringing snacks to keep their energy up.

How Reps and Sets Work Together

Your training program usually specifies the number of sets and reps for each exercise (although some experienced trainees, especially bodybuilders, know their bodies well enough to go entirely by how each rep and set feel).

For example, it might say “3 sets of 10 reps” or “3 sets x 10 reps” of bench presses. That means you do 10 bench presses consecutively, rest for a minute or two, do another 10 reps, rest again, and finish with a final set of 10 bench presses.

Rep Ranges

Your training routine may not precisely specify the number of reps you should do. Instead, it might call for “3 sets of 6–10 reps” of bench presses, meaning you aim for a number of reps within thatrep range.

Once you’re strong enough to do 10 of those reps, you typically increase the load next workout to keep your muscles struggling to adapt and keep growing. That concept is called progressive overload and is the number one secret to building muscle: lift more weight or do more work over time.

Rep Schemes

Finally, arep schemeis a certain number of reps to aim for each set in your training session.

For example, your bench press workout might call for three sets of 10,8,6 reps. That means you aim for 10 reps in the first set, 8 in the second, and 6 in your final set.

It could also specify that you should increase the load from set to set, keep it the same, or use a lower load for each set. All are valid approaches to resistance training for strength gains and muscle building.

How Many Reps Should You Do?

Now that we know what reps and sets are, let’s get into how the number of reps you do impacts what your workout emphasizes. Different rep ranges target different fitness goals.

Traditionally, the following specific ranges have been recommended depending on your training goal.

Strength: Low reps (like 1–5) with heavy weights for optimal gains in muscle strength.
Muscle Size (Hypertrophy): Moderate reps (about 8–12) with moderate weights when aiming for muscle hypertrophy.
Strength Endurance: More reps (15+) with lighter loads or easier bodyweight movements for improving muscle endurance.

Of course, you don’t stop gaining strength if you do more than five reps. Significant overlap exists between these rep ranges, but they have long been thought ideal to emphasize a particular training outcome.

Strength (1–5 Reps)

This low reps range uses heavier weights, typically around 80–100% of your one-rep max (1RM), the maximum weight you can lift once with perfect form.

Heavy loads with fewer reps challenge your nervous system and the muscle fibers associated with muscular strength gains.

Hypertrophy (8–12 Reps)

Moderate rep ranges are the sweet spot for hypertrophy training, and use a lighter but still challenging load, around 60–80% of your 1RM, allowing for higher reps.

The hypertrophy rep range is thought to optimize muscle growth by creating metabolic stress and boosting anabolic hormones like testosterone and growth hormone.

Also, the 8–12 rep range has always been a favorite among those with the most muscle mass: bodybuilders.

Muscular Endurance (15+ Reps)

Lighter weights and higher rep ranges are popular among athletes involved in sports like running or boxing.

Doing high reps with a low load allows you to train your muscles to work for longer durations and is thought to boost muscular endurance.

Recent Research: Reps for Building Muscle

In recent years, new research has challenged the old beliefs that you should always stay within a particular 8–12 rep “growth zone” if your goal is building muscle mass.

Many studies find that you can build muscle equally well with a wide range of loads (>30% of your 1RM) and reps (anything from four or five reps up to 30 or even 40).1 2 3

Even though the frequency statistics from these studies show that there is still much uncertainty, the old belief that really heavy or lighter training doesn’t build as much muscle is likely unfounded.

That means you have a great deal of freedom in your training style.

You can train heavy with few reps, stick with the tried and true moderate rep scheme, or do high-rep training with relatively light weights (or any combination thereof) and still expect similar muscle gains.

A Moderate Rep Range Is Still the Best for Building Muscle

The ability to train how you like without compromising your gains is terrific, but a few caveats make sticking within a moderate rep range the best option for most people.

Always Training Heavy Stresses the Body

Constantly using near or maximum loads puts wear and tear on your muscles, joints, and ligaments, possibly increasing the risk of injury over time, even if you stress proper form.

Light Training Is Painful

Unlike when you train with heavy loads, you must take your sets close to muscular failure when doing high-rep training with light weights for them to be as effective for muscle growth. That means doing each set of a specific exercise to the point where you struggle to complete the last rep. Using a light weight and doing a few easy reps will not build anything.

It’s not a harmful pain, but most people find it difficult to fight through the burn when the number of repetitions exceeds 15. Especially in compound exercises like the squat or deadlift that recruit more than one major muscle group.

That’s why a moderate rep range is ideal for optimal muscle growth. You don’t stress your body with extremely heavy loads, and you don’t have to struggle with the discomfort of high-rep training to failure.

How Many Reps to Build Muscle: Summary

You can use any amount of weight (up to at least ~30 reps) for similar increases in muscle size.

A moderate rep range (6–12) is still optimal for building muscle. You avoid the stress and risk of overtraining from constantly going for heavier loads and the discomfort of training to failure using light weights.

How Many Sets Should You Do to Build Muscle?

Now, let’s look at how many sets you should do to build muscle.

The optimal number of sets for an exercise or a muscle group over a week depends on several factors.

Training experience
Fitness level
Specific goals
Training frequency
Type of training split
Personal preferences

General Recommendations

Research suggests that performing at least 10–12 sets per muscle group per week is the optimal training volume for muscle growth for people with some training experience.5 6

How Many Sets and Reps Should You Do to Build Muscle? (3)

However, beginners require fewer sets than that, while advanced bodybuilders might benefit from even more.

How you reach those 10–20 sets is not particularly important.

You can do anything from full-body workouts to body part splits, where you train multiple times per week but only one or two muscle groups each workout.

In the first case, you’d only do a few sets per exercise but do it again in a few days.
In the second, you’d perform many sets for each muscle in a specific workout, but you’d let it rest and recover for an entire week before hitting it again.

Research suggests that it does not matter how many times you train a muscle each week, only that you reach enough volume to stimulate growth at the end of it.7

The important factor is to allow for sufficient stimulus for muscle hypertrophy while minimizing the risk of overtraining.

How Many Sets and Reps Should You Do to Build Muscle? (4)

If you’re new to strength training, starting with 1–3 sets per exercise will help your muscles adapt to the new experience without excessive soreness and fatigue.8
More experienced lifters benefit from 3–6 sets or more per exercise, depending on their recovery capacity and preferred training frequency.4

Factors Influencing the Optimal Number of Sets

Not everyone should do the same number of sets to optimize muscle growth.

For example, a common mistake is to copy a pro bodybuilder workout routine and expect it to work.

Their routines involve a level of training volume, detail, and specificity that’s overkill for beginners. Not only that, but it’s also ineffective without the foundational muscle mass. Like trying to decorate a cake that hasn’t been baked yet.

And that’s just one example. Here are the primary factors that determine optimal set volume.

Training Experience

Beginners will see significant gains with fewer sets. When you’re new to lifting, any amount of training kickstarts muscle growth, with as little as one set per exercise, three times per week, being enough.9

However, after ~6 months of training, your body will have adapted, and you’ll have to start training more to keep those gains coming.

More advanced lifters need more volume to challenge their muscles enough to grow. Most studies suggest you aim for ~10 weekly sets per muscle group for the best results. However, you can freely split those sets into the number of training sessions you like best and that fits your schedule.

Muscle Group Size and Exercise Type

Larger muscle groups (like your legs and back) and compound movements (which target multiple muscle groups, like squats and bench presses) can require more sets than smaller muscle groups (like arms) and isolation movements (e.g., bicep curls).

When you do compound lifts, you automatically involve your smaller muscle groups. That means they won’t need as many additional dedicated sets.

Recovery and Nutrition

Your ability to recover also influences how many sets you should do.

Some people thrive on a number of sets that would be too much volume, both per training session and per week, for most. Don’t copy the training program of a professional athlete or bodybuilder, or try to do as many sets as they do.

Things like sleep, nutrition, and stress management also determine your recovery abilities. If, for some reason, you don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle in place at the moment, it can affect how many sets you should do.

Genetics

Genetics plays a huge role in building muscle, including how much training you can recover from and thrive on.

This is not something you can know beforehand, but you will find out as your training journey continues.

It’s much better to start low (fewer sets) and increase over time than to go all-out from the get-go and end up overtrained.

Let’s recap: how many sets should you do to build muscle?

Beginners

You can expect great gains from only a few weekly sets per exercise as a beginner.

Because weight training is a new experience for your muscles, they are happy to grow from 1–3 sets per exercise.

Intermediates

Once you gain training experience, you need to up the training volume to keep building muscle at a rapid rate. Your muscles have now become wise to your tricks. Shocking them into growth by doing 10 or more sets per muscle group weekly is a good idea.

However, whether you do them in the same workout or split them into multiple sessions is up to you. Doing 3–6 sets per exercise is common practice, but you might find that fewer or more sets suit you better.

Advanced

Advanced trainees with years of experience in the weight room can benefit from even more training, up to 20 weekly sets or possibly even more.

At this point in your strength training career, you already know the training split that works best for you. There are no secret set and rep schemes that guarantee taking you to the next level, so experiment with training volume and frequency to find what works best for you.

How Many Sets and Reps to Build Muscle: Conclusion

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the optimal number of sets for muscle building. It depends on various factors, including training experience.

Almost any number of reps work fine for building muscle, but for practical purposes, sticking with a range between 6–12 reps most of the time is ideal.
As a beginner, you only need do 1–3 sets per exercise, 2–3 times per week.
As you gain lifting experience, you need more training, at least 10 weekly sets for each muscle group, split into the number of exercises and workouts of your choice.

Remember that sets and reps alone do not build muscle mass. Muscle growth requires a comprehensive approach.

Once you’ve got your rep schemes and set volumes dialed in, give your muscles what they need in the form of rest and nutrition. They need their beauty sleep and some solid fuel to grow and adapt to your efforts with the weights, but once you provide the complete package, they’ll reward you handsomely.