How many sets per muscle group?

[jnelson49]

I was wondering how many sets I should do per muscle group. Right now, I usually do four exercises with four sets each. Is this enough/too much? I'm looking to gain size and muscle mass.

[CiteCollegiale]

Personnaly i do 9 sets for major muscle groups and 3 sets for small ones

[ryuage]

well the question is, are you gaining size on what you are doing now?

[lakcaj]

Do you mean 4 exercises, with 4 sets per exercise, per bodypart? If this is the case, I would say that this is certainly enough, maybe a bit too much. Of course, this depends alot on your split (how you have divided up bodyparts throughout the week). For example, if you are doing a full body workout every workout, then those quantities are certainly excessive. However, if you are doing a proper split and are only hitting each body part once or maybe twice a week, then again they look fine. If you are doing a fairly traditional workout, then it would look something like:

Exercises per bodypart: 2 to 3
Sets per exercise: 3 to 4 including a warmup set
Reps per set: 8 to 12

A basic 3 day split might look something like this:

Day 1: Chest, Shoulder, Triceps
Day 2: Back, Biceps, Traps
Day 3: Legs - Quads, Hams, and Calves

Just starting out, I would alternate one day on, one day off. Also, you can do abs everyday if you want. They are about the only muscle group which is capable of recovering quickly enough to do that. If you notice the makeup of the split, Day 1 is all pushing exercises, Day 2 is all pulling exercises, and Day 3 is all legs. In each case, the muscle group worked out starts with the largest and ends with the smallest. This is to avoid fatigueing (sp?) the supporting muscle groups before they are used when working out the larger muscle groups (you don't want exhausted triceps when you're trying to do bench press).

Well, I hope some of this info helps. It might be more than you were asking for, and if I'm telling you how to suck eggs, don't take it personally. I'm just throwing out my $0.02.

Cheers

[Sccrhead]

I have found between 4 to 12 sets per muscle per week works best for me. 4 sets for small muscles like biceps and 12 set for large muscles like back. 9 sets/week is also fairly common. My experience has been that less sets with more intensity gives much better results than more sets with less intensity.

The real kicker is that in addition to determining the #sets/week, you must also consider how to spread these sets over the week. Take 6 sets/week for example. You could do 6 sets on Monday if you are only working the muscle once per week or you can split 3 sets on Monday and 3 sets on Thursday. The HST style would have you do 2 sets each on M/W/F.

I have made good gains by varying the #sets/week and also changing how many times per week I work a muscle. Trial and error is the best approach. If the weight lifted goes up each week, you have the right formula.

[Shad]

just do as much as you can without overtraining. Find yourself after an appropriate warmup doing about 6-9 sets in total.. with all exercises added up for that muscle group. Never warmup a muscle group twice. Sets matter on muscle endurance, not what can maximize your muscle growth according to arnold bicepsbiggerthanhishead. Greater energy/ muscle endurance you have the more it will take to overtrain them.

[jnelson49]

yeah sorry, i mean 4 exercises x 4 sets=16 sets per muscle group. My split is this: Mon/Thurs: Chest, back Tues/Fri: Bi, Tri, Shoulders Wed/Sat: Legs, Lower back. So am I doing to much?

Sccrhead, thanks for your answer, but could you go into more detail. Do you only do 4 to 6 sets total per muscle group per week? If its not too much trouble, could you tell me how you split your week up, which exercises you do, and the number of sets and reps. Thanks. If anyone else that could also post the info it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[Songsangnim]

yeah sorry, i mean 4 exercises x 4 sets=16 sets per muscle group. My split is this: Mon/Thurs: Chest, back Tues/Fri: Bi, Tri, Shoulders Wed/Sat: Legs, Lower back. So am I doing to much?

Sccrhead, thanks for your answer, but could you go into more detail. Do you only do 4 to 6 sets total per muscle group per week? If its not too much trouble, could you tell me how you split your week up, which exercises you do, and the number of sets and reps. Thanks. If anyone else that could also post the info it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

This is probably not what you want to hear, but yes it does look like you are doing too much. Particularly for shoulders. You are hitting them four times a week. On Mon/Thurs you are working them indirectly as just about all chest and back exercises involve the shoulders to some degree. Then on Wed/Sat you are working them again. That's a lot of work for a (relatively) small muscle group. The same applies to your biceps and triceps. Most chest exercises heavily involve triceps, and most back exercises involve biceps. So your shoulders and arms are getting worked four days a week. So your smallest muscle groups are getting 4 days of work and the larger ones are getting only two days. Plus you are working your arms right after chest/back day.

I'd pair biceps with back and triceps with chest and split up chest and back days. Chest and back together is a tough workout. You may not realize the best gains from doing this.

I'd also do a Mon/Wed/Fri workout. Something like this. Thighs/calves Monday. Chest/triceps Wednesday. Back/biceps Friday. Abs can be done at the end of any one or two of these workouts.

I do squats, leg presses, standing calf raises, flat bench, dips, pushdowns, deadlifts, lat pulldowns, overhead press and seated cable row. These are my main exercises. I do not do them all in a single week, but use some of them when I want variety.

Sets and reps are fairly low. About 5-6 of each.

[Shad]

too me it sounds liek too much. Instead of doing soo many sets, try increasing the weight. Increase it enough so that you can do atleast 4-6 reps each set (as mentioned above).

[RussianRocket]

I do 3 warm up sets and 3, 6 - 7 reps

[Shad]

pyramid for warmup, do proper pyramid, i suggest using the max-ot warmup. then do 6-7 sets after... of 4-6 reps.. Russian is doing way 2 little sets.

[BlingMeter]

i do 3-4 excer and 3-4 sets of 5-7reps each set per part