Muscle group, sets, or exercises?

Knowing how to train a specific muscle group to achieve symmetry or display enormous muscles is one of everyone's goals.

Specifically, the number of exercises per muscle group needed to maximize growth depends on frequency. It also depends on how many sets you are doing for each exercise, as well as the amount of effort you are putting into each set.

Why sets and not exercises?

The total number of sets you do for a given muscle, both in a single workout and over the course of a week, has a major impact on the rate at which that muscle or muscle group grows.

Without enough sets, the “make me bigger” signal sent to a muscle will be much weaker, but if you do too many sets, you will impair that muscle’s ability to recover and grow.

Counting the number of exercises you perform for a given muscle group is not a particularly accurate way to quantify your overall training volume.

In other words, the number of “hard sets” you do for a muscle group is much more important than the number of exercises.

Why does this matter?

There is a limit to the amount of stimulation your muscles can respond to in any given workout, and the closer you get to this limit, the lower the return on your investment of time and effort will be.

In a study (1) published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance in 2019, four groups of athletes lifted weights three days a week for six months.

• All four groups performed the same exercises, but differed in the total number of sets they did for each exercise: 5, 10, 15, and 20 sets per workout
• After six months of training, there were no significant differences between the groups, but the 5- and 10-set groups gained the most muscle.

The law of diminishing returns applies here: your gains become progressively smaller as you increase the number of sets.

If you continue adding sets, your growth rate will eventually plateau, but you may end up going backward if you overdo it with a muscle group.

 

Where does frequency come into play?

The number of exercises you perform in a single workout will depend largely on the number of weekly sets you do, as well as how frequently you train.

If you are doing a full-body workout three times a week, for example, just one exercise per muscle group will do the job.

However, if you are training a muscle group only once a week, you will probably end up doing 2 or 3 exercises per muscle group.

What is the ideal number of exercises per workout?

Between 3 and 8 exercises per workout will work well for most people, but in some cases, just three exercises per workout are enough to get the job done.

If you were training your entire body in a single workout, you would need a few more exercises to stimulate growth throughout the body.

You should also consider the type of training you are doing for a specific muscle group.

If your program revolves around 4–5 sets of different compound lifts, heavy loads, and long rest periods between sets, you will not have the time or energy to do more than a handful of exercises per workout.

How do you train a muscle group?

There are no rigid guidelines specifying exactly how many exercises per muscle group you should perform in a single workout.

It all depends on your weekly set count, how frequently you train, and the total number of sets you perform for each exercise.

As a general rule, it is recommended to do 1 to 3 exercises per muscle group and 2 to 5 sets per exercise, but if you are training hard and putting a lot of effort into each set—which you will need to do if you want to build muscle—you will not need more than 2 to 3 exercises for a specific muscle group.