Dr. Brad Schoenfeld continues to give back to the fitness and bodybuilding community. In his latest collaboration with Dr. Mike Israetel, Schoenfeld discussed how to ‘budget’ volume during a workout and revealed the most ‘hypertrophic’ set range.
Known as the ‘Hypertrophy Specialist,’ Dr. Schoenfeld boasts decades of experience studying exercise and muscle growth. He has worked alongside other masterminds of nutrition and exercise, including physiologist Dr. Mike Israetel as well as cell biologist Dr. Rhonda Patrick.
Determining an optimal rep and set range can be a challenge. Not only do individuals differ in terms of physicality, but they also have varying goals, preferences, and levels of experience that dictate how they perform inside the gym. Given those difficulties, Dr. Schoenfeld reveals below how to maximize muscle-building efforts with a precise answer for people of all body types.
Dr. Schoenfeld Examines ‘The Most Hypertrophic’ Set Range and Discusses How to ‘Budget’ Volume
First, Schoenfeld defined volume, which he says can be determined by three factors: number of sets, rep volume, or volume load (reps times the load that’s used).
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“There are three basic, if you’re looking at the literature, three primary definitions you can look at. You can look at set volume, which is the number of sets generally per muscle per week or per session. No [not including warm ups] generally working sets. You can look at rep volume,” adds Dr. Schoenfeld.
“That’s reps per week or per session and you can also look at it in terms of work, which is also called volume load. That would be reps times the load that’s used. Each of them has certain value and certain somewhat drawbacks.”
When asked about the most hypertrophic volume ranges, Dr. Schoenfeld shared that 10-20 sets per week per muscle were ideal.
“Tell us about the most hypertrophic volume ranges,” asks Dr. Mike Israetel.
“The literature suggests that somewhere between 10-20 sets per week per muscle is a good guideline for how many sets to do. Now, there is a number of issues with that: number one, we have no studies that have actually been carried out that looked at all the major muscle groups doing that many sets together.”
Just like money, Dr. Schoenfeld explains that lifters can benefit from ‘budgeting’ their volume throughout the week to appropriately work specific body parts that they are trying to grow.
“If you were to do 20 sets of each muscle, that would be 200 sets. There’s never been a study that’s looked at that. For context, we did a study where we looked at one set versus three sets versus five sets per exercise. We did seven exercises per session. So, one group was doing seven, one set with seven different exercises, seven sets, another was doing three so 21, and the other was doing 35. Three times a week. Total volume was 105 sets per week.”
“Think of it as this volume budget. Let’s say you’re going to have 120 total sets per all your muscles per a given week. You can say alright, I now want to apportion this volume just like you do with money. Hey, I want this so I’m going to buy this but I’m not going to have as much for that,” shares Dr. Schoenfeld.
He adds that it’s difficult to know how much volume is too little because individuals ‘budget’ it differently.
“When you’re talking about how much is too little, too much, it’s kind of difficult to say because again, if you’re looking at this volume budget, you’re apportioning it so certain muscles are getting more and certain get less. We have not seen, interestingly, a plateau. Some literature has shown yeah you’re not going to get more gains over 10-12 sets and others have shown that up to– a new study, up to 50 sets.”
Based on the literature, Dr. Schoenfeld says ‘most people can make a majority of gains on relatively low volume routines.’
“One thing that’s very clear from the literature, most people can make a majority of gains on relatively low volume routines. Less, five to ten [sets per muscle group per week].
Most people. But, you start to see, it’s not like there’s this linear increase, so you will see the extra gains that you start getting with more volume start to level off.”
He does point out that some individuals respond poorly to training, but that doesn’t make them ‘non-responders.’
“There’s responders and non-responders. I don’t like to use the term non-responders, but I think poor responders is a better term because I’ve never met anyone that ultimately doesn’t respond unless they have some medical condition or something.”
Determining how many sets to execute per body part has become a popular topic in fitness and bodybuilding. Former four-time Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler recently offered his insight on the subject. He stands by 20 sets per body part being the winning number.
“No matter what the body part is, whether it’s biceps, legs, back, chest, shoulders, arms, it’s all the same.”
As an accomplished mind in the world of fitness, Dr. Schoenfeld is committed to offering fans useful advice to advance their workouts. He believes most people can make solid gains sticking with low volume, which he described as ‘5-10’ sets per muscle group per week.
RELATED: Dr. Schoenfeld Shares Why You Don’t Need to Lift Heavy or Hit Failure to Build Muscle
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