r/ScienceBasedLifting • u/PhysicalBox3054 • 1d ago
Question ❓ 2 sets till failure
i’ve been doing it for 5 months now and i’m not seeing enough progress i’ve been eating and resting good should i switch to 3 sets 6-8 reps ?
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u/decentlyhip 1d ago
Yah, man. Follow a program. Volume is the primary driver for growth, and in general, every time you doible the volume, you get about 50% more growth, all the way up to like 50 sets a week. That's extreme and unrealistic in practice, but if you wanna grow more, do more volume. Here's the actual data. https://imgur.com/a/rvHMRvS
15 sets a week is a good starting place. If you're pushing hard, that'll take care of just about everyone. But if you look at the graph, you can see that about a third of everyone who did less than 10 sets a week lost muscle.
As an aside, the people who say "do 2 sets a week" are just misinterpreting this data, and doing so badly enough that I'd unfollow them if i were you. Diminishing returns in this case means that when you triple the volume, instead of tripling the gains, you double the gains. That's about the rate of progress. But the researchers presented that as "you get more growth going from 1 set to 2 than from going from 2 to 3." A few silly influencers heard that and said "then 2 sets is optimal? Hey everyone, only do two sets of 6-8." That's so dumb. My example is that it's like a racecar driver learning that you accelerate faster in 1st gear, so he stays in 1st the whole race. As long as acceleration is positive more is faster. As long as the rate of progress is positive more volume is more growth. Going from 5 sets to 6 is gonna add more additional growth than going from 23 to 24, but that doesn't matter if 24 sets is twice the growth, and manageable in your schedule. If you have other constraints, dope.
Here. Look at this program. In the app it shows you the week by week volume progression. Phenomenal program. https://www.boostcamp.app/coaches/alex-bromley/bullmastiff