3, 6, or 9 Weekly Sets of Squats & Bench Press: Which Is Better?

Key Points:

A new study had American football players train the squat and the bench press three times per week for eight weeks.
The players were divided into three groups: one group performing one set per workout, another performing two sets per workout, and a third performing three sets per workout, for a total of three, six, or nine weekly sets.
Their strength increased in a linear dose-response relationship, with larger increases for the higher volume groups.

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One of the best ways to increase your strength training results is to simply lift more.

Well, at least up to a point.

A new study out of Brazil adds to the pile of research on how many sets you should do, by comparing three, six, or nine sets of squats and bench presses per week.¹

As an added twist, they did so with American football players in-season, and also gauged their perceived effort and stress from the training.

Prefer listening to reading? Listen to our podcast episode about this study and weekly set volume here:

Podcast: How Many Weekly Sets for Strength and Muscle Mass? 🎙️

Who Lifted?

The study had 24 participants completing the training program. All participants were male American football players currently in competitive season.

On average, they were 25 years old, around 182 cm tall, and weighed 87 kg. They squatted 1.5x bodyweight and bench pressed 1.2x bodyweight.

The participants were split into three groups of eight each, matched for strength in the squat.

The Training Program

The participants performed three strength training workouts per week for eight weeks.

Each workout consisted of the squat and the bench press, in that order.

After a warm-up, the participants performed one to three hard sets (work sets) of each exercise, depending on their group.

One group performed one set of each exercise.
One group performed two sets of each exercise.
One group performed three sets of each exercise.

With three workouts per week, this adds up to doing three, six, or nine sets of each respective exercise per week, for eight weeks.

This study didn’t prescribe load according to a percentage of their 1RM. Instead, they used repetitions in reserve (RIR) along with a rep target for each workout, repeated weekly:

Workout 1: 3 reps per set at 0–2 RIR
Workout 2: 4 reps per set at 0–2 RIR
Workout 3: 2 reps per set at 0–2 RIR

“0–2 RIR” means that they should use a weight that allowed them to complete the target number of reps for that workout, while being able to do between zero and two more reps.

As the participants got stronger, they had to increase the barbell weight to stay within two repetitions from failure.

The participants also answered questions regarding their perceived recovery status and workout effort level during every session.

Their 1RM in the squat and bench press were tested before and after the eight weeks of training.

Results: More is More

After eight weeks of training, all three groups had significantly increased their 1RM in both the squat and bench press.

Moreover, their strength seemed to increase in a linear dose-response relationship, with larger increases for the higher volume groups.

Despite a three-fold increase in training volume, there were no differences in perceived recovery between groups.

If You Want to Get Stronger, You Might Need to Lift More

The results from this study are in line with the findings from a meta-analysis of how weekly set volume affects strength gains. The analysis showed that a medium (5–9) or high (≥10) weekly set volume increased strength more than a low (≤5) weekly set volume.²

In addition, another meta-analysis shows that muscle growth increases with higher training volumes, up to 9+ sets per week.³

If you want to maximize your muscle and strength gains, you should probably be doing at least around ten sets per muscle group and/or exercise per week.

This recommendation pertains to hard sets, meaning sets that are taken close to failure (or to failure). If you’re stopping further from failure, you can probably perform more sets without doing too much.

Higher Training Status, Higher Training Volume

Both of the meta-analyses above included a majority of studies on untrained participants. I believe that as you get more accustomed to strength training, you will have to increase your weekly training volume slightly.

How much?

That depends on many factors, and you’ll have to experiment to find your sweet spot.

To mitigate injury risk, a rule of thumb is to never increase your training volume by more than 10% from week to week. A great way to keep track of your training volume is to use our free workout tracker.

Using this rule of thumb, you might gradually increase your volume if you believe it is beneficial. I think many intermediate and advanced lifters would benefit from doing between ten and twenty fairly hard sets per muscle group or lift per week.

If you want to read more about our recommendations for sets and reps, based on science and our practical experience, check out these links:

To keep track of your training volume and much else, download our workout tracker StrengthLog for free with the links below:

Download StrengthLog Workout Log on App Store

Download StrengthLog Workout Log on Google Play Store