How many sets per week are ideal for each muscle group? If you get this number wrong, 1: you could get hurt; and 2: you won't develop muscle with all the capacity you have. When we talk about a series, we talk about a set of repetitions.
You may do more than one set per exercise. The person who is starting to train does not need to do several sets. Often, just one set is enough for that exercise.
In other situations, more advanced people need more series, and there is also a gap between one series and another. But to get started with this whole idea and for you to understand what happens to your body and how many sets you need, I'll explain the theory of supercompensation. To teach you this theory, we will set up a graph that basically consists of a conditioning line, this line we will call muscle volume, and another time line.
When you go to the gym, your muscles have a certain volume. Regardless of whether you train or not, let's imagine what starts from here. When you train, the training process causes you to lose conditioning, it causes you to lose muscle.
This line is very important for you to understand that training is catabolic. "Lalá, but when I train I feel like my muscle gets bigger. " In fact, it's swollen.
Training alone is catabolic. Proof of this is that at the end of the training, your muscle is weaker than at the beginning. When you finish training, your body enters an anabolic process, a recovery process.
The muscle starts to grow. You left here, right? So, up until this point, your muscle is just recovering.
After this point, the body overcompensates. I trained, and it was bad for me, it hurt my muscle, it reduced it, so I'm going to make this muscle stronger so that next time I'll be prepared. Undoubtedly.
The interesting thing here is that you have a new conditioning point. Of course, you will repeat the entire process several times. Imagine you just arrived at the gym, your muscle is here.
A series alone is capable of doing all this to you. Imagine in a month, 2, 3 months. You will need 3, 4 sets per muscle to be able to do this.
After 3 months, 4 months, you will need 6 series, 9 series, and so on. When you arrive at training and your muscle is here, you need to do a workout that is a little stronger than your muscle is. That whole process will happen, and your muscle will come here.
And what are you going to do? The training upstairs. And you understand the process and how it works.
The idea is always to grow. In the beginning, 1 series is enough, your muscle grows. Let's put it like this to make it educational.
Two series: grew up. 3 series, and then the deal happens. It's not that linear, okay?
I did a workout with one series, the next workout will have two series and so on. I'll explain the deal to you. The idea is to always do a workout that is a little above your conditioning, your strength.
How many series does a person just starting out need? In truth? One set per muscle group.
Of course, this process is repeated at least 2 to 3 times a week. After 1, 2 weeks, it is worth increasing the number of series, and we will reach a beginner who has been at the gym for more or less 2 weeks, 1 month, doing 3 series for each exercise, with 1 exercise for each muscle group in the body. body, but possibly you haven't been a beginner for a while.
9 sets per muscle group per training is enough to make your muscle develop very close to its maximum, and the high probability is that your set will not be a set that counts, it will be a set that is not worth it. Don't worry, we'll talk about this later, and 9 series are enough, right? I also remember José Maria Santarém, a guy who knows a lot about bodybuilding, saying that 9 sets is enough to develop the maximum amount of your muscle.
He was talking about bodybuilding athletes, that is, people who seek as much muscular development as possible. When I tell you about 9 series per muscle group, I'm talking about 9 series for a specific muscle. Let's imagine chest.
9 sets for chest. If you want to divide this into more than one exercise, which is common, you can, but you can also do 1 exercise with all the sets in it. We have a training method called GVT, and it consists of doing 10 sets of just 1 exercise.
Now, the issue of applying stimulus variability is interesting, which is why I like to vary the stimuli according to each training session. But don't worry, there's a lot for us to get to. Take it easy.
If you're going to do the chest, that's fine, it's just one muscle. Now, what if you're going to do deltoids? It is divided into 3 muscles: the anterior part, middle part, and posterior part.
9 sets for each muscle bundle. Doing shoulder training has become a long process, but things are not that simple, there are some problems along the way. Are these series you're doing valid?
What about the muscles you train in each exercise? Do the series count for all of them? Here we have accessory muscles, we have synergistic muscles, we have some complications here.
Will you do 9 series forever? You have to adapt the principle of progression, otherwise you will stagnate. But something else may cross your mind, which is the idea of a big muscle and a small muscle.
Give me an example, what is a large muscle? The big one is the chest or back. - And a small muscle?
- The biceps, or the calf. The pectoral is much smaller than the triceps. This idea of a big muscle and a small muscle was used for some time, placing the pectoral as a large muscle, and was overturned by a study that analyzed exactly the length, weight and volume of the body's muscles, and it was discovered that the triceps is very bigger than the chest.
But why is it necessary to do more exercises for the chest than for the triceps? Some chest exercises already work the triceps a lot. Exercises like bench presses, for each set that is worth the chest, is worth half a set for the triceps.
Do you want to see things get worse? Back exercises. Exercises with a supinated grip, wow.
They work the back, but they also work the biceps a lot. A study that analyzed the unilateral bent-over row, the saw row, it hypertrophy X for the back, and half the hypertrophy for the biceps. In doing so, we think about the following: every 2 sets for the back - worth 1 for the biceps.
- The wretch is a genius! When I sit down to put together a workout in an Excel spreadsheet, I account for the workout this way. What is a crossover worth series for?
Only for the chest. But what about the dumbbell press, does it already include triceps? Multi-joint exercises you can count 1 series per main muscle, in the example of the pectoral, and 1/2 series for the non-main muscle, which we call synergist.
But what if you make a machine crucifix? It is not a multi-joint exercise. In this case, you do not count a series for the accessory muscle.
This synergist muscle. Only for the main muscle. Now you've started to understand why more sets are usually done for the chest than for the triceps.
All of this, to be able to assemble it in detail, takes a lot of work. I can do it today with some ease, because I have more than 20 years of experience in this business. We are helping you with this video, there are several others on the channel that also help you with these questions, but if you want something more ready, aimed at saving you time, you can become a student of mine too.
Within Muscle 60D, you will find the entire periodization within the platform, all periodizations, including progression, and you also have technical support from personal trainers, nutritionists, physiotherapists, this entire team at your disposal on WhatsApp. Here 's what you need to do , there's the link below so you can see the work we do, take a look. What I'm going to explain to you about progression will determine whether you will continue to evolve your physique, or if you will develop a little and stagnate, you will enter what we call the plateau effect.
Remember that I showed you on the board that when you do an exercise here, your muscle increases. What if you give the same stimulus? He won't climb further, and then progression is necessary.
It basically involves increasing the intensity of stimulus you deliver to that muscle, and this can be by weight, by load, but let's focus on series volume. The first factor you have to take into consideration is whether you are stagnant. If you have already evolved and it seems that today what you train is just to maintain your physique.
If this is happening, grab a pen and paper, we will do calculations during your training. Write it down, write it down! How many sets are you doing for each muscle?
You will need to account for this. I'm not just telling you how many sets you do per workout, but how many sets you do per week. Imagine you do 9 sets for your chest on Monday.
Will you repeat this workout every week? "I repeat on Thursday, so I do 18 sets a week. " Is it more than 3 or 4 months old?
Now, you can apply a progression, and here we have studies with several different types of progression. Studies that reached up to a 50% increase. I'll tell you to work with a 20% increase.
You will work with these series and add 20%. If we add 20% of 20 series, we will have 4 more series. Instead of doing 9 sets in the second and 9 sets in the fifth, you will add these sets here.
You applied a 20% progression to your training volume. Apply 20%, you will notice that your body responds in a great way. It responds, and there comes a time when it stagnates again, and you apply the progression again.
The idea of progression is that you are always progressing in volume of series. "Lalá, where will this end? In how many series?
" Do you believe that science has not discovered this? A first study came out, he played 36 sets a week. It worked well.
Another study used 48 sets during the week and also worked well. But that’s what happens to someone who takes hormones, right Lala? This is a big question, people ask it in the comments here on the channel "Ah, these tips are for those who take hormones, not for natural people.
" Where did you get that from? All the information I bring to you is based on scientific studies. All these studies are done with natural people.
There are practically no studies carried out with hormones. The first study took into account a group that did 12 sets per week, one that did 24 sets per week, and the other that did 36 sets per week. The group that did 36 sets hypertrophied more than the others.
The group that did 24 series hypertrophied more than the group that did 12 series, and after that, a study with 48 series proved to be superior to 36 series for naturals. A person who is natural and is doing an absurd volume of series, sometimes turns the volume down, reduces the volume of series, and manages to have a great hypertrophic response. The person who does this and has good results, you have to ask them the following question: "Before reducing the volume, did you do recovery periods?
" We call it the regenerative phase. Many times people go on a rampage to increase series. The person turns 9, then it goes to 12, and then 16.
. . Springfield Cemetery.
She doesn't realize that at certain times it is interesting to introduce a regenerative phase. When she reduces this volume of series, man, the muscle grows because it was the regenerative phase. Is this regenerative phase to rest the body?
The regenerative phase is as if it were the moment when you reduce by half the stimulus you are giving to this muscle so that it can actively recover , and this makes a bizarre difference. I'm going to give you a challenge. Of these two t-shirts, there is one that is new, with tags, and one that I have been using for about 6 months.
Which is new and which is old? And look how bizarre, practically imperceptible. This t-shirt has tags, has never been worn, and this one has already been washed many times.
Insider did a test and the t-shirts went through more than 50 washes and did not fade. This test was done just to prove that Insider has great value for money. Yes, you will pay a little more than a normal cotton t-shirt, but in the end you will save a lot of money, because these t-shirts last for many years.
Here below I have the Insider link, you will find these basic t-shirts in various colors from size XS to XXXL, and other pieces too, like this polo among many others. There is a discount coupon there for 18% on the first purchase and on others, 12%. Come on, bro.
Enjoy. - What did you buy? - Clothes for my brother-in-law.
Remember that chat we had back there? Do the series you are doing count, or are you not getting to the point of doing the series that are valid? Every series needs to be challenging.
Every series needs to come very close to failure or failure itself. If that doesn't happen, your series isn't worth it. When I spoke about José Maria Santarém, he made it clear: "valid series.
" - 9 valid series! - You understood? What we see the most, especially the people who count the repetitions, is that they don't reach the level of counting the series.
And then the person goes to the gym, does 9, 10 sets and has no results. And what - does she do? Increase the volume of sets.
- Donkey. Donkey. Then she has a little more results, and enters this vicious cycle of increasing the volume of series, because in the end she is not producing series that are worth it.
One thing I strongly recommend: analyze this. Are your sets being valid, or are you stuck with "I'm not going to go too hard on this one because it's just the first set of the exercise"? No, bro, you have to do each set to your limit.
Getting very close to failure or even failure itself. "Lalá, so how many sets do I do for each muscle group? " Strong recommendation for you, if you do more than that, reduce it to 9 sets per muscle group per workout.
"Lalá, but I was doing more than that. " Then you will do the following, an exercise that I give to my students. You will reduce it to 9 and make this training count.
You did 5 chest exercises before, and you will have to come out of these 3 exercises with your chest at a very high intensity, and you will realize that you did 5 half-heartedly before. Leg issue, we have a big problem. The quadriceps, the front part of the leg, work in squats, leg presses, and leg extensions, but the hamstrings do not.
So if you do squats, you are counting sets for the quadriceps and glutes. Not for the back of the thigh. Posterior thigh only isolated exercises for the posterior thigh.
Chair flexor, table flexor, stiff, and we will also have the flexor standing unilaterally. Calf, same thing. 9 series at least.
Shoulder, 9 sets for each muscle bundle. I'm telling you all of this in training and you may repeat this during the week. If you do, for example, ABC, you can do chest on Monday, chest on Thursday, repeating the same 9 series, but that they are valid series.
Costas, Lalá. I see you talking about the lower part, the upper part of the back, does it count 9 for the entire back? How is it?
Good question, bro. No. When we think about the lateral part of the back, the dorsal part, then you can put 9 series there, regardless of whether you work the high or low part.
But many lat exercises don't work the middle back. And many exercises for the middle back don't work the lats, so it's important to pay attention to that too. The business becomes complex, because you would have to go exercise by exercise for you to understand.
But to make it easier, everything you pull is working on your back. Everything you row open is working the middle part of your back. And then there are 9 sets for the middle of the back too?
If you want to develop it to its maximum capacity, yes. There comes a question here that will give you a bizarre bug in your head. Are all the muscles in your body intermediate or advanced, or do you have muscles in your body that are beginners?
The part The central back is a region that is generally very beginner-friendly, because people have a culture of applying few exercises to these regions.
