There is significant controversy around the question of exactly how many sets per workout or per week are ideal for maximizing either hypertrophic (size) or strength gains, with hundreds of different studies often yielding conflicting results. However, one principle has been confirmed beyond all doubt; there is no ideal training volume that can be applied to ALL muscles across the board!
Those who try to oversimplify exercise science and philosophy simply don’t appreciate how complex the musculoskeletal system is, and – more specifically for the purposes of today’s tip – they underestimate just how different two muscles within the same body can be! Yet in order to optimize weightlifting results, it’s essential to understand what those differences are, and how to apply that knowledge in your training.
Unfortunately very few studies have been performed that dive into inter-muscular training differences for volume specifically (other than the fact that, in general, muscles that have a higher percentage of Type I “slow-twitch” muscle fibers seem to benefit from a higher workout volume than those with more Type II “fast-twitch” fibers, but only at low loads), so much of that knowledge must be gained anecdotally for now – or in other words, via trial and error by testing different training volumes on your own muscles and paying close attention to the results.
However, we have enough evidence so far for at least one muscle, and that’s the triceps! The triceps have been shown to benefit from a much higher workout volume than other muscles – at least when compared to the biceps and quadriceps. While the other muscles seem to hit peak hypertrophic gains by 20 sets per week, and then plateau so that any additional sets don’t achieve more gains and sometimes even hurt gains due to overtraining… the triceps continue to achieve more hypertrophic gains past 20 sets and up to as many as 32 sets per week! Which goes completely AGAINST the fiber type trend I mentioned above, since the triceps have a majority of Type II fibers! (See Image 1 below.) Which goes to show just how complex the body is, and that muscles don’t always fit into the nice little categories we create for them.
Of course, there’s many potential confounding variables at play… and not all sets are created equally. Which is one reason why there are so many conflicting study results on the topic. But this one trend at least has held constant – that the triceps benefit from higher volumes than other muscles. And in the end, the main takeaway I wanted to convey from today’s tip is that you shouldn’t always work all your muscles with the same workout volume! Which really hearkens back to one of my primary tenets; variation in ALL aspects is absolutely essential for optimal resistance training!!
APPLICATION: Work your triceps at a higher volume than other muscles, and pay attention to ideal workout volumes for the rest by constantly testing and varying them!
Note: I’ve been having issues with my email service provider lately, and it made me unable to send out my newsletter last week. So don’t worry that you didn’t receive it – nobody did!
Relevant Research Article(s):
1) A Systematic Review of The Effects of Different Resistance Training Volumes on Muscle Hypertrophy
Related Dr. Gains YouTube Video(s):
1) ISOLATE the TRICEPS LATERAL HEAD With This Exercise!! (Workout + Scientific Explanation)
2)The SECRET to targeting the LONG HEAD of the TRICEPS! (FULL VIDEO)
Dr. Gains 
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