Lindsay: Welcome.
Welcome to the Lifting Lindsay podcast.
Today we are gonna do a little fun fact Friday, and we're going to revisit a
topic that I've talked about before, which is how many sets per muscle group
per week do you need to build muscle?
Now you may be thinking, well, we've already talked about this,
but we really haven't actually.
I mean, we have talked about a portion of this.
We have TA had this conversation somewhat, but the conversation that
we've had previously has been all about how to optimize and squeeze out
every bit of muscle we possibly can.
Right?
So we've talked about high volume.
Training and high volume studies and how they've collectively been showing more
volume does equate to more hypertrophy.
Today, though, I want you to think about in terms of, you know, 0% to a
hundred percent of the total maximum muscle gains that you can achieve in a.
Certain amount of time, I want you to be thinking, well, how
many sets do I need to achieve?
Like 50% or 75% or 80%?
And I think that this is a really, really important question.
One, because oftentimes we are very.
Obsessed and fixated with kind of black or white thinking.
All or nothing thinking.
We think, well, I need to get, you know, 20 sets per week on glutes
to grow muscle, and if I don't get 20, then I'm not growing any.
Or if maybe you were doing five times a week training.
And you really wanted to build delts and your delts were getting, 18 to 20
sets during that time, or maybe even, you know, 20, 25 during that time,
and you think, well, summer has come.
I can't keep going to the gym this much.
Uh, my children are home now.
They have tons of activities or are taking more time, or we're traveling.
You fill in the blank.
You name it, you're now no longer able.
Or want to train five times a week and you're down shifting
to something like three.
A lot of times people who are stuck in that all or nothing mindset, they
freak out and they think, well now one, I'm not going to put on any muscle.
Um, is it even worth going to the gym?
Because all or nothing mindset, it's either five days and or none.
Right.
That's not true.
So I'm really excited to have this discussion and lay out actually
what studies show us as far as what percentage of muscle gain we can
see depending on, you know, how many sets we do a week per muscle group.
So I think that this is a really good conversation, like I said, to combat
that all or nothing mindset to help people understand that there are times
when you can train four to five times a week, and yes, you'll more than
likely squeeze out some more muscle growth, but how much more, right?
And is the trade off worth it?
Because that means.
More time at the gym, less time doing these other things that
maybe, uh, this season of your life is kind of calling you to do.
Now, another reason why this, this came to my mind and I thought it was
important to discuss is I recently started a three times a week training group.
So I have a five times a week program that's like a gluten dealt emphasis.
I have two, four times a week program, one is tailored more
towards, you know, strength.
The other is tailored more towards body recomp and muscle.
And there's these, these different, you know, methods that we can
train towards different goals.
So now I'm starting this three times a week program because I've had a lot
of my app clients reach out saying some of us, our season of life is that
we want to train three times a week.
Maybe they have other goals.
Maybe they want the strength and muscle that comes with lifting weights, but they
also want to run a marathon, wanna do a triathlon, maybe want to, uh, do yoga
more, or Pilates or whatever it may be.
Fill in the blank.
Or maybe they just.
Are going through a time in their life where stress is really high and sleep
is really low, and, and, and training five times a week, even four times
for them is really impacting them and they're not able to fully recover
from four or five times a week, but three might be a sweet spot for them.
So this is why I started this program, but I've been getting a lot of questions from
app users who are interested in switching.
Now, like I said, some of them are worried, well, am
I gonna lose all my gains?
If I can't go four or five times a week, then maybe I just should
take a break and not do anything.
Maybe summer's coming and I'm just, I'm just not gonna go at all.
Well, you don't have to buy into that all or nothing, but it is kind of
important to understand that although we can make muscle and strength gains,
strength is kind of a different story.
Strength is actually, we can oftentimes maximize that with.
Three training sessions, quality training sessions a week.
But typically people want come to me asking for body recomp.
They want to see muscle growth, muscle growth, and strength.
I've said this a few times, but I just need to reiterate this.
Although there is crossover, they are different.
Think of powerlifter as strength training versus hypertrophy
versus bodybuilder who focuses on.
Purely hypertrophy.
So a bodybuilder isn't, they're, they're excited about prs, but they're not hitting
the high prs that strength athletes are.
Because the training is actually different now.
Like I said, there's some crossover and I have that muscle and strength program
that allows us to do a little bit of both to get the best of both worlds.
Um, but they are slightly different, and that's important to understand.
So this conversation of sets is going to be purely speaking about muscle growth.
So with that being said.
With these worries that people are like, well, am I gonna lose all my progress?
Should I even keep going?
Well, some people are also like, yeah, I wanna, I wanna work three
times a week and, and I want all of the gains that come from five.
I'm like, what?
Well, yeah, you know what I want?
I wanted to like lose weight without having, you know, to uh,
be, have any mindfulness about my foods without tracking, with
eating, whatever, whenever I want.
Yeah, we all want these things, but sometimes our wants are conflicting.
Right?
And then what happens?
We don't end up hitting our goals, so it's better to kind of line up.
Our efforts and what we are willing and wanting to do with appropriate outcomes,
and that's what we're gonna cover today.
So let's dive into what do the studies actually say?
Because the studies show that it's not like what people are
saying, that it's all or nothing.
You either optimize every tiny little thing and you get all
the gains, or you don't do that and you don't make any gains.
That's not what the studies are showing.
So I'm gonna break this, this down, what the studies are
showing into two different groups.
One, I'm gonna show what studies are saying about untrained
and beginners because this is really important, untrained.
Lifters or beginning lifters who are in that first year, year and a half, maybe
even two, depending on how on and off or how dedicated they are, uh, how much
they're actually like training versus just kind of going through the motions.
So what amount of sets do they need versus trained and more experienced
lifters, because actually their needs are a little different.
So with untrained or beginners, you know what's fascinating?
If you're looking at that percentage of muscle growth, you know, zero to a
hundred percent, a hundred percent is just maximizing getting every single
gain, uh, genetically you possibly can.
Um, manipulating, you know, training, making sure sleep,
nutrition, all that's on point.
Well, you can actually get up to 60% of your muscle growth capacity.
This is gonna blow your mind, guys for this.
Remember, this is untrained beginners with up to five sets a week.
A week as little as five sets a week can get you up to 60%
of your capacity for muscle, like muscle gains.
That's incredible.
And then with untrained beginners, 80% hypertrophy gains with as
few as five to 10 sets a week.
That's That's absolutely amazing.
That's amazing.
Now with trained lifters.
It is different.
Okay.
It, it is different.
So we are seeing that 60% of your hypertrophy gains are going to be, can
be gained five to 10 sets, and 10 to 20 it appears, is getting about 80% of.
Your hypertrophy and you can, even with new studies that have come out with higher
volumes, they're looking at anywhere between 15 and 30, really maximizing and
optimizing and leaning higher than 80%.
But what is it that you have to sacrifice?
Well, you have to make that trade off.
Is the time, the additional time in the gym worth squeezing out
a little bit more hypertrophy, and that's where a lot of people are
like, do you know what it may not be?
Why?
Because what are your reasons for going to the gym?
And what's the timeframe?
Most of us are going to the gym because we want to be strong.
Yes, we want results.
We want muscle, we wanna be healthy, we want to be agile.
We want to age well.
And guess what We're, we're not in it for a three months transformation,
although that would be wonderful.
But the reality is that majority of us don't experience that.
Majority of us are actually in this for life.
For life.
So think about that.
If I'm in it for life, I'm going to be lifting for the rest of my life.
do I really need to spend more time in the gym?
To edge out another 10% of hypertrophy or would my time better serve me elsewhere?
And that's the thing, nobody else can answer this question except for you.
But the great thing about it is that if you need to lower your
amount of time you spend in the gym,
I want you to shift your mindset that it is not all or nothing.
You can lower your five times a week training to three times a week
and still experience good gains.
So let's just say, let's, let's give a little context to this.
Let's just say you're a newbie lifter.
Maybe you've been lifting for a year, I would say
you're still relatively new and you've been able to really put a
lot of time into, you know, weight loss and setting up and establishing
this routine of going to the gym.
But life has kind of shifted, and now you need to lower maybe your four
or five times a week to three times.
Well, three times a week.
We can still easily get around 10 sets per muscle group a week.
So that means you are still getting about 80% of your muscle gains capacity, 80%.
You're still achieving that.
That's a big deal.
That's awesome.
And maybe you lost like, you know, 10, that doesn't matter.
Are you looking at the gap or are you looking at the gain?
What I've gained is time, and I'm still gaining about 80%
of max hypertrophy that I can.
That in my book, along with many others, is a big win.
That's a big win.
So a lot of these conversations that are had on Instagram, keep in mind when
people are like, well, you, you have to be getting, you know, 15, 20 sets.
You have to be, uh, spending five days in the gym lifting to get
those 20 sets in to maximize hyper.
These people are speaking in terms of optimization.
They're also speaking in terms of almost, that, you know, you have the time, you
have the energy, you have the want, and maybe you don't and that's okay.
That's okay.
So that's actually why I started this fitness minimalist group is
for people who are like, you know.
I have maybe other goals, whether that's other fitness goals or
other family goals, relationship goals, career goals, whatever.
There have been times, uh, with my business that I've had to go from lifting
five times a week to lifting three times.
I don't beat myself up.
I don't say, oh, I'm just, I'm just losing all of my gains.
No, you, you just need to practice that flexibility and pivot.
You pivot because life is throwing a curve ball at you.
Or maybe it's not even throwing a curve ball.
You pivot because you're like, right now I choose something else that will actually
be a better return on my time for what I really want out of life right now.
Okay.
Let me walk you through one other scenario.
Let's say that somebody who I had a woman write to me and
she's like, I'm really nervous.
I'm doing your train with me.
My train with me group, that's my personal program is five times a week.
And she says, now I, I've gotta switch to the three times.
I'm really nervous and scared that I'm gonna lose all my progress.
Well, what did we just barely learn from these studies?
And if you're interested in reading 'em, I'm gonna include
'em in the, in the show notes.
But what did we just barely learn from this?
Even those, and, and I'm going to, make the assumption because this
woman has been doing this for two and a half years, I believe she said.
This is a trained lifter, and she's going from putting anywhere between 15 to 25.
I've, I've had some.
Specialization programs where we even pushed glutes for a short
period to, you know, 30 sets, a week.
She's going from that high volume to now probably 10, 12 sets.
Well, what have we learned between 10 and 20 for even advanced?
You're getting somewhere around 80%.
So what she's doing is she is making a trade off.
She's trading off a little potential, losing out a, a little bit on some
muscle growth, but she's still getting a good, you know, around 80%
I'd, I'd, I'd say around 70, 80%.
So she's still coming out on top.
As far as muscle growth, but now she has a little bit more time to spend
elsewhere on what makes more sense right now for her season in life.
Sometimes when I hear trainers talk and they're, they throw out
the, you have to, you know, be training five times a week to.
Maximize hypertrophy.
Well, that, that may be true.
It's just one piece of the equation of hypertrophy, by the way, but
at what cost to the individual and is that even what they want?
We're just kind of making the assumption that they want that right.
Maybe they can't.
I mean, that's actually why I changed a bunch of things recently in my app
because I had a program a four times a week program that people were saying, is
there any way we can have a four times a week full body build program where
instead of, you know, training 75 minutes, 'cause sometimes towards the tail end of.
Uh, the, the training when we had increased sets or rest time or
whatever, training was moving and getting closer to like 75 minutes.
They're like, well, I, I don't have that.
Is there any way we can change it so that we can be training no more than,
you know, 45 minutes, four times a week?
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, we can do that.
You are gonna miss out on a little volume.
But do you know what?
That's actually okay because the trade off is worth it.
You're still gonna be getting majority, 80% is huge.
You're still gonna be getting majority of the hypertrophy you can, and like I
said, the trade off will be worth it.
So hopefully this, uh, fun fact Friday of different sets,
per, you know, untrained or trained individuals, how much
hypertrophy can we glean?
I hope one, it has helped combat that all or nothing mindset and
allowed you to kind of maybe release these ideas that you have to train
a certain amount of times per week.
Because really.
Learning to be flexible with our training allows us to be more
consistent over time, right?
There's this balance of somebody who's constantly saying, well,
I'm being flexible by saying no to the gym every day, right?
There's that versus somebody who is so rigid.
To their five times a week, six times a week training that they break right.
Neither one will achieve life long results.
The people who get results and maintain results.
We want to maintain results are those that are flexible and learn to pivot.
So hopefully this learning a little bit about sets per week, per individual
per goal, how much muscle gain we can get from it has really relieved you of
a lot of those negative guilt, shame thoughts and help and will help you
make better choices going forward.
You guys are awesome.
Thank you so much for listening today.
I'm always open to answer questions.
You guys can send me Ds lifting Lindsey on Instagram.
Come and join our training program.
Go to be strong dot lifting lindsey.com.
Join the training, join our community.
We would love to see you there.
You guys have a wonderful week.