Training volume calculator

Updated 16 July 2026

This calculator gives you a weekly working set target per muscle group based on your experience level, goal, and how many days you train. Working sets are the hard sets taken close to failure, not warm ups.

Volume is the main driver of muscle growth once effort is accounted for, but more is only better up to what you can recover from. The ranges here follow the hypertrophy research consensus: roughly 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle per week for most lifters, less for beginners and for maintenance.

Weekly working sets per muscle group

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Weekly set ranges at a glance

Experience Build muscleGet strongerMaintain
Beginner (under 1 year of consistent lifting) 8 to 12 sets6 to 10 sets4 to 6 sets
Intermediate (1 to 3 years) 12 to 18 sets10 to 15 sets6 to 9 sets
Advanced (3 or more years) 16 to 22 sets12 to 18 sets6 to 10 sets

How to set your weekly training volume

  1. 1 Choose experience, goal, and days Select your training experience, your main goal, and how many days a week you train.
  2. 2 Read your weekly set target The calculator returns a weekly working set range per muscle group based on the hypertrophy research consensus.
  3. 3 Split it across the week Divide the sets so you hit each muscle about twice a week, then adjust down if your logged weights stall.

How this is calculated

The ranges follow the hypertrophy volume research consensus, including the meta analyses by Schoenfeld and colleagues: growth improves with weekly hard sets up to roughly 10 to 20 per muscle for trained lifters, with beginners responding to less and maintenance requiring far less than building.

The per session split assumes you hit each muscle about twice per week, which research favours over once per week at equal volume. Treat the target as a starting point and audit it against recovery: if your logged weights stall or drop across two weeks, reduce volume before adding more.

Common questions

What counts as a working set?

A set taken within about 4 reps of failure on an exercise that meaningfully loads the muscle. Warm ups do not count. Compound lifts count for their prime movers and roughly half credit for secondary muscles, so 3 sets of bench press give your chest 3 sets and your triceps about 1.5.

Is more volume always better?

No. Research shows growth climbs with volume up to a point and then flattens while fatigue keeps climbing. If performance drops week to week or joints ache, you are past your recoverable volume regardless of what a chart says.

How should I split volume across the week?

Hitting each muscle about twice per week outperforms once for most people at the same total volume. So a 16 set weekly target for chest works better as two sessions of 8 than one session of 16.

Do these numbers apply to every muscle group?

They are a solid default for large groups like chest, back, quads, and shoulders. Smaller muscles that get heavy indirect work, like biceps and rear delts, often grow fine on the low end of the range because compound lifts already feed them.

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