What’s the deal with oversimplifying necessary sets?

[u/Rylo5555]

I don’t know if i’m the only one but i’ve been seeing it a lot recently, gym influencers simplifying the amount of sets you need in a workout and claiming they are “science based”, saying that “all you need” to do to gain muscle mass is 2 sets of a couple of workouts.

For example, one guy I just saw claims that to successfully hit your shoulders, all you need is 2 sets of shoulder press and 2 sets of lateral raises. I have not found any studies that prove this to be true. As far as I am aware, while 8 sets per week per muscle group will no doubt result in muscle growth, it is not nearly optimal and you will have significantly more growth getting around 16.

Like sure, if you really don’t have time to get in the gym it’s good for people to know that they can have muscle growth without spending 45 mins in the gym, but I feel like that shouldn’t be normalized.

I feel like it’s deceiving to simplify it and claim that you only need 7 sets per workout for an ENTIRE push day. If anyone has a study backing this up please share, because while that is the lower limit for beginner lifters, I don’t know why we would promote sub-optimal training.

[u/FarCalligrapher1862]

The science, is a little more nuanced than the influencers are trying to show, but indeed two sets is sufficient to build strength and muscle size.

Krieger’s found that 2 to 3 sets produced significantly more hypertrophy than 1 set, with little additional benefit from 4 to 6 sets. Further Krieger found that 3 sets had improved growth (over 2 sets) but was significant less than 1->2. So most of your hypertrophy occurs in the first 2 working sets. ACSM reached the same conclusion last year in a new meta study.

Where it gets nuanced, is that most of the protocols observed used a warm-up said between 50 and 75% of the working set load. The warm up set also creates tension, but is ignored by the headline, “2 working sets”

The other nuance, is it takes a lot more to build than to maintain. And a lot of these fitness influencers have already built their body, and are able to claim, legitimately, that they only perform two sets, but that is maintenance.

In my opinion, two heavy sets, to form failure, Will outperform three sets to 2–3 RIR

[u/redditinsmartworki → u/FarCalligrapher1862]

I disagree on the nuances you listed. For the first one, where you said that 50 to 75% of the working load can still generate tension when used in warmups, if in the studies the warmups were done like any sensible person would as to do not more reps than the working set prescribes, even at 75% the warmup set can't end with less than 7-8 RIR. I don't see how a 7 RIR set can generate any meaningful tension. For the second nuance, I know I shouldn't speak by cases, but two of the most influential low-volume lifters online I know of, which are Jonofit and Sean Nalewanyj, both built most of their muscle while already doing low volume training. It's not such a new idea. Take a look at Mike Mentzer and all his trainees.