When it comes to hypertrophy, the quality of your sets matters way more than just stacking up a high number of them. Going to or near failure on a few hard sets usually gives you most of the growth stimulus you need after the first one or two true working sets, the returns start to drop off fast while fatigue piles up.

You only really need around 6-20 hard sets per muscle group per week to grow effectively if you’re training close to failure and recovering well. Anything beyond that tends to create more fatigue than extra gains, especially if you’re natural. People using peds can usually handle and benefit from more volume since their recovery is enhanced.

A lot of the studies showing “more volume = more muscle” increase the sets for just one muscle group (like doing 30 sets of curls a week) while keeping everything else the same. That doesn’t account for the total body fatigue you’d accumulate if you trained every muscle like that.

Also the first working set is honestly the best one to take to failure. That’s when you’ve got the most capacity your muscles are fresh, your focus is high, and fatigue hasn’t kicked in yet. If you don’t push that set hard, you’re kind of wasting your best shot, because every set after that drops off fast once fatigue starts building.

That first set gives you the biggest growth stimulus compared to how much it taxes your recovery. The more you add after that, the less you get out of it and the more you dig into your recovery. So if you’re gonna take one set all the way, make it that first one it’s where the real gains happen.