More sets build more muscle, with diminishing returns. A 2017 meta-analysis found each additional weekly set per muscle added about 0.37 percent to muscle gain, with 10 or more sets the best-performing band, and a 2026 analysis of 67 studies confirmed the rise and the flattening. Keeping muscle you already have takes much less: younger adults held their size on one ninth of their earlier training volume.
So the useful answer depends on which question you are asking. Building and keeping are two different doses.
What the 2017 dose-response meta-analysis found
Schoenfeld and colleagues' 2017 meta-analysis in the Journal of Sports Sciences pooled 34 treatment groups from 15 studies and treated weekly sets as the dose.
As a continuous variable, volume had a significant effect on muscle size. Each additional set was associated with an effect size increase of 0.023, which corresponds to roughly 0.37 percent more gain. When each study's higher and lower volume arms were compared directly, the higher arm produced a 3.9 percent larger gain.
The famous three bands, fewer than 5, 5 to 9, and 10 or more sets per muscle per week, only showed a trend (P = 0.074). The 10 set figure you see repeated as a rule is really the top of a trend line, not a threshold the data proved.
What 67 studies added in 2026
A 2026 meta-regression in Sports Medicine by Pelland and colleagues used 67 studies and 2,058 participants to model volume and frequency together.
The posterior probability that more volume increases muscle size was 100 percent in their models, and the same held for strength. Both relationships showed diminishing returns, much more pronounced for strength than for size. Frequency behaved differently: for muscle growth, its effect was compatible with negligible once volume was counted, while for strength, training more often did help.
Two caveats come straight from the paper. Participants were 79.1 percent male with an average age of about 25, which is not who most people finishing a GLP-1 medication are. And the authors disclose that they are coaches and writers in the fitness industry, which the paper states openly alongside its published data and code.
The authors' own headline is about counting rather than totals. Distinguishing direct from indirect sets, they write, appears essential for predicting what a given programme will do, which is the idea the next section puts to work.
How to count sets the way the best model did
The 2026 team tested three ways of counting sets that hit a muscle indirectly: as a full set, as half a set, or not at all. Half a set fit the data best.
In practice, a set of rows counts as one set for your back and half a set for your biceps. A set of dumbbell floor press counts fully for your chest and half for your triceps. It is a small change that stops compound lifts from being either double-counted or ignored, and it makes the weekly totals in any plan easier to read honestly.
Keeping muscle takes a fraction of the work
A 2011 randomised trial in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise put 70 adults through 16 weeks of resistance training three days a week, then randomly assigned them for 32 weeks to stop entirely, or to keep training at one third or one ninth of the original dose.
In younger adults, aged 20 to 35, both reduced doses preserved the muscle growth from the first phase, and the one third dose even added more fibre size. In adults aged 60 to 75, neither reduced dose held the size gains. Strength was stickier than size for everyone: it was largely retained even after stopping, with only a slight drop at the final time point.
This is the part of the evidence most relevant to protecting muscle during and after weight loss. Maintaining is cheaper than building, and age changes the price.
Where OffRamp's plans sit on this curve
OffRamp ships three strength plans, bodyweight, dumbbell and resistance band, and each is two 20 minute sessions a week. Every session has four exercises: three at 3 sets and one at 2, so 11 working sets per session and 22 a week.
Counted per muscle, that lands between about 3 and 6 direct sets a week, the lower two bands. In the dumbbell plan, the thighs get a goblet squat and a split squat for 6 direct sets a week, the chest gets 3 sets of floor press, and the back gets 3 sets of rows. That is below the 10 set band, and it is meant to be. The plans are a floor you can keep doing through maintenance, and the Bickel data is why a floor is a defensible target for holding muscle. The same data is why anyone over 60 who wants more than a floor should add sets or a third session, with progressive overload on top.
Each completed session is logged with its date, and the insights engine compares your daily energy check-ins on strength days against the rest, surfacing it only when the gap is at least 0.4 points on its 1 to 5 scale. How often to train and preventing sarcopenia cover the schedule and the age question in more depth. None of this is medical advice. If you have a condition that affects how you should exercise, check the plan with your clinician or prescriber.
