5 Sets and Crazy Progress

How Many Sets Per Week Do You Need to Get Stronger?

If you have kept up with our YouTube channel, or read our blogs, you know how much I dislike the ‘all or none’ mentality.

It’s sad that the fitness industry drills this into people, and it is the norm for people to treat their health and fitness with this mentality.

My mission is to break this mentality and inform you of how you can get amazing strength results without running yourself into the ground in the gym week after week. Trust me, if you are an everyday working person, this is for you.

Many fitness gurus preach being in the gym 5 days a week for 2 hours a day and absolutely WRECKING your muscles, but there is a better way. A way with less sets, less time in the gym, and better-quality results.

PSA – we work with everyday men and women who want to get lean, strong, and healthy so they can do the things they love with the people they love. Of course they want to be strong, toned, and fit, but they don’t have to be JACKED or MASSIVE.

So, how many sets each week, per body part do you need to do to make amazing progress?

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The really neat thing about Strength Training is that it follows the law of diminishing returns. This means if you want to maximize progress in an area, you need to do all the work you can do, but your biggest gains come from the first pieces of work you do.

For example, the first set per muscle group you do during the week is going to give you the most returns. The second set will provide great progress but less than the first. The third will follow suit.

If you’re a pro athlete or are just wanting to get jacked, you want to be doing ALL the work you can possibly do. But that’s not who I’m talking to right?

If you want to be lean, strong, and healthy, you can build good muscle and strength with as few as five sets per week in the gym. Honestly, you could make a lot of progress with fewer sets – 4, 5, 6 per week, per muscle group.

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If you never do more than 4-6 sets per week, per muscle group you will be far more muscular than just the average person. There are great returns to be seen through doing this.

Strength Training is so powerful. If you are just starting out and you are super pressed for time, you can bet that you’ll see great results from just 1-2 sets per week. This is indefinitely better than not working your muscles at all.

Chances are though, if you are working out 1 day a week, you can also work out 2 or 3 days a week.

Working out 2-3 days per week will allow you to easily get to that 4-6 sets per week per muscle group. Maybe even closer to 8-10 sets.

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Think about it this way, if you have the time to do your first 4 sets, might as well do 6. And if you have even more time, you can do more than 6 sets.

The reason I like for people to lean towards doing fewer sets is because it isn’t worth toeing the line.

For pro-athletes they have to toe the line. They have the time, the ability to recover, and a lot on the line. Their contracts and everything ride on them playing their sport at the highest level and that starts in the gym.

For you though, being the world’s best grandpa, grandma, mom, dad, brother, sister, or friend doesn’t require you shaving off .001 second off your time or lifting 5 more lbs. You just need to be leaner and stronger so you can be the world’s best at whatever you do.

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Don’t feel like you have to do all this work to get simple results. The fitness industry makes it seem like you have to lift super heavy and be in the gym 20 hours a week to have any kind of fitness success.

Doing low-moderate work with good form, full range of motion, close to failure, with 4-6 sets per week per muscle group will yield tremendous muscle and strength gains.

Like I said earlier, if you’re super pressed for time – I really don’t buy it, but that’s okay – you can see amazing results with as little as 1-3 sets per week per muscle group in the gym.

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I challenge you to make a change this year. 2025 can be the year you start putting your health and fitness on the forefront. No matter your schedule, you can make amazing strength gains. As time progresses, you’ll find how much more energy you have strength training, and you’ll work it into your schedule.

Just give it a shot, you won’t be disappointed.

If you are interested in having a personalized strength training plan, a trainer who cares about you and your journey, and a nutrition specialist who will walk you through all the nutrition steps, Steel Strength is a good fit for you.

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