Balancing training

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• u/AutoModerator·1·Aug 1, 2026, 8:08 AM

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• u/decentlyhip·1·Aug 1, 2026, 11:45 AM

  The research has shown that you can maintain with 1/9th the volume you needed to build. So, 2 sets a week will take care of you.

  • u/[deleted]·1·Aug 1, 2026, 12:37 PM

    [removed]

• u/Werevulvi·1·Aug 1, 2026, 4:52 PM

  I'm only one year into training myself, but so far I think how much volume you need for maintenance, vs minimally effective volume, vs optimally effective volume, depends on how advanced you are. Because I've always been doing low volume, relatively, but now entering intermediate, that looks a bit different now. Although either way it's still technically considered low volume, but the degree of it did have to change. That said ime, as a beginner I only needed at most maybe 2 sets every 2 weeks to maintain muscle, if even that, because I was still gaining strength and size at 2 sets per muscle/week. 4-6 sets was probably close to my "optimal" range back then. Because I hadn't yet gotten used to training a lot, so adding more volume back then probably wouldn't have helped, and newbie gains do come very easy either way. Now intermediate (although just about) it seems my maintenance is 2-4 sets per muscle/week, my minimal effective volume for gaining is in the 6-8 set range, and for "optimal" gains like in a bulk with seriously down prioritized cardio, before reaching into overtraining, is up to 12 sets per week. So during my first year of training, I was getting very reliable strength/size gains doing just 4-6 sets per muscle/week, but the first few months it was enough with just 2 sets. This can easily be done on 1-3 kinda short workouts per week, depending on if you want to split it up or do full body. Now, going into my second year, I definitely notice my muscles are a bit more stubborn, so I go with 6-8 sets for most of my body. The areas I only care to maintain right now, I do 4 sets a week for, like my abs. Although they do still technically grow stronger even on that low volume, it's just very, very slow, like an extra rep every 3-4 weeks. Then for lagging areas I really badly wanna grow as fast as possible, I do 10-12 sets a week for. That works for 1 or 2, maybe 3 muscle groups at once, but I would not push for that many sets for any other reason, or for my whole body. Not even now that I'm in a bulk with the goal to generally maximize muscle growth. Because I'm still putting more weight on the bar/machine every week, even on muscles I only do 6 sets a week for. So for me, 12 sets is very high volume. Even doing that only for one muscle group, using the 6-8 set range for most other muscles, still kinda meant I had to split my training up into a 5-day split to not make each session too long and too fatiguing. Because honestly I can't really do more than 12-14 sets per workout. I do have autism though, which means I tank way faster into total fatigue crash due to sensory overload, than the average person would. And ime weight lifting at the gym is a highly sensory experience. So personally I wouldn't even be physically capable of doing an actual high volume program. I would absolutely collapse under the barbell/dumbbell not even halfway through the workout. That has kinda happened at times already, just due to poorly planned workout programs, or going to the gym too late in the evening. So, I kinda had to learn a lot about fatigue management from early on. My battery is just constantly down at 5% basically. But yes, I do still manage to build muscle and strength consistently, despite having the stress tolerance of an old rubber band. All I did to find a good balance (basically stimulus to fatigue ratio) was to start with very low volume, and them gradually increase it as it started feeling a bit easier to recover from. Then whenever I added too much, I'd scale it back down a bit. Like for example less than 10 sets in a single workout, I barely even feel like I did anything at all. But 16 sets or more, then my brain fog is so bad at the end that it's literally a safety hazard. So, my sweet spot is somewhere between those, most likely 12-14 sets. That's where I feel tanked and toasted, but not brain dead to the point I can't even operate the velcro straps on my shoes anymore. I've also heard others, like generally legit fitness influencers, say that generally you should be able to keep gaining in the 6-10 sets a week range. And that 10-20 sets is often overkill. Although some do still claim that 20-40 sets is necessary, in reality, very few people can pull that off with their spines still intact. Also, those higher ranges are only really suggested for those who want optimal gains, which yeah, isn't everyone's goal, but they forget we're not all training for the biggest muscles in the world. So, you should be fine dropping things to less than 10 sets a week. Like 6-8 sets generally seems to work just fine for most people to still make gains on, but you might also be able to still get stronger on as little as 2-4 sets a week. And yes, you can experiment with that, it's not gonna hurt you. But it also does depend on your genetics. If you know you generally have a hard time putting on muscle even when training hard and with good form, you may just need a bit more volume to basically compensate for that. Personally, I admittedly have an unusually easy time putting on muscle, like I progress faster than suggested realistic timelines. And that might be a big factor I can get away with doing so low volume. But it could also be that I'm always pushing close to failure on every set and pay close attention to my form, and maybe it's actually mostly that, that makes me able to get so much out of the few sets that I do. It's actually surprisingly hard to tell apart what's really genetics vs how you train. Because there is some inconclusive research suggesting that if you train very hard, you can gain more from lower volume training, but if you don't train super hard you can gain similarly from just doing higher volume instead. So there could be something to it, that maybe "effective volume" is really just depending on your proximity to failure.