Defining Minimum Effective Dose

Understanding minimum effective dose is crucial to designing training programmes and making successful exercise interventions. Dose is the amount of work being performed. Dose in regard to resistance training is best discussed as the amount of volume (working sets) being performed on each movement pattern or muscle group on a weekly basis. Therefore minimum effective dose is the amount of volume required to make progress in terms of muscle strength and size.

How Volume for Minimum Effective Dose?

Minimum effective dose is different for everyone and highly differentiates based on training age. A beginner needs a great deal less training volume to progress than an advanced practitioner. Studies show that maintenance volume is around 4 sets per muscle group / movement pattern. This means minimum effective dose (the amount of volume required to make progress) on a specific muscle group / movement pattern we are looking for around 6–8 sets per muscle group in order to find a minimum effective dose.

Defining A Working Set

A working set is a set that takes us close to failure of some sort. Either through fatigue accumulation when performing hypertrophy or through lifting heavy weights (80%+). This is crucial to success in resistance training, if you are not coming at this with intensity then you will find it extremely hard to progress. This does not mean going to failure every set, it means making sets challenging work.

Something is Better Than Nothing

Before I start to go into detail about why one session isn’t enough I would just like to add a caveat. That something is always better than nothing. When you move your body once per week it is so much better than never moving your body. That being said, sometimes we can take bad lessons from making poor intervention. If you train once a week for a year with little intensity, you're going to think that resistance training is not a successful intervention, when actually it was just your application of resistance training.

Why One Session isn’t Enough

One training session, that is time efficient, can maybe fit in 4–5 exercises with 4–5 working sets each (that is a tough session). This means that you can just about maintain all the movement patterns within resistance training. One resistance training session per week is maintenance volume. The only reason it is not is if you are a true beginner, and after six months to a year it will become maintenance volume.

One session, you are performing 6-8 working sets per movement category is enough, but this is not going to be a session that takes on hour, more like 90’ making it a pretty rare undertaking.

Why Two Sessions is Enough

Two sessions a week is enough to progress in resistance training, but these sessions will be both very challenging sessions. To perform 4–5 movement patterns for 4–5 working sets each on primary exercises will be very tough. This will get us to 8–10 sets per movement pattern, resulting in progress. This is why you need to be performing two sessions a week and avoiding only performing one session. This extra hour in the gym a week will be the difference between making sustainable progress and not making progress.

For advanced practitioners, two sessions isn’t going to be enough to reach progress of high levels of strength. If you are an advanced practitioner, you know this already.

The Importance of Intensity When Training at Very Low Volume

The intensity of each working set is crucial when you are training on low volume, you have to get the most out of every set if you are looking to make progress. This means being well fuelled and well rested for each of your training sessions.

Why Successful People Do Not Train / Move Twice Per Week

People who actually make this intervention and perform two sessions of resistance training a week on an annual basis almost always move their bodies more than twice per week. Especially as two sessions a week is a minimum for resistance training, without taking into account cardiovascular training or any form of play / sport.

I suggest that two sessions of resistance training a week should be a minimum for resistance training, but by no means the minimum of movement within a week, ideally this should be 4 hours a week of some form of movement, two of which are resistance training.

When taking on resistance training as a health intervention, it is key to undertand what is an effective amount of work and what isn’t. This will allow you to ensure long term, sustainable progress.