Simple Response: How Many Bench Press Sets Per Session

Sets During Session

— 3 to 6 working sets per session.

Frequency

— 1 to 3 times per week (highly dependant on training age)

Weekly Volume

— 6 to 18 working sets

Calorie Surplus

— In order to build muscle you need to be in a calorie surplus.

Key Concepts

Weekly Volume

Weekly volume is the amount of working sets performed within a week of training on a muscle group or movement pattern.

Maintenance Volume

Maintenance volume is the amounts of working sets that need to be performed to maintain current levels of strength and muscle mass. This will change for individuals and muscle groups within an individual, though roughly it is usually around 3-6 sets per week.

Minimal Effective Dose

The minimal effective dose is the amount of volume required to create adaptation (of either strength adaptations or hypertrophic adaptations). This typically ranges from between 5-8 per muscle group or movement pattern but again will depend on the muscle group.

Maximal Adaptive Volume

The maximal adaptive volume is the amount of volume that creates high levels of adaptation, this is a very effective amount of volume and will create very good results. This kind of volume will require good levels of recovery.

Maximal Recoverable Volume

Maximal recoverable volume is the maximal amount of volume that can be performed before starting to risk injury. This means that volume in the muscle group or movement pattern is extremely high and recovery protocols will need to be excellent. This sort of volume cannot be maintained for long periods of time without a deload.

Working Sets

Weekly volume is calculated by counting the number of working sets performed during the week. A working set is any set that is you consider challenging enough to count as a set. It usually involves using a weight over 50% of your max for a relatively challenging number of repetitions. When we discuss weekly volume, its important to understand working sets otherwise we can consider that warm up sets or easy sets count towards our weekly volume. Working sets for hypertrophy require near failure outputs on relatively light weights (55-65%) of working max.

Individual Differences

Individual differences is a very important concept when it comes to understanding weekly volume and session volume. A beginner may only need 6 sets in a week to see great progression on their bench press, whereas 6 sets for an advanced lifter may just be enough to maintain strength.

Beginners need to be aware that if they perform too much volume too quickly they will put themselves at risk of repetitive strain injuries, the body needs to be stressed slowly over time, not in huge waves that create injury.

Dose Responses Relationship of Volume and Progress (with a point of diminishing returns)

A dose response relationship is when a dose is increased the response is increased. In the case of resistance training the dose is the volume of working sets performed within the week. The response is the adaptation to that response. So when we increase the volume, we increase the adaptation. This is a crucial point to understand when you want to progress. It is both true for hypertrophy and strength training .

Taking Into Account Weekly Volume

The question asked how many sets per session, but that question is much less important than weekly sets performed. This is important to understand when designing your training programme, how many sets you are performing within your week as it is more important to your long term progression than how many sets you are performing in your actual session.

Key Take Aways

If you are consistently performing between 8-18 working sets on the bench press in the week you will be sure to make progress towards your goals. Remember that if you are a beginner, start at 8 sets per week and progress the amount of volume slowly over time in order to avoid injury. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to sean@programme.app.