What’s the least you can do and still grow muscle?
Take-aways
Superset different exercises that don’t overlap. The data suggests that supersetting two exercises that do not involve the same muscle groups (e.g. dumbbell fly and bench press is no good, but bench press and row is fine) results in similar muscle growth - but saving a ton of time! Our own research group is even about to publish a new study, finding similar muscle growth from traditional training vs using supersets.
Take each set very close to or even to failure. You want to make each set count; the closer a set is taken to failure, the better it will likely be for muscle growth.
Consider using drop-sets; instead of doing traditional sets where you wait for several minutes between sets, drop-sets may offer similar growth in less time.
Keep rest times moderate, around 1-2 minutes between sets. Our own meta-analysis suggested this is best for growth, and will save you time compared to resting >2 minutes between sets!
Pick the right exercises: mostly compound, dumbbell, bodyweight-based, or stack-loaded machine movements. These are most time efficient on account of requiring the least set-up/warm-up and giving you the most bang for buck!
If you’ve ever gotten busy, you’ll have had the (dis)pleasure of needing to cut down on gym time. During that time, you may have asked yourself the question - how do I make the most of my time in the gym? Can I still progress?
I have good news for you. First, it seems like even with as few as around 5 sets per week per muscle, you can still gain muscle.
A new meta-analysis by Pelland et al found exactly this; while doing up to 30 or even 40 sets per muscle per week was required to maximise muscle growth, you can gain muscle with even with just 5 or so sets a week.
With that said, I’ve left a few tips above to make the most of your time in the gym; even with only an hour or two in the gym a week, you could easily get to 5-10+ sets per muscle!
