Health and Safety How Many Sets You Should Be Doing in a Workout By Paige Waehner facebook linkedin Paige Waehner is a certified personal trainer, author of the "Guide to Become a Personal Trainer"; and co-author of "The Buzz on Exercise & Fitness." Learn about our editorial process Paige Waehner Updated on October 17, 2019 Print Tuomas Marttila / Getty Images When you lift weights, your workout plan will usually specify a certain number of sets. A set describes a group of repetitions performed for an exercise. For example, a basic strength workout might list "3x10 chest presses." That means you should do three sets of 10 reps. Chose a weight heavy enough that you can only do 10 reps in a row. After one set of 10, rest. Then repeat two more times for a total of three sets. How Many Sets Should You Do in a Workout? In general, the average exerciser does one to three sets of each exercise. There is some controversy about whether one set elicits the same results as multiple-set training. If you're more advanced, or have specific goals (such as increasing muscle mass), the number of reps and sets you should do may change. For some goals, you want more reps and sets with lighter weights, while for others, the opposite is better. Fitness Goal Sets Reps Rest Period Intensity General fitness 1 or 2 8 to 15 30 to 90 seconds Can vary Endurance 3 to 4 15+ Up to 30 seconds 50% to 65% of 1RM Muscle mass 3 to 6 6 to 12 30 to 90 seconds 70% to 80% of 1RM Muscle strength 2 to 3 Up to 6 2 to 5 minutes 80% to 90% of 1RM Power: 1 Lift 3 to 5 1 or 2 2 to 5 minutes 90%+ of 1RM What Is 1RM? Use Sets to Achieve Weight Loss Goals For weight loss, incorporate some of the following techniques into your workouts to boost calorie burn. Circuit training: With circuit training, you do each exercise one after the other without rest. This allows you to build muscle while keeping your heart rate elevated, which can help burn more calories during and after your workout.Supersets: Choose two exercises that target the same muscle group and do them one after the other. This increases intensity, which can help burn more calories. A total body superset workout will really challenge you.Tri-sets: Like supersets, this involves doing three exercises for the same or opposite muscle groups, one after the other, with no rest in between. Again, this is a great way to build intensity and burn more calories.Pyramid training: With this type of training, you build on each set, increasing weight and decreasing reps so that you really target muscle fibers and get the most out of each rep. Try an upper-body pyramid workout.Tabata strength training: This is a kind of high-intensity circuit training that keeps your heart rate elevated even more than traditional circuit training. You alternate 20-second work intervals with 10 seconds of rest, repeating that for four minutes. That doesn't sound like much time, but it's tough. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Get exercise tips to make your workouts less work and more fun. Sign Up You're in! Thank you, {{form.email}}, for signing up. There was an error. Please try again. What are your concerns? Other Inaccurate Hard to Understand Submit Article Sources Verywell Fit uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. American College of Sports Medicine position stand. Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009;41(3):687-708. doi:10.1249/MSS.0b013e3181915670