A position paper outlining best practices for muscle growth, published in the International Journal of Strength and Conditioning, says, “Athletes can achieve comparable muscle hypertrophy across a wide spectrum of loading zones,”—Samuel says that reps as low as five and as high as 30 can elicit muscle growth—and that there is a practical benefit to using a moderate load. What does this mean for you in practice? Here are the rep ranges that Samuel suggests:

• For compound movements like the Romanian deadlift and pullups, aim for working sets in the five to seven-rep range. Samuel says even though this rep range veers into the “strength-building” zone for most folks, moving more load may contribute better to hypertrophy. “That’s because lower reps build strength, which will eventually allow you to move larger loads for more reps,” he says. “Those heavier loads will also push your largest motor units [in your muscles] from the very beginning of a set.”
• For isolation exercises, such as biceps curls, lateral raises, and/or machine movements, aim for sets of eight to 12 reps. “For isolation movements… you’re mainly focusing on the target muscle instead of recruiting other muscles to assist the lift,” Samuel explains. “Eight to 12 reps is the sweet spot between not cheating on the rep but still pushing your largest motor units.”

JOIN MVP TO BUILD MUSCLE

Samuel says true beginners (people with less than six months of consistent gym experience) should perform eight to 12 reps for all exercises. This will allow you to build muscle and master the movement in a generally safer rep range.

Get the Most Out of Your Reps

The number of reps you perform is only as effective as the effort you put into each set. You want to ensure you take each rep through a complete range of motion and that you’re lifting just short of technical failure (when you can’t complete another rep with textbook form).

Recent research is mixed on whether lifting close to failure elicits more hypertrophy, with one 2022 study finding no significant difference between lifting to failure vs. non-failure on strength and hypertrophy and a 2024 meta-analysis concluding that hypertrophy was better when sets were taken closer to failure. Our rule of thumb: push yourself but leave a rep or two in the tank.

“Your rep speed should be slowing down noticeably for the last two reps,” Samuel says. “For more advanced gym-goers, I like to say that you should have just a bit of doubt about whether you can complete the final rep.”

As for how your sets may look in practice: If you’re lifting with enough intensity and a challenging load, you shouldn’t be able to do the same number of reps for each subsequent set. For example, if you’re performing the dumbbell bench press for three sets in the eight to 12 rep range, your sets and reps may look like this:

• Set 1 (warm-up): 8 reps with 40 pounds
• Set 2 (warm-up): 4 reps with 60 pounds
• Set 3 (working set): 12 reps with 70 pounds
• Set 4 (working set): 10 reps with 70 pounds
• Set 5 (working set): 8 reps with 70 pounds

The effort for each set should feel the same—that you can do two more reps before you call it quits—but the number of reps you can do with the same intensity decreases as your muscles fatigue. If you can do three sets of 12 reps for all your sets from the jump, you’re probably not challenging your muscles enough.

One quick exception to this approach comes with lengthened partial reps. Recent research suggests that these half reps performed with the target muscle in its stretched position (i.e. the bottom position of a biceps curl or pullup) can illicit similar muscle-building gains to full-range of motion (ROM) reps. You can implement lengthened partials into your workouts by adding a pair of extra reps once you’ve reached technical failure within a full-ROM set.

How to Progress With Your Reps

One way to progress is to add one rep to all your sets (or even just one exercise) from week to week. So, if you can press 70-pound dumbbells for an average of 10 reps across three sets, start there. The next week, you may do two sets of 11 reps and a set of 10. And then the next week, a set of 12, then 11, then 10. Keep at it until you can do three sets of 12 reps (or whatever the top end of your target rep range is). You’ll then increase the weight by five pounds and start the progression over at the bottom of the rep range, attempting to work your way back to the top of the range.

You can also perform one top set and a couple of back-off sets. Sticking with the dumbbell bench press example, you’d warm up and then perform eight to 12 reps pushing the set to failure. Following your top set, you’ll reduce the weight by about 10 to 15 percent and do two more sets of eight to 12 reps.

The benefit of back-off sets is that you can progress the reps for each set simultaneously. If you stick with the same weight for each set (which is a fine way to train), you won’t be able to do all of your sets with the same reps if you’re training with the correct intensity. However, using back-off sets allows you to reach the top end of your rep range for both your top set and back-off sets since you’re adjusting the loads to your fatigue levels. The back-off sets should feel as hard as the top sets, but you’ll be able to do more reps than if you are stuck with the same weight as your top set.

Can You Get Bigger and Stronger at the Same Time?

The short answer is: Yes. The classic school of thought is that you need to either train for strength or muscle, but in reality, the two modalities aren’t mutually exclusive. You get stronger in two ways, says Samuel:

• You create a neurological adaptation. Essentially, you perform a lot of repetitions at sub-maximal loads, which teaches your brain to better understand how to do the exercise efficiently.
• You build more muscle. “All things equal (your levers, learning curve, body weight, etc.), a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle,” says Samuel. “And a bigger muscle can produce more force to help you move more weight.”

The driving force behind whether a muscle gets stronger and bigger is progressive overload, which is when you aim to lift more weight or do more reps each week. Whether you’re training for bigger muscles or a stronger deadlift, you’re pushing yourself to do either more reps or lift more weight each session—and doing more is what drives change.

“The adaptation we get from strength training with progressive overload, on some level, will almost always be muscle building (even in a caloric deficit),” explains Samuel. “Meanwhile, if we train strictly for hypertrophy, we’re eventually going to see strength gains because those bigger muscles we built are going to be stronger than the smaller muscles we had.”

Say your program calls for three sets of 10 to 12 reps on the dumbbell bench press. You start with 70-pound dumbbells for three sets of 10 reps. If you add one rep to each set every week and then increase the weight you’re lifting by five pounds before starting back at 10 reps, in theory, you could be pressing 80- to 85-pound dumbbells after 12 weeks. That’s a pretty significant increase in strength.

That said, those training exclusively for strength gains shouldn’t expect to maximize muscle growth, and guys lifting to get larger won’t necessarily get powerlifting-strong. In strength training, for example, while you accumulate a lot of volume in specific lifts, the sets are typically between two and six reps, which doesn’t provide enough tension on the muscle per set to stimulate the peak hypertrophic response. Lots of strength-based programs also focus mostly on the big three (the back squat, deadlift, and bench press) and accessory work to support those lifts, so a lot of your muscles won’t get the minimum 10 weekly sets that research suggests to grow new tissue.

How Many Reps You Should Do to Build Muscle

If your goal is to build muscle, workouts with reps as low as five and as high as 30 will do the job. We suggest you stick to five to seven reps per set for heavier, compound movement and between eight and 12 reps per set for smaller muscles and single-joint exercises.

Your intensity and effort during each set are as crucial as the rep range. You should take each set close to failure (leaving one to two reps in the tank) and use a weight that allows you to hit that mark while using good form. Once you feel like you’re a rep shy of not being able to do one more rep with good technique, stop the set, rest, and then do your next set.

And remember: You can lift within a rep range, so if you do more reps during the first set and then a few reps less during your last set with the same effort, that’s okay. In fact, that’s good; it means you’re taxing your muscles toward more growth.