2 Sets per Exercise for Muscle and Strength?

I continue to find that I am a 2-set-pony. 

I'm smoked after 2 sets of an exercise. Partially because I tend to go pretty hard on each set. Partially because I think I'm just predisposed to responding better to lower volumes. 

Yet, it also may just be a result of the fact that I've been strength training for a while now, and have become pretty efficient at contracting a higher percentage of my muscle fibers on a per set basis than when I was a newer lifter and didn't have as good a mind-muscle connection. 

People forget that the ability to forcefully contract muscles is a skill that develops over time with consistent practice. The more efficient you become at this skill, the more quickly you pump and fatigue the specific muscle groups you're targeting in an exercise. 

This means that the more experience you gain in the gym (and the stronger you get, relative to where you began), the more productive each set becomes. This should mean that you create the same amount of strength and hypertrophy stimulus from less sets than when you were weaker and newer to training.

Regardless of why this may be, 2 sets seems to be effective for me at this stage of my life. 

Understanding what your body (and mind) responds to is helpful when it comes to training. For example, in my case, trying to regularly do 4 or 5 sets per exercise is like banging my head against concrete. After 2 sets, I've already achieved the concussion. Continuing to bang my head against concrete 2 or 3 more times just leads me to becoming totally brain dead. That's a helpful analogy, right?

In all seriousness, there are some benefits that I notice from doing 2 sets and these benefits are why I've spent most of my training over the last 7 years doing just 2 sets per exercise.

Knowing I'm doing only 2 sets allows me to rest a little longer between sets and indirectly motivates me to give more effort each set. Thus, I get more bang for my buck. I don't need a 3rd set because I exhaust the muscles, get a pump, and stimulate growth from just 2 sets. Time to move on to the next exercise or pair of exercises, without draining any unnecessary energy, so I can give an equally strong effort in those later exercises.

2 sets is also more time efficient for me, and, as I mentioned earlier, it allows me to rest longer than I would if I was doing 3 or 4 sets, especially since I – again – understand my body and mind, and, therefore, realize that I can only give something my full, undivided, high quality attention for 30-40 minutes. This is definitely the case when it comes to lifting. I'm totally in the zone for 30-40 minutes. Laser focused. But, at 41 minutes, it's like my flow state switch flicks off and I'm ready for food and a nap. Effort dwindles, physical fatigue sets in, my mental focus begins to wander...

Why fight my nature when I can adapt my training to thrive with my natural tendencies?

It took awhile for me to overcome the dogma of 1+ hour workouts, but when I started training within my natural rhythms, instead of just following the cookie cutter, dogmatic norm of exercise duration, my gains increased, my energy throughout the day increased, and my enjoyment for training – hard – was reignited. Train hard, but briefly, then eat, rest, and get on with the rest of my day. That's what works for me.

Along with doing 2 sets instead of 3 sets (most of the time), I also like to superset antagonist muscle groups. But, since I'm only doing 2 sets, I'm able to rest longer between sets of different exercises, rather than jumping right from one exercise into the next with minimal rest. I call this "slow supersets."

Slow supersets is just my way of saying:

Pair 2 antagonist exercises. Do 1 set of 1 exercise (A1), rest 1-2 minutes or so. Then do 1 set of the 2nd exercise (A2). Rest 1-2 minutes or so. Repeat.

2 sets allows me to rest a little longer which, in turn, allows me to attack each set of each exercise with a little more effort/intensity.

3 sets works great for a lot of people. Most of my clients that pay me for 45-60 minutes and who are newer to strength training do 3 sets for the first year or 2. We find that some eventually do better with 2 sets per exercise while others seem to continue to thrive with 3 sets per exercise. So this article is in no way me shouting that everyone would be better off doing 2 sets. That's not the case. 

But the longer (more years) I train, the more I get out of doing just 2 sets. It also saves me about 15 minutes in the gym and I hit my rep goals more quickly, allowing me to increase weights more frequently (doing 2 sets of 12 with X lbs allows me to get to X+5 lbs more quickly than if I'm trying to get 3 sets of X lbs). 

I assume this is beneficial, but I guess you could argue this way and that way until Sunday morning and maybe still never know for sure if 2 sets is better than 3 or if 3 sets are better than 2 – of course – taking into consideration individual differences.

But, for now, I find 2 sets helps keep my training fun, progressive, consistent, and efficient. Sometimes I'll get a wild hair and do 3 sets per exercise, but usually, I default back to 2 sets and 30-ish minute routines.

Keep in mind – and this is important – I'm usually hitting each muscle group (and often each exercise or similar exercise variations), directly 2 times per week. So I'm not just doing 2 sets per muscle for the week and calling it good. I get around 4 sets per exercise/movement pattern per week. Plus, you can assume some overlap in muscle groups and movement patterns, so I'm getting around 4-8 sets per muscle group/movement pattern per week. Glutes and back get a little more. Arms and shoulders, indirectly, get a bit extra, too.

More volume (via sets) may or may not be more effective. But just because something is "less effective" does NOT make it "not effective." It just means in a perfect world progress may be mildly slower. 

However – as I always shout from the rooftops, my words falling upon deaf ears that don't really care all that much about hypertrophy training anyways – more is not necessarily better.

The amount of volume (weekly sets) that you can recover from and progress with is what's going to cause the best results for you!

Everyone is a little different in this area, so some experimentation is important.

I find for myself and for high mileage individuals, a little less volume (10-12 total sets per session, 2 sets per exercise) per session allows us to make better progress because it pushes the progress needle, allows us to recover to hit each muscle/movement pattern about twice per week, which helps our consistency and keeps us fresh so we can train hard – with good intensity and focus – each session.