What Happens When You Switch From a One-Set to a Multiple-Set Routine in the Gym?

Does the change in routine trigger new size and strength gains?

The phrase "a change is as good as a holiday" suggests that making a change in your routine or environment can provide similar benefits to taking a vacation, such as refreshing your perspective and boosting your mood.

In the world of resistance training, a change in routine can also perk up your motivation and interest when things start getting a bit stale. Variation in the volume and intensity of training are also key facets of periodization, a strategy used by most leading coaches.

Traditional gym lore also holds that multiple work sets of the same exercise are superior to a single set. While an increasing volume of research disputes this contention, most people still perform multiple-set routines. Which means that, when researchers recruit previously-trained subjects to participate in 1-set versus multiple-set studies, most of those subjects will be coming from a background of multiple-set training.

Today, we’ll look at a study in which the exact opposite occurred: the researchers recruited people who had been training for at least one year on a single-set routine. These subjects were then divided into two groups, one of which began performing 3 sets per exercise for 13 weeks, while the other group continued with their single-set approach. Aside from the number of sets, their workout routines were identical.

So did the ‘novel’ stimulus of an increased set volume result in accelerated muscle and strength gains?

Let’s find out.