How much is enough

#The per-session ceiling

Roughly five hard sets per muscle per session — about 25 stimulating reps — is where the useful ceiling sits. Between five and ten the curve plateaus without obvious harm. Past ten it turns negative, plausibly because muscle damage starts consuming the repair resources growth needs.

Two fatigue types set that ceiling:

Central fatigue accumulates across the session and reduces achievable recruitment. This is markedly worse with short rests — which is exactly why trials using three-minute rests find higher optimal volumes than those using ninety seconds.

Mechanical damage limits between-session recovery.

#Weekly volume is meaningless without frequency

This follows directly. If the per-session ceiling is about five sets, then the weekly ceiling is five multiplied by how often you train that muscle. There is no weekly number that is correct independent of frequency.

#Count only the sets where the muscle is the limiter

A subtlety that invalidates most set-counting: a set counts toward a muscle only if that muscle is what ends the set.

• The squat is a poor rectus femoris stimulus. That head is also a hip flexor, and it sits shortened at the hip throughout — the deficit is why you still need leg extensions.
• The bench press loads triceps and pectorals roughly equally. It counts for both.
• A row where your grip fails first counted for your forearms.

#Where this program sits, honestly

Brut runs 3–4 sets per muscle per session, 2× weekly — 6–8 working sets a week.

That is below the ceiling above, and it is a deliberate choice rather than a claim that more does not work. It buys: shorter sessions, better recovery, higher adherence, and every set delivered fresh.

If you stall and recovery is genuinely good, the room is in adding sets toward five per session — not in adding days, and not in adding exercises.

#The honest counterweight

The largest dose-response meta-regression to date (Pelland et al., Sports Medicine, 2026 — 67 studies, 2,058 participants) found volume raises hypertrophy with 100% posterior probability of a positive slope, showing diminishing returns.

It also found that frequency's effect on hypertrophy was compatible with negligible effects, though frequency clearly helps strength.

So: total volume first, proximity to failure second, frequency a distant third that mostly buys you a better way to distribute the volume. This program uses 2× frequency for session quality and recovery, not because splitting the sets is independently magic.