Every so often, a piece of research comes along that is worth paying attention to even if you have no interest in becoming a bodybuilder. This is one of those moments. The American College of Sports Medicine, the largest sports medicine and exercise science body in the world, has just published its first major update to its resistance training guidance since 2009.
To put that in perspective, a lot of what people currently believe about lifting weights, how many sets to do, whether you need to train to failure, whether heavy or light weights build more muscle, was shaped by guidance written seventeen years ago. This new review pulled together more than 130 studies covering over 30,000 people, making it the most comprehensive look at strength training ever assembled. A few long-held assumptions did not survive the process.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO TRAIN TO FAILURE
This is probably the biggest shift, and the most welcome one. For years, the idea that you had to push every set until your muscles physically could not do another rep was treated as almost non-negotiable for building strength or muscle. The new review found that stopping a set two to three reps before failure produces essentially the same results, with far less fatigue and a lower injury risk. Effort matters. Grinding yourself into the ground does not.
TOTAL WEEKLY VOLUME MATTERS MORE THAN THE PERFECT REP RANGE
The old advice leaned heavily on specific rep ranges, the well-known “eight to twelve reps for muscle growth” rule being the most repeated example. The new guidance found that the rep range itself is far less important than how much total work you do across the week. For building muscle, aiming for around ten sets per muscle group per week is a more useful target than obsessing over whether you are doing eight reps or fifteen.
STRENGTH AND MUSCLE GROWTH NEED SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT APPROACHES
For building strength specifically, the guidance points toward heavier loads, around 80 percent of your maximum, done for two to three sets, with your most important exercises done earlier in your session while you are fresh. For building muscle size, a broader range of loads works, provided each set is taken close to genuine effort, with a bit more total volume across the week.
EQUIPMENT CHOICE AND COMPLICATED PROGRAMMING MATTER LESS THAN YOU THINK
Whether you are lifting a barbell, using a machine, or working with resistance bands does not appear to make a meaningful difference. Neither does a lot of the complex periodization that gets built into elaborate training plans. The clearest message from this research is refreshingly simple: consistency and appropriate effort beat complexity.
THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FINDING
Buried underneath all the detail about sets, loads, and rep ranges is the finding that matters most for the majority of people: the biggest jump in benefit does not come from fine-tuning your program. It comes from going from doing no resistance training at all to doing some, consistently, twice a week. If you are someone who has been meaning to start but has been put off by conflicting advice online, this is about as close as it gets to permission to keep it simple.
WHY THIS MATTERS BEYOND THE GYM
This is not just relevant if your goal is building muscle. Strength training well is one of the most effective tools we have for preventing the injuries we see every day in clinic, protecting joints, supporting posture for desk-based professionals, and maintaining function as people get older. It is also directly relevant to recovery from injury, since appropriately loaded resistance work is often a core part of a rehabilitation plan, not something to avoid until you are “fully better.”
If you have been training based on rules you picked up years ago, or you have never quite known where to start, this is a good moment to get a program built around what the evidence actually supports, rather than what used to be common wisdom.
GETTING IT RIGHT FOR YOUR BODY
The guidance above applies to healthy adults in general. What it looks like for you specifically, how much load is appropriate, which movements to prioritize, and how to build volume safely if you are returning from an injury or new to resistance training, is something worth getting individual guidance on.
Our physiotherapy and performance teams can assess your current strength, movement patterns, and goals, and build a program around what the research actually supports rather than outdated rules of thumb. This is also something we build into our Corporate Wellness programs for teams who spend most of their day at a desk and want a straightforward, evidence-based way to start.
Not Sure Where to Start?
Book an appointment with our doctors. We will create a personalized treatment plan for you.
