The Strong Series is your weekly guide to training smarter, not just harder. Every week, we break down one thing that actually moves the needle.

There are two very different ways to waste time in the gym: doing way too much, or doing a lot without ever really challenging yourself.

You can have a two-hour leg day with eight exercises and still leave a lot of growth on the table if every set ends the second it gets uncomfortable. On the other hand, taking every exercise to complete failure and stacking on more and more sets isn't necessarily better either.

The sweet spot comes down to two things: how much quality work you're doing, and how hard that work actually is.

Here’s how to think about both.

1. Start With Weekly Sets, Not How Many Exercises You Did

When we talk about training volume, the easiest useful measurement is the number of challenging working sets you perform for a muscle across the week.

A warm-up set with an empty bar doesn't count the same way as a difficult set of squats. Neither does a set you could have comfortably done another ten reps on.

Research consistently shows a dose-response relationship between resistance-training volume and muscle growth: generally, doing more productive sets leads to greater hypertrophy, but the benefit gets smaller as volume climbs. In other words, going from very little training to a moderate amount matters a lot more than going from an already-high amount to an extreme amount.

There isn't one perfect number for everyone, but for someone trying to build muscle, roughly 6-12 challenging sets per muscle per week can be a very reasonable place to start, especially if those sets are genuinely hard. More experienced lifters may benefit from more, while newer lifters can often grow on less.

The key word is productive. Fifteen hard sets and fifteen sets you barely felt are not the same workout.

2. Understand What “Reps in Reserve” Actually Means

This is where RIR comes in.

Reps in reserve simply means how many more good repetitions you reasonably believe you could have completed before reaching muscular failure.

If you finish a set and know you could have done another five reps, that's roughly 5 RIR. If you probably had two left, you're around 2 RIR. If another rep was genuinely not happening with proper form, you've reached failure.

For muscle growth, you generally want a meaningful portion of your training to happen fairly close to failure. A recent meta-regression found that hypertrophy tended to increase as sets were performed closer to failure, although the relationship with strength gains was much less clear.

That doesn't mean every set has to end with you seeing God.

It means your working sets should actually feel like working sets.

Source: https://pin.it/7fDYZGOAi

3. Most Sets Can Live Around 1-3 Reps From Failure

A useful target for many hypertrophy-focused sets is roughly 1-3 RIR.

At that point, the final few reps should be noticeably slower and harder. You should have to focus. The set should not end simply because you reached the number written in your Notes app.

Importantly, research in trained lifters has shown similar muscle growth when sets were stopped around 1-2 RIR compared with taking them all the way to momentary failure. The failure group, however, experienced more acute fatigue and lost more repetitions across subsequent sets.

That's the trade-off.

Getting close to failure gives you a strong training stimulus. Going all the way there creates more fatigue, and that isn't always buying you additional growth.

4. Failure Is a Tool, Not the Goal of Every Set

Training to failure isn't bad.

It's just expensive.

Failure can make sense on exercises where missing a rep is relatively safe: cable movements, leg extensions, curls, lateral raises or certain machines. Taking your final set of leg extensions to failure is very different from repeatedly taking heavy barbell squats to the point where you physically cannot stand up.

For bigger compound movements, stopping with a rep or two left often gives you most of the stimulus without creating unnecessary fatigue or turning every session into a survival exercise.

Research comparing failure and non-failure training does not show a clear requirement to reach momentary muscular failure to build muscle. Getting sufficiently close appears to matter more.

Basically: hard is productive. Destroyed is optional.

Source: https://pin.it/dD5m0HusL

5. Don't Add Sets Before You Make Your Existing Sets Better

If progress stalls, the instinct is often to add more.

Another glute exercise. Another three sets. Another entire lower-body day.

Before you do that, look at the sets you're already performing.

Are you actually within a few reps of failure? Are you progressing the exercise over time? Is your technique consistent enough that the target muscle is doing the work? Are you resting long enough between sets to perform well again?

If the answer is no, adding more volume may just mean adding more mediocre work.

Make the existing sets count first.

Then, if you're recovering well and progress still isn't moving, adding volume gradually makes much more sense.

6. Your Recovery Sets the Ceiling

The best amount of training isn't the most you can physically survive. It's the most productive training you can recover from and repeat.

If performance is consistently dropping, soreness never really goes away, you're dreading workouts and your numbers are moving backward, piling on more sets is probably not the answer.

Volume also doesn't exist in isolation. Eight genuinely hard sets near failure create a very different recovery demand than eight casual sets. The harder you train, the less junk volume you generally need.

This is why copying someone else's exact workout isn't always useful. Their recovery, training age, exercise selection, sleep and life outside the gym are not yours.

Source: https://pin.it/6fUUAF6DV

7. The Simple Version

If your goal is muscle growth, start with a manageable amount of weekly volume, distribute it across the week where possible, and make those sets genuinely challenging.

Most of your working sets do not need to reach complete failure, but they also shouldn't finish while you're still completely comfortable. Learn what 2 RIR actually feels like. Track your lifts. Add reps or load when you're able to.

Then earn the right to add more.

The goal isn't to see how many exercises you can fit into one workout.

It's to make the sets you do matter.

Your Alura set can make you look ready for business.

Unfortunately, it cannot progressive overload for you.