Tell us your goal. We'll show you exactly how many sets to do for each muscle every week — built on the real science of how muscles grow. No more guessing.
Your plan updates instantly. Change the options above, then set each muscle below to Grow, Maintain, or Prioritize to craft your physique. ↓
Big lifts like squats and bench count toward more than one muscle — so the number of sets you actually do in the gym is lower than the total above. Aim for each muscle's number across the whole week.
Split each muscle across the week. Hit most muscles twice a week — spreading your sets across the week beats cramming them into one day.
Push every set close to failure. Stop 1 to 3 reps short of what you could do. That hard effort is what tells the muscle to grow.
Start low, then add. Begin near the bottom of your range. Add about one set per muscle each week. After 4–6 weeks, take one easy week, then start the climb again.
Reps and rest. Do most sets in the 6–15 rep range. Rest about 1–2 minutes on smaller lifts, and 2–3 minutes on the big ones like squats and presses.
The classic build-the-base plan.
Get this program in The OPTML LibraryPick 2–3 moves per muscle and rotate them every few weeks. Make the first one (a big compound lift) the backbone of your week.
Every muscle has a sweet spot. Do too little and you won't grow. Do too much and you can't recover. Here's the simple science behind your plan.
The least you need to grow at all. Below this, you're just maintaining. It stands for "minimum effective volume."
Where most of your growth happens. This is the target for building muscle — "maximum adaptive volume."
The most you can handle before it's too much to recover from. Go past this and you go backward. It's your "max recoverable volume."
Your number sits right in the sweet spot for your goal and how long you've trained. The dot on each bar above shows where you land between the floor and the ceiling.
The plan behind the numbers
Knowing your sets is step one. The OPTML Method turns them into a real, week-by-week program — the exact lifts, reps, and how to add weight over time — matched to you. It's the same system our coaches use to build every plan. Once you train this way, guessing feels crazy.
One set is a group of reps you do in a row until you stop. For example, 10 push-ups in a row is one set. This tool counts your hard working sets — the ones taken close to failure — not warm-ups.
Your muscles don't know what time it is. They respond to how many hard sets they get. Counting sets is the most reliable way to know if you're doing enough — or too much.
That's fine. The tool spreads your sets across the days you have. Fewer days just means each day has a little more work. You can still make great progress on 3 days a week.
Yes. The science of how muscle grows is the same for everyone. The numbers here work for men and women alike.
When you pick "lose fat," we keep your sets high enough to hold onto muscle while you drop weight — but we don't push you to the ceiling, because your body recovers slower when you eat less.
Educational use only. Not medical advice and not a prescription. Volume landmarks are general guidelines based on published resistance-training research; your ideal numbers depend on your recovery, sleep, nutrition, and exercise selection. Start conservatively and adjust based on how you recover.
This calculator uses weekly-set volume landmarks drawn from resistance-training research. Individual recovery varies, so treat the ranges as starting points and adjust. It is for education only and is not medical advice.