So, How Many Reps to Build Muscle? Doing around 6–20 reps per set is usually best for building muscle, with some experts going as wide as 5–30 or even 4–40 reps per set. For bigger lifts, 6–10 reps often works best. For smaller lifts, 12–20 reps often works better.

Know the difference Your bigger muscle groups are your hamstrings, glutes, quadriceps, back, and chest. Your smaller muscle groups consist of shoulders, triceps, biceps and calves.

Sometimes, people with less muscle lift way more than people with more muscle. On the individual level, you gain way more strength than muscle mass across a training career because strength generally increases faster than muscle mass.

1) Training Too Often And Too Much Though it’s a small muscle group that recovers comparatively faster than other muscles, it still needs rest for optimal hypertrophy. Also, your biceps are quite active in your pulling exercises (back workouts), which makes them one of the most active muscle groups.

As always, it varies individually. Some may be totally fine with a volume of 14 direct sets/week whereas others even need more than 20 sets/week to stimulate any biceps growth at all. But on average most folks will get good growth with a volume between 14-20 sets/week.

While five sets of 15 reps is a good rep range for more seasoned lifters, Howell advises that beginners opt for five sets of 10 reps. Start with a weight you can perform easily (about 50 percent of your max).

BICEPS TRAINING Recommendations suggesting 12-20 total work sets per week for intermediate lifters. Performing as little as 6-8 sets per week can also suffice for some lifters who are performing a lot of pulling, as the biceps are also responsible for this movement.