Weight Training: More or Less?

If those two-hour-a-day, 15-sets-per-bodypart workouts are driving
you to the brink of madness, listen up: You might be working a lot
harder than you have to. A paper presented in the journal Sports
Medicine reviewed a number of studies on the effectiveness of
single vs. multiple training sets for increasing muscle strength
and size.

The researchers looked at studies that evaluated the value of
performing one set vs. two sets, one set vs. three sets, and one
set vs. three or more sets (i.e., performing one set of biceps
curls vs. performing two, three, or more sets).

Now here's the big news: After a thorough review of the material,
the researchers concluded that "the benefits of resistance training
may involve undertaking the minimal amount of exercise needed to
achieve the desired response"

Think about your current exercise regimen -- is the amount of
effort you're putting in worth the results you're getting? If
you're slaving away at the gym but don't seem to be making any
improvements, try slimming down your program for a while, and see
what happens. Less might actually be more.

Carpinelli RN, Otto RM. Strength training: single vs. multiple
sets. Sports Medicine, August 1998: Vol. 26, No. 2, pp73-84.