How many exercises per workout, by split

How many exercises should you do per workout?

Four to seven in the plans counted below, and never more than ten under RIGOR's rules. The app behind this guide builds each day from the muscles that need sets that week, so the number of exercises follows the sets and the time, not a fixed figure. Its rules allow ten exercises a session and prefer eight.

How many exercises are in each day of RIGOR's plans?

Four sample plans, 16 training days between them, hold 81 exercises. Each day has 4 to 7 exercises and 9 to 18 working sets.

The sums, done twice. Full body: 6 + 7 + 6 = 19 exercises and 17 + 17 + 18 = 52 sets. Upper/lower: 6 + 4 + 5 + 4 = 19 and 15 + 12 + 14 + 12 = 53. Push/pull/legs: 5 + 5 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 5 = 30 and 15 + 13 + 16 + 13 + 12 + 15 = 84. Dumbbells: 4 + 4 + 5 = 13 and 9 + 10 + 11 = 30. Together 19 + 19 + 30 + 13 = 81 exercises and 52 + 53 + 84 + 30 = 219 sets.

Days are listed in the order of each plan's week. The plans differ in more than session length: they differ in goal, experience level and gym too, so the table is not a test of what time alone does to the count. The split of the week is the topic of the best workout split guide.

The plans, with their goal and level: the full body plan is for an intermediate lifter and the push/pull/legs plan for an advanced one, both with a hypertrophy goal. The upper/lower plan is a beginner plan with the goal "both", and the dumbbell plan a beginner hypertrophy plan.

Here is one full body day, with seven exercises.

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How many exercises per workout on a full body, upper lower or push pull legs split?

Full body days in these plans hold 4 to 7 exercises (6 or 7 in the full body plan, 4 or 5 in the dumbbell plan), upper/lower days 4 to 6 and push/pull/legs days 4 to 6. The only day with 7 is in the full body plan. The program guides show each plan's days in full: the 3 day full body program, the 4 day upper lower program and the 6 day push pull legs program.

What are the limits on exercises per workout?

The rules put three limits on a day. They are quoted here from docs/product/training-rules.md.

• Ten exercises at most. "Ten exercises a session at most. Eight stays the preference; a ninth and tenth are taken only when no other day can take them. An eleventh is refused as time." (§15)
• Ten counted sets per muscle in a session. "No muscle gets more than 10 counted sets in one session; a larger weekly target is spread over more days." (§6)
• Sets per exercise. "Main compounds get 3–4 working sets, the others 2–3." (§6) The sets per exercise guide counts those.

The first limit is on exercises. The other two are on sets, and they are fixed rules, not preferences. The largest count in the table, 7 exercises, sits under the preference of eight, so none of the sample plans needed the ninth or tenth.

Does the goal change how many exercises you get?

Yes, a little. For hypertrophy and for the goal "both", RIGOR adds exercises for small muscles that the big lifts leave short. The rules word it in two places.

• "Hypertrophy and both goals get at least 2 direct sets a week for each minor muscle." (§6) The minor muscles are biceps, triceps, calves and abs.
• "Hypertrophy and 'both' plans of four days or more get one raise or rear-delt exercise a week, 2 sets, when the gym has one and time allows." (§15)

The weekly set targets themselves do not depend on the goal. Experience level sets them:

A muscle's exercises are spread over the week and over several days, so the targets answer "how many exercises per muscle group" in sets, not in exercises.

What does the research say about the number of exercises?

None of the three studies opened for this guide counted exercises per session. Two counted weekly sets per muscle and one compared sets per exercise.

• Schoenfeld 2017. A meta-analysis of 34 treatment groups from 15 studies. Each additional weekly set was linked to a 0.37% larger gain in muscle size, and higher against lower volume within a study came to 3.9% (Schoenfeld 2017).
• Baz-Valle 2022. A systematic review of seven trials, six in the pooled analysis, in trained men aged 18 to 35 with at least a year of training. Moderate volume (12 to 20 weekly sets) and high volume (over 20) did not differ for quadriceps or biceps, and high volume was better for triceps. The authors suggest 12 to 20 weekly sets per muscle group as an optimum standard for this group (Baz-Valle 2022).
• Krieger 2010. A meta-analysis of 55 effect sizes from 19 treatment groups in 8 studies, comparing sets per exercise. Between 2 to 3 and 4 to 6 sets the difference was not significant (p = 0.29) (Krieger 2010).

So the research speaks to sets, and an exercise is one way to hold them. More exercises is one route to the weekly count, and more sets on fewer exercises is another. No study here says which route grows more muscle.

How does session length change the number of exercises?

Each exercise costs time beyond its sets, so a shorter session has room for fewer. RIGOR offers session lengths of 20–30, 30–45, 45–60, 60–75, 75–90 or 90–120 minutes. Its estimate of a day adds up each working set at 40 seconds, the rest after each set, and 60 seconds between exercises, or 90 seconds before a barbell exercise.

When a day's estimate is over the session length, the generator cuts in this order (§6):

1. Sets from deprioritised muscles.
2. Sets from minor muscles.
3. Sets evenly, never below 2 per exercise.
4. The last isolation, unless it gives a minor muscle its 2 direct sets.

So an exercise goes last. The 3 day full body plan and the 3 day dumbbell plan both carry the note volume_capped_by_time, which records a cut made for time. The rest between sets guide is the other half of fitting a session into the clock.

The length the app shows is the working sets and their rests only. Where a workout has warm-up sets, the screen says the time leaves them out.

The order of the exercises matters as much as their number: exercise order covers why the main lift goes first.

When does this not apply?

IN RIGOR

RIGOR picks the exercises for the time you have

You give RIGOR your goal, days and session length. It builds each day to fit, cuts sets before exercises when time is short, and shows the length of the workout.