WELL, IT’S BETTER THAN NO WEIGHT TRAINING: In A Hurry? Try Express Weight Training.

An inspiring new study of how much — or little — weight training is needed to improve muscles’ strength and size finds that we may be able to gain almost the same muscular benefits with a single, brief set of each exercise. . . .

But more interesting and surprising, the strength improvements were essentially the same, no matter how many — or few — sets the men completed.

The men who had stopped after one set gained as much strength as those who had done five sets or three.

The groups likewise showed equivalent improvements in muscular endurance, which was measured by how any times they could repeat a bench press exercise, using a low weight.

Only the size of the men’s muscles differed. Those who had completed five sets per session sported greater muscle mass than those who had done three sets or one.

But they were not noticeably stronger.

Interesting.