Science
Volume Landmarks (MEV / MAV / MRV)
MEV (minimum effective volume), MAV (maximum adaptive volume), and MRV (maximum recoverable volume) are rough per-muscle weekly hard-set counts. The range between them is where productive training lives.
What the evidence says
Dr. Mike Israetel and colleagues popularized the MEV/MAV/MRV framework as a heuristic for programming weekly volume. Typical published ranges for an intermediate lifter sit around 8–12 sets/week MEV, 12–20 sets/week MAV, and 18–25+ sets/week MRV per major muscle group — with wide individual variation.
Volume meta-analyses (Schoenfeld 2017, 2019) consistently report a dose–response relationship between weekly set count and hypertrophy, with diminishing returns past ~20 hard sets per muscle per week for most trained lifters. The ceiling is where recovery breaks before adaptation gets through.
LiftProof surfaces weekly sets per muscle in the Honest Analytics view, with MEV/MAV/MRV bands shown so the lifter can see whether this week is in the productive range. The values are defaults drawn from published ranges; advanced users can override them per muscle.
Evidence base
Sources
Source 01
Schoenfeld et al. 2017 — Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass(opens in a new tab)Source 02
Israetel, Hoffmann, Smith — Scientific Principles of Hypertrophy Training(opens in a new tab)Source of the MEV/MAV/MRV framework; book rather than a single paper.
LiftProof defaults draw from the published strength literature.