Too often muscle is a show. “Muscle” and “strength” and “lifting” as it all happens in your average local gym is what makes strength training intimidating for some. “Instatrainers” and showoffs and pseudoscientists on social media only make it noisier with conflicting research, elaborate workout protocols, and stunt exercise videos to get eyeballs.

But strength training is critical for health. We all need it. Keeping our bodies strong and functional is how we maintain health and achieve, hopefully, longevity.

So let’s get away from the show of muscle. Some facts based on the most recent science: You don’t have to lift heavy weights to get great results (unless you want to). You don’t need complex equipment and workouts to get great results (unless you want those things).

In fact, lighter weights can give you the same muscle-building results as heavier weight if you know how to do it. You can also lift those lighter weights to achieve more muscular power, which, as you’ll see, is something worth striving for as you get older. When it comes to building and maintaining muscle, two factors matter more than anything else: volume and loading.

Brad Schoenfeld, PhD, is a professor in exercise science at CUNY Lehman College in the Bronx in New York City. He’s also a researcher who has published more than 300 studies in the field of exercise science and sports nutrition. His studies have consistently found that total training volume — that is, the sum of all the sets performed per muscle group per week — is a key driver of muscle hypertrophy (a.k.a. growth).

Individual differences such as training experience, recovery capacity, and even genetic factors can influence how much volume is optimal for you. “Some people respond better to lower volumes, some people need more volume to maximize their results,” says Shoenfeld. “But as a general guideline, to optimize hypertrophy you want to be somewhere between 10 to 20 sets per muscle per week.”

So to target the quads, for example, you’d want to complete three to four sets of exercises like squats and leg presses two to three times a week. To hit 20 total sets, you’d need to do five to seven sets of the same exercises across three sessions.

Is that the bare minimum? No. That’s the ideal. Shoenfeld’s team recently published a review paper where they looked at what might be a “minimal effective dose.” “It was roughly around four sets per muscle per week, which can be done in two to three half-hour sessions,” he says. “If your goal is just to build some muscle, gain some strength, you can get very nice results and — I think probably for most people — the majority of gains in that period of time.”