Here’s some good news for anyone who does not have the time or inclination to linger in the gym and grunt through repeated, hourslong sets of various weight-training exercises in order to build muscular strength.

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.

The catch is, that set has to be draining.

A set is a given number of repetitions of an individual exercise, whether that move is a bench press or biceps curl.

In general, we are advised to complete eight to 12 repetitions of an exercise during a set, with the aim of making our working muscle so tired by the end of the set that we temporarily cannot complete another repetition.