Lifting heavy weights and doing lighter exercises with restricted blood flow both make your muscles grow bigger about the same amount, even though they work in slightly different ways inside the muscle.

0

Pro

54

Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No supporting evidence found

Contradicting (1)

54

Community contributions welcome

54

Myofiber hypertrophy adaptations following 6-weeks of low load resistance training with blood flow restriction in untrained males and females.

Randomized Controlled Trial

Human

2023 May 1

The study looked at the same types of training as the claim, but it found that while both made muscles bigger overall, the low-load training with blood flow restriction didn't make individual muscle fibers grow like the high-load training did, which goes against the claim's idea that they're equally good.

Gold Standard Evidence Needed

According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Myofiber hypertrophy adaptations following 6-weeks of low load resistance training with blood flow restriction in untrained males and females.

Score: 54

DOI: 10.1152/japplphysiol.00704.2022

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