Even if you lift heavier weights with your muscles mostly bent, you don’t grow bigger muscles than if you lift lighter weights with your muscles stretched out — the stretch matters more than how...

Just stretching your muscle under light weight won’t make it grow — you need to push hard while it’s stretched out, like doing a bicep curl slowly at the bottom where it’s fully extended.

Lifting weights when your muscles are stretched out more (like at the bottom of a squat or a full bicep curl) tends to make them grow bigger than lifting with your muscles mostly shortened, as long as there's still resistance pushing back when they're stretched.

If women who don't usually work out do certain leg exercises only through part of the movement—when the muscle is stretched—they might build more muscle in specific spots compared to doing the full movement or nothing at all.

Working your muscles while they are fully stretched builds more muscle than working them while they are shortened. This stretching advantage is especially noticeable in muscles that cross two joints, like the back of your lower leg, but doesn't seem to matter for muscles that only cross one joint.

Doing a full squat or starting a bicep curl from the bottom makes your muscles grow more at the far ends (like the top of your thigh or the outer part of your bicep) than doing partial reps from the top.