How fast or slow you lift and lower weights probably doesn’t make much difference in how much muscle you build—unless there’s some special situation we haven’t figured out yet.

39

Pro

0

Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

39

Community contributions welcome

39

How Slow Should You Go? A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Resistance Training Repetition Tempo on Muscle Hypertrophy

Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis

Human

The study checked if lifting weights slowly vs. quickly makes a big difference in muscle growth, and found it doesn’t—most of the time, both ways work about the same. It also says maybe in some rare cases it could matter, but we don’t yet know exactly when.

Contradicting (0)

0

Community contributions welcome

No contradicting evidence found

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

How Slow Should You Go? A Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Resistance Training Repetition Tempo on Muscle Hypertrophy

Score: 39

DOI: 10.1519/jsc.0000000000005302

Similar Assertions

How fast or slow you lift and lower weights probably doesn’t make much difference in building muscle—unless you’re doing something very specific, but we’re not sure what that is yet.

39

0

99%

How fast or slow you lift and lower weights probably doesn’t make much difference in how much muscle you build—but it might matter a little depending on whether you’re pushing down, pulling up, working a specific body part, or going all the way to exhaustion.

39

0

97%

Whether you lift weights slowly or quickly, you’re probably not going to build more muscle with one over the other — the difference is so tiny it doesn’t really matter in real life.

39

0

87%

When people lift weights, changing how fast they lift or lower the weight, or whether they go all the way to exhaustion, doesn’t seem to make a big difference in muscle growth—any differences are tiny and not very clear.

39

0

87%

Whether you lift weights slowly or quickly, you’re probably not going to build more muscle with one over the other — the difference is so tiny it doesn’t really matter.

39

0

87%