For women new to weight training, doing either many lighter reps or fewer heavier reps for 8 weeks gives about the same muscle growth in the thigh muscles, showing both methods work well for...

For young women, doing lighter weightlifting for 10 weeks can build leg muscle just as well as heavier lifting, with muscle growth between 3% and 12%.

A study found that for women new to weightlifting, doing many reps with lighter weights or fewer reps with heavier weights both built muscle and strength equally well over 8 weeks.

For women who don't usually lift weights, doing lots of lighter reps or fewer heavy reps both build similar muscle size and make you stronger after two months.

If women who already work out do too many sets each week, they might gain less muscle and strength than if they did fewer sets.

If you're a woman who's already been working out, doing 5 to 10 sets of strength training per muscle group each week seems to be enough to build muscle and get stronger over half a year — doing more doesn't seem to help extra.