Doing more sets of weightlifting seems to build muscle more reliably than how close you get to failing on each set—whether you stop short or push to exhaustion doesn’t change the muscle growth much if you’re doing the same number of sets.

If you lift weights and push your muscles closer to total exhaustion, you’ll likely gain more muscle size than if you stop earlier — even when doing the same number of sets and reps.

If you lift weights until you're almost too tired to do another rep, you'll likely build bigger muscles—but your strength gains won't be any better than if you stopped earlier, as long as you're doing the same total amount of work and lifting the same weight.

When people lift weights until they can't anymore, their muscles grow just as much whether they use heavy or light weights, as long as they push to their max. This shows that how hard you try matters more than how heavy the weights are.

You can build muscle just as well lifting light weights as heavy ones — as long as you push yourself until you can’t do another rep.

If you lift weights until you can't do another rep or stop a little earlier—but do the same total amount of work—your muscles will grow and get just as strong either way. So you don’t have to push to absolute failure to see results.