If you don’t push yourself to the absolute limit during weight training, you might actually get stronger faster—because you can do more total lifts overall.

If you lift weights without pushing yourself to total exhaustion, you might get stronger faster—especially if you end up doing more total lifts overall compared to people who do go all the way to failure.

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.

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 the same total weight no matter how you arrange your sets—pyramid, failure, or regular—you’ll get the same results. Fancy methods don’t make you stronger or bigger if you’re already trained.

If you're already used to lifting weights, doing more sets and reps over time will help you build bigger muscles and get stronger — but only if you keep training consistently.