Lifting heavy weights (over 65% of your max) makes you stronger faster than lifting light weights while squeezing your arms or legs to cut off some blood flow—even if you change how tight the band is or how you do the workout. It’s like heavy lifting just works better for getting strong.

Squeezing the blood flow while lifting light weights seems to build just as much strength as lifting heavy weights, at least for healthy adults from their 20s to 80s.

Lifting heavier weights might help you get stronger a bit more than lifting lighter weights, but the difference is so small that we can’t be sure it’s real — it could just be luck.

You can build muscle just as well by lifting light weights with your blood partially squeezed off, as you can by lifting heavy weights—so maybe it’s not the weight itself that matters most, but how much your muscles burn and swell up.

Some people grow more muscle with regular heavy lifting, others grow just as much or more with heavy lifting plus blood flow restriction — there’s no one-size-fits-all answer.

Lifting heavier weights is much better than lifting lighter weights for building muscle strength in healthy young adults, because it trains your muscles and nerves to work together more effectively for maximum power.