How fast or slow you lift and lower weights doesn’t matter as much for building muscle as how much weight you lift, how many reps you do, or how close you push yourself to failure.

This study found that doing squats slowly on the way down made muscles grow more than doing them fast—even when everything else (like weight and number of sets) stayed the same. So, tempo isn’t just a small detail; it can really affect muscle growth.

The study found that slowing down the lowering part of the exercise didn’t make muscles grow much more than doing it normally—so how fast you lower the weight doesn’t matter as much as how much weight you lift and how close you push to failure.

The study found that whether you lift weights slowly or quickly (as long as it’s not super slow), your muscles grow about the same — so how fast you lift isn’t as important as how much you lift or how close you push to failure.

The study found that whether you lift weights slowly or quickly, your muscles grow about the same — as long as you’re lifting enough weight and pushing close to failure. So tempo doesn’t matter much compared to how much you lift and how hard you work.