When people do exercise with bands that squeeze their muscles afterward, some people’s muscles grow a lot, others barely grow at all—even though on average, the whole group doesn’t show much change. It’s like everyone reacts differently to the same workout trick.

If you're new to lifting weights, adding blood flow restriction after your workout won't make your muscles grow any more than just lifting weights by itself—even if you do the same amount of work.

After doing heavy weight training, if women who’ve never trained before use a tight band around their arm afterward, their arm muscles don’t get any thicker—but men’s muscles still grow normally.

No matter how tight you make the band or how wide it is when you do blood-flow restriction training, your muscles still grow about the same amount — so you don’t need to stress over getting the exact settings perfect.

When you do blood flow restriction training—like wearing tight bands on your arms or legs while lifting light weights—you build muscle mainly because your muscles fire harder and earlier, not because of the burn or buildup of waste products.

If you're new to lifting weights and do bicep curls with heavy weights, then wrap your arm tightly after exercising, you might end up with slightly less muscle growth in your upper arm compared to not wrapping it at all.