Taking a one-week break from weightlifting won’t make your muscles grow bigger, even though some people think resting might help your muscles respond better to training again.

If you take a one-week break from lifting weights—even if you’ve been training hard—you won’t lose or gain noticeable muscle in your legs, and taking short breaks like this won’t hurt or help your muscle growth.

Using machines or bands that change how hard they feel as you move might make your muscles work more evenly during an exercise, but that doesn’t always mean you’ll grow bigger muscles faster than with regular weights—especially if you’re just starting out.

If you take a one-week break from your heavy leg workouts, your leg strength and ability to keep going during exercises won’t drop in any meaningful way — at least not if you’re already trained.

If a young, healthy man lifts weights for 8 weeks, his muscles will likely get bigger—by about 6%, give or take a little.

If you take a one-week break from lifting weights halfway through a 9-week workout plan, you might lose a little bit of your strength gains in your legs, but your muscles won’t shrink any more than if you kept going, and your endurance and power won’t be affected.