The pause method doesn’t make your muscles more sore the next day or two after your workout than the normal heavy-lift method.

Adding a one-second pause at the bottom of each bench press doesn’t make your muscles more damaged or sore the next day than lifting heavy without pausing.

Both workout methods make your muscles equally sore the next day — neither one leaves you feeling more achy than the other.

When trained guys lift lighter weights but pause briefly at the bottom of each bench press, they can do more reps and keep their muscles under tension longer than when lifting heavier weights without pausing — even though the total weight lifted stays the same.

Even though the pause method makes you do more reps and keeps your muscles under tension longer, it doesn’t make your chest or arm muscles puff up more than the normal heavy-lift method.

You can lift almost a third less weight using the pause method, but still do the same total amount of work — and even do more reps and keep your muscles under tension longer.