Doing light weightlifting with special cuffs that limit blood flow might still help endurance muscles grow in athletes, thanks to chemical changes in the muscle — and it could be easier on the joints than heavy lifting, especially during recovery or sports season.

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.

For people new to strength training, lifting light weights with restricted blood flow works just as well as lifting heavy weights for building muscle size over 6 weeks.

Lifting heavy weights and doing lighter exercises with restricted blood flow both make your muscles grow bigger about the same amount, even though they work in slightly different ways inside the muscle.

When you wrap your arm tightly and lift light weights, your muscles still grow — and your body turns on the same growth signals as when you lift heavy weights, which hints that the burning feeling might be key.

At first, your muscles might actually get a little smaller from this kind of training, but after doing it again later, they grow bigger than before — the growth just takes time to show up.