When you lift weights, how much total work you do matters more for getting stronger and bigger than whether you use heavy weights with few reps or light weights with many reps.

You can’t just count how many reps you do to know if your workout is good enough — how long your muscles are under strain matters just as much, maybe more.

Lifting weights more often helps you get stronger, but after a certain point, you don’t get much stronger no matter how much more you lift—plus, this slowdown happens sooner for strength than for muscle growth.

Most of the research on how much to lift and how often was done on young men who already train—so we don’t know if the same rules apply to women, older people, or beginners.

Lifting more weights each week makes you stronger, but the extra strength you gain from each additional set gets smaller faster than the muscle gains do.

If you're a young guy lifting weights more often each week, you'll build more muscle and get stronger—but after a while, your strength stops improving fast, while your muscles keep growing a bit longer.