If you lift weights with either light weights and short breaks, or heavy weights and long breaks—but keep the total work the same—you’ll still build muscle in about 8 weeks. So, there’s more than one way to get stronger and bigger muscles.

If young men lift weights with the same total effort—whether they use heavy weights with long breaks or light weights with short breaks—they’ll still grow about the same amount of muscle. So, different ways of lifting can both work.

You can't really grow bigger muscles until you've done about 18 weightlifting sessions—your body needs time to adapt before it starts building real muscle.

If young men lift light weights with very short breaks between sets for 8 weeks, their upper arms grow more than if they lift heavy weights with long breaks—even if they do the same total amount of lifting—because the short breaks create more muscle-burning stress that helps muscles grow bigger.

If you lift light weights with short breaks between sets for eight weeks, your upper arms might grow bigger than if you lift heavy weights with long breaks—even if you do the same total amount of work. Light weights + quick rest = more muscle growth in this study.

You can't build real muscle strength just by working out a few times—you need to stick with it for weeks, because the first few workouts just make your muscles look puffy, not stronger.