Your muscles make more protein when you start lifting weights, but after a few weeks, that boost fades — even if you keep lifting harder — no matter if you use heavy or light weights.

Your muscles make more protein at first when you start lifting weights, but after a few weeks, that boost fades—even if you keep lifting harder.

Your muscles make more protein at first when you start lifting weights, but after a few weeks, that boost fades—even if you keep lifting harder.

When young men lift weights to build muscle, their muscle-building process speeds up at first but slows down after 10 weeks, even if they keep increasing the difficulty.

When you start lifting weights, your muscles build new protein faster in the first week than they do after 10 weeks, even if you keep training.

Lifting weights at a challenging level makes your muscles build more protein, and this boost happens just as much in arms or legs that are used to exercising as in ones that aren't.