The Study
Effect of Repetition Duration During Resistance Training on Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
This study looked at lots of other studies and found that lifting weights slowly or quickly seems to make your muscles grow about the same — but it can’t say for sure that one way is better because we don’t know if the original studies were fair tests.
Analysis score
Maximum 100 for a systematic review with meta-analysis.
Where the score came from
Scientists looked at many studies to see if lifting weights slowly or quickly changes how much your muscles grow.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 550 / 100
Quality score
The highest quality evidence. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that pool randomized controlled trials, giving the most reliable summary of experimental evidence.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1No, the difference is tiny — less than 1% — so how fast you lift within 0.5–8 seconds doesn’t matter much for muscle growth.
- 2Muscles grew about the same whether people lifted slowly (up to 8 seconds per rep) or quickly (as fast as 0.5 seconds per rep).
- 3Lifting slower than 10 seconds might not help as much, but there’s not enough data to be sure.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Sports Medicine
Year
2015
Authors
B. Schoenfeld, Daniel I. Ogborn, J. Krieger
Related Content
Claims (3)
How fast or slow you lift and lower weights doesn’t matter as much for building muscle as how much weight you lift, how many reps you do, or how close you push yourself to failure.
Lifting weights slowly or quickly between half a second and 8 seconds per rep doesn’t seem to make a difference in how much your muscles grow — as long as you’re doing resistance training.
Lifting weights fast or slow doesn’t make much difference in how much your muscles grow — the extra gain from going slow is practically nothing.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.