American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand. Resistance Training Prescription for Muscle Function, Hypertrophy, and Physical Performance in Healthy Adults: An Overview of Reviews

How many times you lift a weight affects what your body gets better at: lifting heavy weights a few times builds strength, lifting lighter weights many times builds endurance, and doing a middle amount builds muscle size.

Lifting heavy weights at least twice a week, doing full movements for a few sets each time, and doing it early in your workout can help healthy adults get stronger compared to not exercising or doing other types of training.

When healthy adults lift weights, doing more sets each week and focusing on slowly lowering the weight helps build bigger muscles.

For healthy adults, certain types of weight training—like lifting moderate weights quickly or doing Olympic lifts—can help improve how fast and powerful your muscles work, according to research reviews.

Lifting weights or doing strength exercises helps healthy adults walk faster, stay balanced, get up from a chair more easily, and move around better compared to not exercising at all.

Different ways of lifting weights, like using machines or free weights, or changing how you do your sets, don't always make you stronger or bigger than basic training, according to big reviews of studies.