The Effects of Moderate- Versus High-Load Resistance Training on Muscle Growth, Body Composition, and Performance in Collegiate Women

When people lift weights until they can no longer complete another repetition, the amount of muscle growth is similar whether they use light, moderate, or heavy weights.

In untrained female college athletes, lifting weights to muscle failure using either moderate or heavy loads results in the same increase in vertical jump height and chest pass speed.

In untrained female college athletes, 8 weeks of resistance training using either lighter weights with more repetitions or heavier weights with fewer repetitions, as long as the total number of repetitions and effort are the same, results in identical gains in muscle mass, thigh size, and strength in the back squat and overhead press.

In untrained female college athletes, 8 weeks of resistance training leads to a 1.3% reduction in body fat and a 0.43 liter decrease in intracellular water, whether they use lighter or heavier weights.

In untrained female college athletes, 8 weeks of resistance training increased thigh muscle size by 6.6 cm² but did not change arm muscle size, suggesting that how often and how much they trained influenced where muscle growth occurred more than how heavy the weights were.

In untrained female college athletes, resistance training using either moderate or heavy weights produces the same increase in lean muscle mass—1.32 kilograms—when the total work and effort are equal, indicating that muscle protein content changes regardless of whether weights are light or heavy.