Heavy Weights Make You Stronger, But Going All Out Helps With Light Weights
Muscle Failure Promotes Greater Muscle Hypertrophy in Low-Load but Not in High-Load Resistance Training
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
If you lift light weights, you have to push until you can't do another rep to grow muscles. But if you lift heavy weights, you don’t need to go all the way to failure — you still grow just as much. Heavy weights make you stronger no matter what.
Surprising Findings
Low-load training to failure produced nearly the same muscle growth as heavy lifting (7.8% vs. 8.1%).
Most people believe only heavy weights build muscle. This shows effort can compensate for low tension—if you’re willing to suffer.
Practical Takeaways
If you’re using light weights (e.g., bands, 20-30% 1RM), push each set to failure to maximize muscle growth.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
If you lift light weights, you have to push until you can't do another rep to grow muscles. But if you lift heavy weights, you don’t need to go all the way to failure — you still grow just as much. Heavy weights make you stronger no matter what.
Surprising Findings
Low-load training to failure produced nearly the same muscle growth as heavy lifting (7.8% vs. 8.1%).
Most people believe only heavy weights build muscle. This shows effort can compensate for low tension—if you’re willing to suffer.
Practical Takeaways
If you’re using light weights (e.g., bands, 20-30% 1RM), push each set to failure to maximize muscle growth.
Publication
Journal
Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
Year
2019
Authors
T. Lasevicius, B. Schoenfeld, C. Silva-Batista, Talita de Souza Barros, A. Aihara, Helderson Brendon, A. R. Longo, V. Tricoli, Bergson de Almeida Peres, E. Teixeira
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Claims (6)
If you're new to lifting and using light weights, you need to push your muscles until they can't do another rep to grow them bigger—otherwise, even doing more reps won't help.
To get stronger, it matters more how heavy the weight is than whether you push to your absolute limit—lifting heavier weights makes you stronger, no matter if you stop short of failure.
If you lift light weights but push them until you can't do another rep, you can grow your muscles just as much as someone lifting heavy weights—so long as you're putting in the same total effort.
If you're lifting heavy weights, you don't need to push to absolute exhaustion to grow your muscles—stopping just before failure works just as well, as long as you're lifting heavy enough.
When resistance training is performed to volitional muscular failure, hypertrophic outcomes are equivalent across a wide range of loads (from low to high) and repetition ranges.