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Training light loads with a limb cuff grows muscle about as well as heavy lifting, trials show. For maximal strength the evidence is mixed, and heavy weights may still edge it.
A 2024 meta-regression found strength gains barely track how close you stop to failure, while muscle growth rises the nearer you get. Two trials put the size gap close to zero.
An umbrella review of 17 meta-analyses found that adding endurance work did not blunt strength, power or hypertrophy compared with lifting alone. Almost none of that data came from highly trained athletes.
A 67-study meta-regression found muscle growth keeps rising with weekly sets, with diminishing returns. A 15-site trial of 297 lifters found stretch-position partial reps produced effects close to zero versus full range.
A meta-regression of 23 hypertrophy studies found total intake the strongest predictor and no timing effect after adjustment. A later network meta-analysis of 116 trials still favours post-exercise, narrowly.