Research

Mixed

Chronic resistance training elevates resting skeletal muscle protein synthesis and breakdown rates, thereby attenuating the acute magnitude of protein turnover stimulation following a single bout of exercise at the same absolute workload.

As you get stronger, the same weight feels easier and triggers less acute metabolic stress. This is normal. Your body has adapted by raising its baseline protein turnover. To continue growing, you must progressively increase the load (intensity) to create a new stimulus, rather than relying on the same absolute weight.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
The present results demonstrate that resistance training resulted in an elevated resting muscle protein turnover but an attenuation of the acute response of muscle protein turnover to a single bout of resistance exercise.
Stuart M. Phillips et al. · Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology · 2002

Why this rating

Longitudinal design with isotope tracer measurements in healthy young males, though small sample size (N=19).

Source

Resistance-training-induced adaptations in skeletal muscle protein turnover in the fed state

Stuart M. Phillips et al. · Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology · 2002

DOI 10.1139/y02-134

rct · n=19Cited 166×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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