Research

Mixed

Untrained individuals experience greater muscle hypertrophy than those with prior training experience, regardless of the load used.

If you are new to lifting, you will see faster muscle growth than someone who has been training for years, no matter what weight you use. This is because your body is adapting to a new stimulus. As you gain experience, you will need to increase volume (more sessions) to continue seeing similar gains.

GoodQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Untrained participants exhibit greater muscle hypertrophy, whereas undertaking more RT sessions provides superior gains in those with previous training experience.
Pedro López et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2020

Why this rating

Derived from network meta-regression of included studies; significant p-value (0.033).

Source

Resistance Training Load Effects on Muscle Hypertrophy and Strength Gain: Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis

Pedro López et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2020

DOI 10.1249/mss.0000000000002585

Meta-analysis · 28 studiesCited 316×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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