It is All About Effort

Walk into any gym and you'll witness a fascinating phenomenon: two people performing identical exercises with similar weights, yet achieving vastly different results. One person transforms their physique while the other spins their wheels month after month. What separates them isn't necessarily their program, their genetics, or even their nutrition... it's their effort.

After decades of research obsessing over optimal rep ranges, perfect programs, and ideal training volumes, science is revealing something beautifully simple: how hard you train matters more than how you train. It’s effort. And you don't need to lift to failure. Push until you have about 1-2 reps in reserve (RIR) and stop there. It is safer, less painful and just as effective.

For years, the fitness industry has perpetuated the myth that building muscle requires lifting maximal loads. "Go heavy or go home" became the rallying cry, with many believing that anything above 12 reps was cardio in disguise. The data has changed.

If you’re training for hypertrophy (increasing lean muscle), you don’t need to max out. You don’t need to obliterate yourself under ridiculous loads. You need to work hard with a manageable load. The no pain, no gain dogma is an antiquated doctrine and has hurt many people in the gym.  Training outside one’s comfort zone with occasional scheduled bouts of discomfort will likely produce safe and more efficient results. Let’s talk evidence:

Research Says: Light Weights, Heavy Effort = Growth

A recent study discussed on WebMD found that lifting lighter weights to or close to muscular failure produced strength and hypertrophy gains that were virtually identical to lifting heavy weights. If your last few reps make you question your life choices, you're doing it right.

And this isn’t new. A 2025 preprint on bioRxiv compared hypertrophic outcomes between groups training with low and high loads, equating for effort. Results? Same gains.

Let me repeat that for the "but I bench four plates" crowd: Same. Gains.

More support comes from a study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, which showed that once you're training within a few reps of failure (say, 0–3 RIR - reps in reserve), the amount of weight doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think it does. You can read the full paper here, but the takeaway is simple: effort trumps load.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld, a leading exercise science researcher, notes that "the literature has now compellingly shown that you can gain similar amounts of muscle across a wide loading spectrum — even up to 30 to 40 repetitions".

This finding revolutionizes our understanding of muscle building. Whether you're lifting 80% of your 1RM for 8 reps or 30% for 30 reps, the results are remarkably similar....provided you challenge your muscles. Work hard using any weight and you will reap benefits.

Why Effort Trumps Everything Else

1. Motor Unit Recruitment

When you train with high effort, you recruit your largest, most growth prone muscle fibers. As we fatigue, motor unit recruitment increases, ensuring we're stimulating the muscle fibers with the greatest potential for growth.

2. Mechanical Tension

High-effort training maximizes mechanical tension which is the primary driver of muscle growth. This occurs regardless of whether you're using heavy or light weights.

3. Metabolic Stress

Training close to failure creates significant metabolic stress, triggering important muscle-building pathways and adaptations.

What About Volume?

This refers to how many sets, reps, workout sessions and weight you are lifting in a given week. Volume does matter. So does frequency. So does rest. But they all matter less if you’re sandbagging your sets. You can’t make up for a lack of effort with more fluff sets. Quality over quantity.

You need a combination of sufficient volume and intensity. But “intensity” doesn’t mean maxing out. One of the biggest mistakes I see in the gym (and I see a lot) is people increasing their training volume while simultaneously decreasing their per set intensity. They'll go from doing 3 challenging sets to 6 easy sets and wonder why their results plateau.

Greg Nuckols from Stronger by Science emphasizes this critical point: "Higher training volumes do actually promote larger strength gains and muscle growth, but only when people put a very high degree of effort into every set".

Think about it: would you rather do 10 sets at 50% effort or 6 sets at 95% effort? The research consistently points to the latter being superior for muscle growth.

Training to or close to failure with light weights is effective for hypertrophy and strength but it’s harder to recover from, especially at higher volumes. So you still need to be smart. This is where programming comes in. Typically lighter weights and more reps mean you may have to decrease your total amount of sets you do in a week.

Effort Is the Equalizer

Older adults often think they need to slow down or lift tiny weights forever. Nope. A recent NYT article made a great point: aging bodies still respond to mechanical tension, and they respond best when effort is high. You just might need more warm-up and recovery time. But the core principle holds—effort drives adaptation.

Practical Takeaways

So if it’s not about maxing out every time, what should you actually do?

• Train most of your sets in the 5–20 rep range.

• Take sets to within 0–3 reps of failure.

• Use loads that allow you to focus on good form and control.

• Stop ego lifting. No one cares how much weight you're moving.

• Prioritize movements you can load and push safely.

And if you’re not sure how hard you’re working, here’s a tip: on your last rep, you should look like you’re solving a complex math equation while being slowly crushed by an emotional support anvil.

If you want an actual framework, I got you.

Effort Is Free

The fitness industry loves to complicate things, but muscle building comes down to a simple principle: challenge your muscles consistently and progressively.

As the research clearly demonstrates, "the reason the body adapts to anything is through a survival mechanism. If you are not challenging it in a way it is not accustomed to being challenged, it has no impetus to adapt".

Whether you prefer heavy weights and low reps, light weights and high reps, high volume, or minimal effective dose training the common denominator for success is effort.

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