Building Muscle Doesn't Require Lifting Heavy Weights, Study Shows:

Article from www.sciencedaily.com:The findings are published in PLoS ONE.
"Rather than grunting and straining to lift heavy weights, you can grab something much lighter but you have to lift it until you can't lift it anymore," says Stuart Phillips, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University. "We're convinced that growing muscle means stimulating your muscle to make new muscle proteins, a process in the body that over time accumulates into bigger muscles."
Phillips praised lead author and senior Ph.D. student Nicholas Burd for masterminding the project that showed it's really not the weight that you lift but the fact that you get muscular fatigue that's the critical point in building muscle. The study used light weights that represented a percentage of what the subjects could lift. The heavier weights were set to 90% of a person's best lift and the light weights at a mere 30% of what people could lift. "It's a very light weight," says Phillips noting that the 90-80% range is usually something people can lift from 5-10 times before fatigue sets in. At 30%, Burd reported that subjects could lift that weight at least 24 times before they felt fatigue.
"We're excited to see where this new paradigm will lead," says Phillips, adding that these new data have practical significance for gym enthusiasts but more importantly for people with compromised skeletal muscle mass, such as the elderly, patients with cancer, or those who are recovering from trauma, surgery or even stroke.

Reflections: I was very surprised and shocked after I read this article. The article stated that a new study conducted at McMaster University has shown that a similar degree of muscle building can be achieved by using lighter weights. You just need your muscles to feel fatigue, and you would have your muscles. However, the bad thing is that you need to raise the weight more times. This research also says that other than having practical significance for gym enthusiasts, it would also benefit people with compromised skeletal muscle mass, such as the elderly, patients with cancer, or those who are recovering from trauma, surgery or even stroke. Therefore, I think that these new discovery benefits humans a lot and I would not need to train so hard to get muscles as light weights could also do! However, one still need to put in effort to train muscles as you would also need more time to train muscles in the new method as you need to raise lighter weights more times!