The fact is everyone is different and not one thing will work for everyone. What work for you may not work for someone else.
With that said, all tips can be taken into consideration.
Regarding weight:
"Resistance exercise load does not determine training-mediated hypertrophic gains in young men."
Resistance exercise load does not determine training-mediated hypertrophic gains in young men/
"heavier loading [usually expressed as percentage of a person's maximal strength or single repetition maximum (1RM)] is often recommended as the optimal way to maximize muscle hypertrophy with resistance training (1). However, there is very little empirical evidence to support this supposition and it is unclear as to the physiological mechanisms by which heavier training loads would provide a signal for greater muscle hypertrophy compared with, for example, a lighter load lifted to the point of fatigue; both conditions would result in a large amount of muscle fibers being recruited. As proof-of-principle, we recently tested this idea and demonstrated (9) that a single bout of resistance exercise performed at 30% of 1RM to the point of momentary muscle fatigue (failure) was equally as effective in stimulating myofibrillar protein synthesis rates (MPS) as loads lifted at 90% of 1RM (also lifted to fatigue)."
However, many times real life and studies don't match 100%. You have a very broad range of Trained vs Untrained. Other variables.
Using heavy to light weight works, so why not use a mixture. Then add in all of the various intensification methods you can use, and the possibilities are endless.
The real question is: What works for you?
So fire away with what worked for you. Just be aware some may be parroting what someone else said, not what actually gave them results.
What worked for me?
Rest Pause with Lighter and Heavier Loads
A weight that can be lifted between 15 and 20 times. One set actually contains 2 sets/blocks. 1st block(pre-exhaust block) is between 15 and 20 reps, then rest 20 seconds(10 breaths) 2nd block lifted 1 or 2 reps shy of failure(2RIR of RPE8). Rest 1.5 to 2 minutes. Repeat 5 times.
At least one exercise with heavier loading. Weight that can be lifted 8-12 reps. Do same pre-exhaust scheme.
Every now and then at the end, throw in heavy weight that can be lifted between 5-8 reps.
Do 5-8 reps, rest 5 breaths (10 seconds) do 2-3 reps, rest 10 breaths (20 seconds) do reps.
Rest 2 minutes, do that again. Done
This pre-exhaust/rest pause/cluster type stuff, is the only thing that worked for me.
I started only doing 2 movements. Extra volume movement through week was reverse ez bar curls.
My arms were stubborn. Took consistency and 2 years to get what I feel were respectable looking arms. However to the average human, they were awesome at 1 year of this type of training.
I had an issue with not being able to feel like my left bicep was getting a good contraction, so I would get my Triceps pumped up a little before Biceps and that worked wonders.
Then you have Tempo, which will determine load as well for a given rep range. A change in tempo will change load needed.
