Which would be more efficient to build muscle and strength?
Lower dose, more time. Time is the ultimate gift if you’re looking to build size and strength. With enough time you can correct for a lot of mistakes, bad diet days, lousy gym sessions, or poor sleep. When you condense everything into a smaller window of time you need to be as close to perfect as you can get. Leave yourself a margin of error and you won’t regret it.
Also, dude, tortoise and the hare. Aesop is useful, even if you’re not a kid.
So, a 16 week cycle is much better than a 12 week cycle? But the recover is so much longer isn’t it?
No and no.
The difference between 12-16 is slim to none and the recovery will look the same.
Im assuming the OP was reffering to say a 6-8 week cycle vs a 12-16 week cycle.