Going to failure?

[Kärnfysikern]

How often do you guys go to failure on assistance exercises?

[Velkar182]

I do it in the off season when I am focusing on hypertrophy and looking to gain on my volume for the next go round. I have two "off seasons" a year so baiscally I do hypertrophy specific training 3-4 months a year and I go to failure on week in each of those months. (Periodization makes great gains!)

[Kärnfysikern]

but when your training for strenght you never go to failure??

I have always worked to failure when doing westside but Im starting to realise that was possibly pretty stupid

[Velkar182]

Assistance training is usually when I go to failure. I am 600 bencher and going to failure with 80% (480) is something that I might do once in a blue moon. I do use very big percentages on curls, I have done 200 for 6-8 (failure), but when I say failure I focus more on lactic acid build up rather than muscle fatigue and such. When I do 500 on the bench for a triple, the way you are saying, I go to failure because I know I can't get it a fourth time, but that isn't the failure I was talkinging about. Do you know what I mean?

[Kärnfysikern]

yeah. I was to refering to failing at 8-12 reps or so. Not failing at like a ME exercise.

but if you where doing say nosebreakers or jm press for 8-12 reps. Would you stop when you are one rep short of failure or go to complete failure(with a bit of cheat)?

[Velkar182]

In that case, I go to failure about 4 months of the year, which is where a great deal of my muscle mass is developed. Definitely 8-12 reps of failure! My philosophy is train like a body builder during hypertrophy, becuase BBers are the experts right? Certainly the big guys like Coleman and Cuttler use heavy 6-8 and 8-12 rep set to build some strength, but it is merely a foundation and a way to confuse the muscle into growing. Then you hit your body with a power cycle upto competition. In fact go with many of Weider's principle in that phase. I gain 10lbs of musle each time I go into that phase.

[Doc.Sust]

i have found when peaking, i won't train assistance exercises to failure, just when its off season