Taking all sets to failure

[diamonds]

People seem to be divided on wether or not to take all your (working) sets to failure or not. It seems to be a double edged sword so I have 2 questions:

If you don't take the set to failure, then you are not working the muscle as hard as it is capable of working. How is your muscle going to grow unless you force it to grow as a response of being pushed beyond it's limit? I mean, is your chest gonna grow more by benching 185 when you are actually capable of pushing 225 for reps?

And for those who do train to failure and decide to start NOT training to failure, won't they lose a lot of size initially because they are not working the muscles as hard as they are used to being worked; hence the muscle stops growing because it has no need to grow anymore?

I always train to failure but I lift alone so it isn't REALLY complete failure.

[taiboxa]

its dependent on my mood.. if im going for growth i DO if im going for str i dont.
size(BB'r) i fail out on all 3 working sets
str (PL'r) i fail ou ton my 1-2 heavy working sets and close to failure on my 1-2 moderate working sets.

[SwoleCat]

I don't go to failure all the time, nope.

I get a lot of injuries and soreness in the joints over time when maxing out each time to the gym.

~SC~

[~fuelforfire~]

I don't go to failure all the time, nope.

I get a lot of injuries and soreness in the joints over time when maxing out each time to the gym.

~SC~

yeah same, i never max out when im working out anything with shoulders, back i usually do on 2nd last set, chest same deal.

[helium3]

The conventional notion is that you must work to momentary muscular failure before all fiber types will receive a growth stimulus. The mechanical load principle, however, states that all muscle fiber types participate when the muscles are exposed to heavy enough loads. Recruitment patterns involved in lifting weights heavy enough to cause hypertrophy activate all fibers, both fast and slow

Inducing fatigue is a principle specific to endurance. "Load" and "muscle tension," on the other hand, are principles specific to hypertrophy. Further, methods based on fatigue/exhaustion (training to failure and rest/pause stuff) are really methods of increasing strength (CNS adaptations). There’s nothing wrong with this, but by inducing more fatigue, you’ll have to train less frequently as the CNS can take a week to recover.

Keep in mind that "failure" is an indicator of central fatigue, not muscle strain. If you want to increase your resistance to fatigue, train to failure all the time. If you're only interested in effectively straining the muscle so that it'll get bigger, just focus on that and get past the idea that you have to go all out on every set.

It is commonly misunderstood that muscle failure is the stimulus for muscle growth. Intuitively, it makes sense. How can someone not sustain growth if they are working to the very limits of their capacity? Unfortunately, this is not true! The tension (load) on the muscle is what actually causes growth, especially during the eccentric action of the rep. One can go to failure, yet the load can still be too light to induce hypertrophy.

[helium3]

Now, training to failure isn’t the end of the world. In fact, most casual lifters lift that way. Training to failure is at the heart of strength training. It has been the primary goal of any person wishing to test their strength since the idea first crossed the mind of man to see how strong they were.

In a real word sense, training to failure is a reasonable way to train for strength and/or fitness. Of course it isn’t specific to “hypertrophy”, but it will certainly generate strength gains and some size gain until you can no longer increase the weight loads.

One major problem with the train-to-failure mindset, is the idea of increasing the weight when you can do more reps with a given RM. In other words, when you no longer reach failure at the point you failed previously with a given weight. People soon realize that this thinking is flawed. It isn’t very long before people stop getting stronger with each successive identical workout. This effectively stops progressive loading.

[helium3]

nobodys saying you wont grow working to failure but it isnt necessary for hypertrophy to take place.