Failure or not?

[Kärnfysikern]

Just curious to se who goes to failure and who doesnt and the reasoning behind it?

Since I stoped going to failure I have noticed very good strenght gains and alot less (bad) soreness.
Before I used to push myself to failure at every set of every exercise. Now I maby go to failure at most at one set on one exercise in the whole workout.

The reason I have stopped is because it seems like going to failure just puts more strain on the CNS without realy straining the muscle that much more. But then again when I did doggcrapp training I grew like a weed and that was sure as hell beyond failure

[zodiac666]

i always warm up for about 30min then take every working set to failure (usually 2-3 sets per exercise). the last set of every exercise i go to failure then drop weight and go to failure a few more times. i probably should read up on the science of it but if im not pushing myself i just dont feel good after my workout

[chest6]

I usually dont go to failure every set..usually just the last one of each exercise

[helium3]

heres some good info long winded but good.i personally dont go to failure very often and ive found it works just as well if not better allows you to push harder throughout your workout instead of on the first few exercises.

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. See Hortobagyi T, Hill JP, Houmard JA, Fraser DD, & colleagues. Adaptive responses to muscle lengthening and shortening in humans. J. Appl. Physiol. 80(3): 765-772, 1996 “…eccentric muscle actions are associated with greater neural adaptation and muscle hypertrophy than concentric exercise”

Also, see Warren GL, Hayes DA, Lowe DA, Armstrong RB. Mechanical factors in the initiation of eccentric contraction-induced injury in rat soleus muscle. J Physiol. 1993 May;464:457-75 “These data support the hypothesis that eccentric contraction-induced injury is initiated by mechanical factors, with muscle tension playing the dominant role”

If progressive load, rather than chronic fatigue, is the primary stimulus for tissue hypertrophy, it isn’t necessary to “train to failure” if hypertrophy is the objective. This makes the practice of “adding more weight only after you can do more reps” terribly inefficient if muscle growth is the goal. It also refutes the logic of the “muscle confusion” practice, which is primarily a neurological phenomenon.

HST does not require that you train to failure because that prevents you from training frequently enough. It’s better to train according to the recovery of the muscle (48 hours) than according to the CNS (up to a week or longer).

Technically, or in its most common usage, "failure" (A.K.A. Momentary Muscular Failure) is when the weight stops concentric movement. Simply put, failure is when you can no longer "lift" the weight.

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.

The use of “forced reps”, where you talk someone else into lifting the weight for you when you fizzle out, is an attempt to do more reps with a given weight, so that you can add more weight and convince yourself that you are getting stronger.

Granted, before any strength trainers jump in here to protest, forced reps can produce strength gains. But very few people have the knowledge to properly incorporate them into a periodized strength-training plan. Same goes for partials, isometrics, ballistics and/or plyometrics.

Eccentric failure is only relevant to eccentric sets. Eccentric failure is when you can no longer slow the weight down through its decent. Eccentric training is less demanding on the CNS and hence you can probably get away with training to eccentric failure more frequently. When I do my negatives I always train to eccentric failure.

"Failure" is an indication of exhuastion, not activation. A motor unit can be activated without failing. If the weight is heavy enough, all motor units will participate.

Yes, the reason you avoid training to failure and especially using "forced reps" is to avoid undue CNS drain. After all, "fatigue" is not what makes you grow. Taining to exhaustion only delays your next workout, thus slowing your ability to grow. However, if strength is your goal rather than growth, you should "generally" be using a 2/week schedule rather than 3/week anyway. I say general because it changes as fatigue should be periodized.

Training to failure during an HST cycle will not make you any stronger than stopping short of failure. If you are concerned with strength, take weeks 7 and 8 to work on strength. Reduce the number of exericses and do more sets. Delay the next workout 1 day if you begin to fall behind in CNS recovery.

As for training to "failure" begin required to elevate protein synthesis, it isn't. Training to failure is a neurological issue, not a metabolic issue.

The reason subjects train to failure in most training studies is because that's the only way they know how to judge effort. Once the subject can lift his/her 10RM 12 times (just an example) they increase the weight.

Again, as the weight gets heavier, the ability to achieve sufficient time under tension diminishes. It’s simply too heavy to support long enough. On the other hand, increasing volume will quickly diminish the amount of weight you can use. Not only that, but as you increase volume or begin to train to failure, you also increase the amount of time it takes the CNS to recover (see Int J Sports Med. 2003 Aug;24(6):410-8). But don't forget that the CNS does adapt to different levels of volume. This is what traditional “Periodization” is all about.

Protein synthesis is elevated simply from loading a muscle either actively or passively. No actual contractions are required, hence my argument that contracting a muscle to failure isn't necessary to increase protein synthesis rates.

[24labor]

I usually dont go to failure every set..usually just the last one of each exercise

same here that is with a traiing partner but I like my last 2-3 reps on my last exercise to be assissted a little bit not to all out failure where I can't even push the bar from my chest but you know what I mean

[DutchCowboy]

alright fellas, here's my question and my 2 cents. If someone is currently training to failure all the time and decides to stop training to failure, won't he incur some set backs as far as his training goes. For example-

let's say I train to failure on bench press with the following sets:
1st working set- 275 x 12 (failure)
2nd working set- 315 x 8 (failure)
3rd working set- 335 x 5 (failure)

then I decide to not train to failure anymore. I then will have to lower the amount of weight that I will use on each set. At this point I am using a lighter weight than my muscles are used to which, to me, seems that it would be counter-productive. They aren't receiving enough stimulation to grow anymore.
Hypothetically I will get weaker because I'm not using as heavy of a weight as I could. My max rep is sure to drop drastically. I may now only be able to push 335 for 2 reps instead of the 5 I was doing before. My strength will adjust accordingly to the weight I am using.
If your muscle is capable of pushing out a few more reps it has no reason to need to grow.

[Kärnfysikern]

alright fellas, here's my question and my 2 cents. If someone is currently training to failure all the time and decides to stop training to failure, won't he incur some set backs as far as his training goes. For example-

let's say I train to failure on bench press with the following sets:
1st working set- 275 x 12 (failure)
2nd working set- 315 x 8 (failure)
3rd working set- 335 x 5 (failure)

then I decide to not train to failure anymore. I then will have to lower the amount of weight that I will use on each set. At this point I am using a lighter weight than my muscles are used to which, to me, seems that it would be counter-productive. They aren't receiving enough stimulation to grow anymore.
Hypothetically I will get weaker because I'm not using as heavy of a weight as I could. My max rep is sure to drop drastically. I may now only be able to push 335 for 2 reps instead of the 5 I was doing before. My strength will adjust accordingly to the weight I am using.
If your muscle is capable of pushing out a few more reps it has no reason to need to grow.

All you would do is cut one rep short from each set and you are not going to failure anymore but still stimulating the muscle as much without putting as much strain on the CNS. No drop in weights used is needed.

One interesting observation is also that almost no strenght athletes go to failure and they are alot stronger than most bodybuilders...

IMO from the limited reading I have done, if you do a set of 12 the last 1 rep ad a insignificant amount of extra stress on the muscle but adds a shitload of extra stress on the CNS. The CNS is what takes a long time to recover not the muscle itself. Thats probably the reason why the bulgarian weightlifters can hit the weights 3 times a day and still gain. They never burn out there CNS.

If you use a weight at or above 80% of your 1rm you are going to stimulate the muscle as much as possible with each rep. So there is not any need for the failure part.

Just my oppinion though and Im certanly interested in the opposit view

[24labor]

All you would do is cut one rep short from each set and you are not going to failure anymore but still stimulating the muscle as much without putting as much strain on the CNS. No drop in weights used is needed.

One interesting observation is also that almost no strenght athletes go to failure and they are alot stronger than most bodybuilders...

IMO from the limited reading I have done, if you do a set of 12 the last 1 rep ad a insignificant amount of extra stress on the muscle but adds a shitload of extra stress on the CNS. The CNS is what takes a long time to recover not the muscle itself. Thats probably the reason why the bulgarian weightlifters can hit the weights 3 times a day and still gain. They never burn out there CNS.

If you use a weight at or above 80% of your 1rm you are going to stimulate the muscle as much as possible with each rep. So there is not any need for the failure part.

Just my oppinion though and Im certanly interested in the opposit view

I'm going to try DC method when I get back to school and that will be going to complete failure but only one set so im intrested in that. Like you said Johan many guys don't go to failure and are still stronger than most so yea my opinion is complete failure all the time can be harmful but near failure and the use of assissted(when most of the work is still done by your own power) may be a very effective method works for me

[C_Bino]

I go to failure about 90% of sets. The only ones I dont is when I am doing my core compound lifts such as deadlifts, squats and bench press. This is because I pyramid these exercises and would never start off my first set at say 4 plates on deadlifts just for the sake of possible injury.

If i dont go to failure I dont feel I am pushing myself enough. I mean say I just decide to stop at 6 reps when I can really push out a few more, whats the point in stopping? Like many bodybuilders, I dont count the reps, I just go until I have completely worked the muscle and cant do anymore and then rest for my next set. Usually I am in the 8-10 rep range per set.

I would also like to point something out, as much as I enjoy reading different training styles and "scientific" articles I really dont take them all to heart. I mean for every study out there saying one thing there is another saying the opposite. Sure they are great and fun to read but you really just gotta figure some things out for yourself.

I mean an article may say going to failure is stupid or whatever but hey I has sure worked for me and many others. Also, Johan doesnt go to failure and it has sure worked for him. So really there is no right or wrong way, you just have to find a training style that suits your needs and gives the the results your seek.

[Kärnfysikern]

I go to failure about 90% of sets. The only ones I dont is when I am doing my core compound lifts such as deadlifts, squats and bench press. This is because I pyramid these exercises and would never start off my first set at say 4 plates on deadlifts just for the sake of possible injury.

If i dont go to failure I dont feel I am pushing myself enough. I mean say I just decide to stop at 6 reps when I can really push out a few more, whats the point in stopping? Like many bodybuilders, I dont count the reps, I just go until I have completely worked the muscle and cant do anymore and then rest for my next set. Usually I am in the 8-10 rep range per set.

I would also like to point something out, as much as I enjoy reading different training styles and "scientific" articles I really dont take them all to heart. I mean for every study out there saying one thing there is another saying the opposite. Sure they are great and fun to read but you really just gotta figure some things out for yourself.

I mean an article may say going to failure is stupid or whatever but hey I has sure worked for me and many others. Also, Johan doesnt go to failure and it has sure worked for him. So really there is no right or wrong way, you just have to find a training style that suits your needs and gives the the results your seek.

Defenetly agree. Thats why Im curious to what everyone is doing

[TADOLFI]

I only go to failure maybe one workout a month for each body part just to see if my strength (or stamina as some would contend) has increased.
I like to recover within the 48 hour window and hit the gym every third day, so taxing the CNS does not appeal to me.

There have been a few mentions of how it makes you feel and I believe that a lot of a workout can be mental. So if it helps someone to push themselves to their limit I say "Go for it!"

[THE_DOME]

on gear i go to failure off gear not to failure just joking, i try to go to failure all the time

[DutchCowboy]

I think the key is just to change your style of training every 6-8 weeks. I have started doing this and it seems to keep my gains consistent.
Failure or not is a hard subject to discuss. What type of failure are we talking about ie; positve, negative, etc.? Failure for me (since I lift alone) is getting to the point where I say "man, I might not be able to get the next rep in and I don't have a spotter so I better stop here"

[taiboxa]

i try to stay 1-2 reps away from failure except on one UBER SET every now and then

[rake922]

I train to failure once every 10 days