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If you don't train to failure, how do you know when to increase the weights?

siamesedream

siamesedream

New member
So, this entire "failure" concept is something I recently began studying heavily and thanks to madcow pointing me in the right direction again, I realized training to failure is absolutely not ideal. However, ever since I started lifting 9 months ago I've trained every exercise of every workout to failure, and this was how I could guage whether or not I needed to increase the weights.

Not training to failure is something completely new to me so I'm not quite sure how I would know to increase the weight used unless I had some sort of failure mechanism to know if my strength has gone up or not. Of course, with the 5x5 that problem is taken care of for you with planned progressive overload and the like, but say one is doing a custom program and wants to know when to increase the weights. How should that guy know when to increase?
 
When the weight feels easy enough, increase it. Hell, you can increase it every time you hit all your target reps, but some may wait a bit so they are insured continued progress.
 
I say keep it simple and just try to increase the weights each time. A couple of things help with this:

First, if you have some microplates (something like these), you can add small amounts to the bar, even if it's only 1lb per week.

Second, if you base your training around the big compound movements, not only are they better for stimulating growth than isolation movements, but they have a couple of side benefits. a) you shift more weight, so it's easier to add relatively small amounts and b) they're based around the barbell, so you can use the microplates. I can't remember last time I used a dumbbell :)
 
Add weight every session until you feel like taking a big load off and starting again. At that time your goal is to beat the weight you used on the previous cycle with that exercise. Your workouts over time would then look like a saw-tooth wave with ever-increasing amplitude.

Into that scheme you can add variety with rep schemes. The ideal is that in some way you make a PR on every workout, even if that PR is simply a week1 PR rather than a new all-out max. Just strive always to improve.
 
"wheres the deads and squats?" WHY AREN'T GUYS TRAINING BALLS TO THE WALL ANYMORE? everybody is so worried about overtraining these days...i cant stand it...lol you've got to realize that when ur packin a shitload of calories, sleeping well at night (thats my number 1 mistake...i never sleep), and juicing to the gills...ITS DAMN HARD TO OVERTRAIN. whatever happened to squatting until u threw up or doing dropsets of deads? hell whatever happened to running up and down the rack of dumbbells until you couldnt move ur upperbody because the pump was too painful? BALLS TO THE WALL IS THE ONLY WAY TO GROW....im waiting for the low-volume guys to come out of the woodwork.LOL :evil:
 
Alright, so every program should take advantage of periodizing in some way? I mean, increasing every workout whether the same weights would be easier or not would lead to eventual failure in training anyways, so it sounds like you're saying one should train up unto a failure week and do some kind of deloading period (somewhat like the DF 5x5's training philosophy)?
 
Don't listen to needtogetas. He's a fucking moron. That's not an opinion, it's a fact of life.

Don't complicate stuff. Dual factor training doesn't need to be applied for quite some time. Most people can get by with single factor types of training for awhile. Add weight whenever you can. When you stall for a couple workouts, drop back a bit, then ramp back up, or slash volume. It's simple.

There's no need to plan for loading/deloading until you get really advanced. Once you notice strength dropping, gains stalling, or something else that's signalling you to back off, slash volume, frequency, or intensity, then ramp back up. "On-the-fly" dual-factor, I guess.
 
Anthrax Invasion said:
Don't listen to needtogetas. He's a fucking moron. That's not an opinion, it's a fact of life.

Don't complicate stuff. Dual factor training doesn't need to be applied for quite some time. Most people can get by with single factor types of training for awhile. Add weight whenever you can. When you stall for a couple workouts, drop back a bit, then ramp back up, or slash volume. It's simple.

There's no need to plan for loading/deloading until you get really advanced. Once you notice strength dropping, gains stalling, or something else that's signalling you to back off, slash volume, frequency, or intensity, then ramp back up. "On-the-fly" dual-factor, I guess.
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hay buddy.









































































fuck off. ;)
 
Well this is just my two cents, i dont have no big fancy words or progams. Hell i dont event use a program i always just keep it mixed up to shock the muscles.
Ive packed on 30lbs in 7months and its shows. Here is what ive been doing you can try it or not thought id share...I do everything in low reps and stop before i have to strain and add weight and keep adding weight till i can only do one rep with, 30sec breaks...Then i drop the weight to half and go till i cant go anymore...Then i rest till i am fully healed...and eat as much as i can.
I bench a soild 300, squats are way up as is every other part...Without proper rest and recovery you wont keep going up in weight unless your body is freash...this is just my opinion and everyone is different but my progress picture's posted will clearly show you can grow big soild muscle and mass by doing this..Results will show in about 4 weeks or so...Gl in whatever you do and keep on pumping!
 
Yeah, shocking muscles works wonders. You know, 'cause it's physiologically sound and all...
 
needtogetas said:
"wheres the deads and squats?" WHY AREN'T GUYS TRAINING BALLS TO THE WALL ANYMORE? everybody is so worried about overtraining these days...i cant stand it...lol you've got to realize that when ur packin a shitload of calories, sleeping well at night (thats my number 1 mistake...i never sleep), and juicing to the gills...ITS DAMN HARD TO OVERTRAIN. whatever happened to squatting until u threw up or doing dropsets of deads? hell whatever happened to running up and down the rack of dumbbells until you couldnt move ur upperbody because the pump was too painful? BALLS TO THE WALL IS THE ONLY WAY TO GROW....im waiting for the low-volume guys to come out of the woodwork.LOL :evil:
Click to expand...

all the good old pro's did it that way. sure you can grow without training to failure but i have found the good ol "no pain no gain" rule has worked well for me :chomp:. i do tend to agree with needtogetas.
 
whether you are doing one of the many specific "5 by 5" programs that are around now or not, the same basic principles of progression apply.

when you start anything new, be it a new workout, new exercise, or new rep range in your training, start conservatively. for instance, if you were to begin to military press, and you were doing 3 work sets (not including warmup) of 5 reps each, and felt you could probably succeed with 150lbs, you should probably start with something more like 135lbs, and go up a steady 5lbs a week for the first 3 weeks... youll not fail, the workouts will be fairly comfortable, but will get progressively harder. after the third week when you do 150lbs for 3 sets of 5, decide if you think you have 155lbs in you the next week. if your sets were relatively easy, go ahead and try for 155 the next week, if they were hard, just go to 152 or 153lbs... judge how much you increase each week by what you feel you are capable of. at some point you wont get all the reps. say you get 5 on the first set, 4 on the second, and 3 on the third when the weight has gotten to 160lbs. then you would stick to the same weight the next week, and hopefully get all the reps or at least get closer. maybe youll get 5, 5, and 4. if so, keep the weight the same the next week, and again try to get all 3 sets. if you get them all, add a couple of pounds for the next time,

If you go a couple of weeks without getting closer to succeeding with all your reps, say for 2 weeks or 3 weeks you do 5, 4, and 3... then make a change. change to 1 work set, change to 5 work sets, change the reps, just make some change. and, start over with that new rep range, or new number of work sets, again with a weight that is comfortable, and again make steady increases, follow the same progression you did the first time.

if you have one week where you actually do LESS than the week before, say you did 5,5, and 4 one week, and the next you do 5,4, and 2... then immedietly change something and start over.

there should be NO subjectivity when selecting weights or deciding when to move up, NO going by how you "feel". if you get all the reps the week before, you move up, simple as that. if you dont get them, you try again with the same weight. if you go nowhere for a couple of weeks or decrease, you change the nature of the workout.



siamesedream said:
So, this entire "failure" concept is something I recently began studying heavily and thanks to madcow pointing me in the right direction again, I realized training to failure is absolutely not ideal. However, ever since I started lifting 9 months ago I've trained every exercise of every workout to failure, and this was how I could guage whether or not I needed to increase the weights.

Not training to failure is something completely new to me so I'm not quite sure how I would know to increase the weight used unless I had some sort of failure mechanism to know if my strength has gone up or not. Of course, with the 5x5 that problem is taken care of for you with planned progressive overload and the like, but say one is doing a custom program and wants to know when to increase the weights. How should that guy know when to increase?
Click to expand...
 
glennpendlay said:
there should be NO subjectivity when selecting weights or deciding when to move up, NO going by how you "feel". if you get all the reps the week before, you move up, simple as that. if you dont get them, you try again with the same weight. if you go nowhere for a couple of weeks or decrease, you change the nature of the workout.
Click to expand...

It's great every once in awhile to strip away the minutiae and look at the proverbial 'big picture' (yes I used to be in management ;) )

Having said that, I still haven't grasped DFHT ;) (the one laid out in the old word doc)
 
glennpendlay said:
whether you are doing one of the many specific "5 by 5" programs that are around now or not, the same basic principles of progression apply.

when you start anything new, be it a new workout, new exercise, or new rep range in your training, start conservatively. for instance, if you were to begin to military press, and you were doing 3 work sets (not including warmup) of 5 reps each, and felt you could probably succeed with 150lbs, you should probably start with something more like 135lbs, and go up a steady 5lbs a week for the first 3 weeks... youll not fail, the workouts will be fairly comfortable, but will get progressively harder. after the third week when you do 150lbs for 3 sets of 5, decide if you think you have 155lbs in you the next week. if your sets were relatively easy, go ahead and try for 155 the next week, if they were hard, just go to 152 or 153lbs... judge how much you increase each week by what you feel you are capable of. at some point you wont get all the reps. say you get 5 on the first set, 4 on the second, and 3 on the third when the weight has gotten to 160lbs. then you would stick to the same weight the next week, and hopefully get all the reps or at least get closer. maybe youll get 5, 5, and 4. if so, keep the weight the same the next week, and again try to get all 3 sets. if you get them all, add a couple of pounds for the next time,

If you go a couple of weeks without getting closer to succeeding with all your reps, say for 2 weeks or 3 weeks you do 5, 4, and 3... then make a change. change to 1 work set, change to 5 work sets, change the reps, just make some change. and, start over with that new rep range, or new number of work sets, again with a weight that is comfortable, and again make steady increases, follow the same progression you did the first time.

if you have one week where you actually do LESS than the week before, say you did 5,5, and 4 one week, and the next you do 5,4, and 2... then immedietly change something and start over.

there should be NO subjectivity when selecting weights or deciding when to move up, NO going by how you "feel". if you get all the reps the week before, you move up, simple as that. if you dont get them, you try again with the same weight. if you go nowhere for a couple of weeks or decrease, you change the nature of the workout.
Click to expand...

Well, how long should one train to failure, then? I mean, once the individual gets up that weight where they can't complete all 5 reps, it's pretty much failure from then on. I mean, say they stick with the weight until they're able to pump out all 5 reps and then increase by another 5 pounds. Well, they'll be training up to failure again at that point. So, once failure is reached, is there a certain amount of time to continue training at that point that leads up to a deloading week and then cycling back down to a newer, higher "starting" weight to progress from in the oncoming weeks?
 
razE said:
all the good old pro's did it that way. sure you can grow without training to failure but i have found the good ol "no pain no gain" rule has worked well for me :chomp:. i do tend to agree with needtogetas.
Click to expand...
dame fucken rights bro.no pain no gain.airborn :evil:
 
needtogetas said:
dame fucken rights bro.no pain no gain.airborn :evil:
Click to expand...

Jesus H. Christ, can you please learn to spell?

By the way, bodybuilders are notorious for their AAS usage, so don't attribute their gains to anything but that and lots of food. As was said by, I believe Glenn or Mark, "many bodybuilders make progress in spite of their training, not because of it" - 'course, that's not verbatim, but you get the idea.

Seriously learn a bit about physiology before you sit here trying to make the arguement that failure is necessary or optimal in any way to make progress. Learn the stuff on a molecular level. Then maybe you'd understand.

Wait, no you wouldn't. You're an idiot. ;)
 
Anthrax Invasion said:
Jesus H. Christ, can you please learn to spell?

By the way, bodybuilders are notorious for their AAS usage, so don't attribute their gains to anything but that and lots of food. As was said by, I believe Glenn or Mark, "many bodybuilders make progress in spite of their training, not because of it" - 'course, that's not verbatim, but you get the idea.

Seriously learn a bit about physiology before you sit here trying to make the arguement that failure is necessary or optimal in any way to make progress. Learn the stuff on a molecular level. Then maybe you'd understand.

Wait, no you wouldn't. You're an idiot. ;)
Click to expand...
I never said you had to do it that way,I just said it works.and btw what did I ever say to you.I think its grate if you have a difrant opinoun but do you have to be an ass hole.but lets just say this.if it ant broke dont fix it.balls to the walls working out is the way it has allways bin don.
 
If you find yourself doing 12 reps with a weight you used to do 8 reps it's time to increase the weight.
 
if youll re-read my post, i think i already answered your question, but maybe i wasnt very clear. you will make steady progress upward, without failure, for a number of weeks. you will hit a point where the steady progress isnt so steady any more. maybe it takes you 2-3 weeks to get all your reps with a new weight. you will eventually hit a point where progress stops. when this happens, you will change something, and start your new rep/set scheme at a lower level, assuring that you get all your reps for several weeks as you slowly ramp back up. and the process will repeat.

now, when done correctly, this is largely self regulating. thats why it works so consistently. it you follow the rules, its hard to screw up. when you get to really hard weights doing a certain thing, it is certainly more stressfull than during the first couple of weeks you did it... this extra stress each week spurs the body to adapt. at some point, most often when you have been doing the same exercise and rep/set scheme for a month or two, and are not getting all your reps week after week (in other words, going to failure) the body just wont adapt to it anymore. so you make a change, and after this change, for a time, the workouts arent as stressfull, but still they are increasing each week and eventually youll be going full out again, and eventually you will go to failure again, and at first this will spur progress, then progress will stop, and it will be time to start over again.

so, typically, a person might NOT get to failure for 3-4 weeks, then might have a week where the workout with the specified weight was not completed successfully (in other words, FAILURE) then maybe the next week you are successfull with all your reps (NO failure) then, because you were successfull, you up the weight by a small amount again, and this time, you go two weeks in a row without hitting all your reps, and actually dont improve... SO, you make a change, maybe your change is that you were doing 3 sets of 5 for your work sets, and you change to 5 sets of 5, or you change to 2 sets of 10, or you change to 3 sets of 3, whatever, it doesnt really matter for this discussion, but when you make that change, you use your head and start on the first week with a weight that is conservative, and you then again arent going near failure, but you again add weight each week, and repeat the process. so thats 4 weeks without failure, then one week with failure, then one week without failure, then two weeks with failure, then back to 4 weeks without failure.... etc.

thats about as clear as i can make it. but one other thing... you are NEVER trying to go to failure. you are ALWAYS trying to make all your reps. failure is just that, a FAILURE to complete your workout. if this happens a couple of times in a row, you change the workout.

siamesedream said:
Well, how long should one train to failure, then? I mean, once the individual gets up that weight where they can't complete all 5 reps, it's pretty much failure from then on. I mean, say they stick with the weight until they're able to pump out all 5 reps and then increase by another 5 pounds. Well, they'll be training up to failure again at that point. So, once failure is reached, is there a certain amount of time to continue training at that point that leads up to a deloading week and then cycling back down to a newer, higher "starting" weight to progress from in the oncoming weeks?
Click to expand...
 
needtogetas said:
I never said you had to do it that way,I just said it works.and btw what did I ever say to you.I think its grate if you have a difrant opinoun but do you have to be an ass hole.but lets just say this.if it ant broke dont fix it.balls to the walls working out is the way it has allways bin don.
Click to expand...

Actually, you didn't just say it works, but rather, the only method that works, as per this:

needtogetas said:
BALLS TO THE WALL IS THE ONLY WAY TO GROW....im waiting for the low-volume guys to come out of the woodwork.LOL
Click to expand...
 
glennpendlay said:
if youll re-read my post, i think i already answered your question, but maybe i wasnt very clear. you will make steady progress upward, without failure, for a number of weeks. you will hit a point where the steady progress isnt so steady any more. maybe it takes you 2-3 weeks to get all your reps with a new weight. you will eventually hit a point where progress stops. when this happens, you will change something, and start your new rep/set scheme at a lower level, assuring that you get all your reps for several weeks as you slowly ramp back up. and the process will repeat.

now, when done correctly, this is largely self regulating. thats why it works so consistently. it you follow the rules, its hard to screw up. when you get to really hard weights doing a certain thing, it is certainly more stressfull than during the first couple of weeks you did it... this extra stress each week spurs the body to adapt. at some point, most often when you have been doing the same exercise and rep/set scheme for a month or two, and are not getting all your reps week after week (in other words, going to failure) the body just wont adapt to it anymore. so you make a change, and after this change, for a time, the workouts arent as stressfull, but still they are increasing each week and eventually youll be going full out again, and eventually you will go to failure again, and at first this will spur progress, then progress will stop, and it will be time to start over again.

so, typically, a person might NOT get to failure for 3-4 weeks, then might have a week where the workout with the specified weight was not completed successfully (in other words, FAILURE) then maybe the next week you are successfull with all your reps (NO failure) then, because you were successfull, you up the weight by a small amount again, and this time, you go two weeks in a row without hitting all your reps, and actually dont improve... SO, you make a change, maybe your change is that you were doing 3 sets of 5 for your work sets, and you change to 5 sets of 5, or you change to 2 sets of 10, or you change to 3 sets of 3, whatever, it doesnt really matter for this discussion, but when you make that change, you use your head and start on the first week with a weight that is conservative, and you then again arent going near failure, but you again add weight each week, and repeat the process. so thats 4 weeks without failure, then one week with failure, then one week without failure, then two weeks with failure, then back to 4 weeks without failure.... etc.

thats about as clear as i can make it. but one other thing... you are NEVER trying to go to failure. you are ALWAYS trying to make all your reps. failure is just that, a FAILURE to complete your workout. if this happens a couple of times in a row, you change the workout.
Click to expand...

Thanks! That pretty much answers my questions. The system won't let me give you anymore karma.
 
Anthrax Invasion said:
Actually, you didn't just say it works, but rather, the only method that works, as per this:
Click to expand...
ya I gess I did get a little carred away.should have left that part out.but realy though still no reason to start shit.know what I meen.
 
Wouldn't be safe to say that everyone is different and what works for some, may not work for others? Sheesh.
 
EnderJE said:
Wouldn't be safe to say that everyone is different and what works for some, may not work for others? Sheesh.
Click to expand...

People say that all the time, but what "works" requires experimentation. What "works" requires the user to have tried different systems and come to a conclusion of what "works" and what "does not work" The point of these type threads is to give suggestions in terms of the right direction to head.
 
I think it's ok to visit the gym with prayer beads and meditate in the curling cage for 20 minutes. If the gods want you to grow muscle then it should come.
 
EnderJE said:
Wouldn't be safe to say that everyone is different and what works for some, may not work for others? Sheesh.
Click to expand...
Oh it's safe, but the main problem is that that very line is used to rationalize some of the stupidest crap known to man. So while it's true to a degree, we are all carbon based life, mammals, and human - very very close to each other without much in the way of significant deviation. So while some might experience results at a certain point in time (experience/training history) or prefer to train one way vs. another there are some pretty common elements to us all. Largely, what has worked over time has been taking a given individual and increasing capacity (let's say 10,8, or 5RM or 10x3, 8x3 or whatever) in the big core exercises that train the body as a system (granted, some will take enough drugs to try to get around this creatively but that doesn't mean it's optimal or good). Now, how to go about best increasing capacity is the real issue and that's going to vary greatly based mostly on goals, training history (what a lifter has been doing) and what he or she might best do going forward rather than any type of different physiology although obviously there is a bit of varriance going on but nothing that's too significant to obscure or eclipse the major factor.

An example might be looking at a beginner vs. an advanced lifter - the best way to train a beginner (load the bar session to session and long strings of back to back PRs in the core lifts for example) has pretty much abysmal success for an advanced athlete. What works for the advanced athlete will either kill or result in very slow progress for a beginner. Very different protocols but nothing to do with physiology or being intrinsically different at that level and everything to do with the state of the athelete.
 
Madcow2 said:
Oh it's safe, but the main problem is that that very line is used to rationalize some of the stupidest crap known to man....Very different protocols but nothing to do with physiology or being intrinsically different at that level and everything to do with the state of the athelete.
Click to expand...

Fine, but at the same time, you have religous camps on this training method vs that training method.

Some say to use belts for everything, some say to not use belts no matter what. Some say to ATF. Some say not to use ATF. Some say to elevate heels, some...you get the idea.
 
EnderJE said:
Fine, but at the same time, you have religous camps on this training method vs that training method.

Some say to use belts for everything, some say to not use belts no matter what. Some say to ATF. Some say not to use ATF. Some say to elevate heels, some...you get the idea.
Click to expand...
Oh I do, it's a good point and I'd be very leary of anyone who says something has to be one single way (although biomechanics and physics in the squat, you should at least break parallel this is a pretty exact science). A good example is in OL - Bulgarians and Russians go about things in fairly different ways but still the results are fairly comparable and excellent in both cases. Of course, both those ways are logical, systematic, based on a fair amount of science, and validated in practice. Today in PL you get a lot of people down on linear periodization but it didn't hold back Ed Coan or any of the greats in the recent past to a large degree. In bodybuilding, most people just don't have a clue so even though the statement is true that there are a lot of ways to skin a cat and that everyone is a bit different - the overwhelming majority is out hunting dogs, skinning rats. supplementing their diet with yarn without a clue what a cat might even look like. So in a bodybuilding context, I generally cringe when I see that 'everyone if different find out what works for you' because I've seen it used mostly to support horrendous garbage.
 
Madcow2 said:
So in a bodybuilding context, I generally cringe when I see that 'everyone if different find out what works for you' because I've seen it used mostly to support horrendous garbage.
Click to expand...
lol..true...true...

I guess we've all seen our own share of horror stories.
:)
 
Great thread. Don't know how I missed it. Anyway, Glenn and madcow both talk about "making a change" when you hit failure (ie, stop progressing) for a few weeks on end. Above, Glenn talks about changing set/rep scheme, and I understand that. I just wonder if it makes any difference what kind of change you make or how you determine whether to change to 10x3 or 2x10 or w/e. Anymore guidance on what kind of change to make?

Edit: just re-read this from Glenn Pendlay & Mark Rippetoe's interview w/ Matt Reynolds, and Glenn talks about making changes.

Glenn Pendlay said:
Matt: Second, Glenn and I touched on this in our interview earlier this year, but could you review the basics and importance of loading, unloading, and peaking while giving specific attention to manipulating the overall stress of a program by keeping intensity high and varying volume?

Glenn: It is my opinion that much of the “periodization” that is done by many people focuses too much on changing the means of training, and not enough on changing the overall difficulty or stress on the body.

Changing the means of training can be things like changing exercises, rep schemes, or rest periods. If you use these as your sole means of variation in training, you may still never load your body hard enough to evoke a response, or allow it the rest needed to realize the performance gain. Bear in mind here that I am talking about intermediate/advance athletes. I believe that an athlete needs to have periods of high stress training, and periods of low stress training. I also believe that if you do this, concentrate on changing the stress level of your training from week to week and month to month more and changing the training means less, it allows you to be more efficient in training, to stick to what works in other words. There are only so many changes you can make in rep schemes and exercises before you are doing things that aren’t of much use to your particular sport.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Bump to hear any thoughts on my post immediately above. I'd really like to get as much discussion going on around here on programming as possible, seeing as how it's so critical, but so misunderstood or ignored by most lifters.
 
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