Ultimate truth about Training to failure

[777-9311]

too many bro's train for pump or soreness not growth. or because they have no life and love going to the gym every day.

train to stimulate growth that's it that's all.

 

[majutsu]

good post blut! I need to reload to give you k.

The question is: What causes hypertrophy?

Is it the weight? Doubtful. If adaptating to weight increases were the essence of hypertrophy, then powerlifters would be the most hypertrophied individuals. They are not. I have increased my 1RMs several times in my life with little or no hypertrophy. There are too many muscular strength adaptations or nervous system adaptations to 1RMs.

Is it volume? Doubtful. I challenge you to build the best physique you can with body weight exercises. No matter what you do, you will be smaller than your identical twin with a 300lb weight set will be.

Is it failure? Definitely not. Many people have sworn on this thread they can grow without failure.


I like the fellow who says, "train to stimulate growth. That's it. That's all." Ok. Then what is the essence of stimulating growth?, because I and the rest of world, the pharmaceutical companies, and the thousands suffering from muscle wasting diseases would all like to know . . .

 

[Slyder190]

A very good read about what exactly is happening during training to failure is in this thread at Darden's forums: http://www.drdarden.com/readTopic.do?id=394848

Specifically read NWLifter's posts - he provides references where applicable. He is actually Ron Sowers from Hypertrophy Research. Pretty sharp guy. In a nutshell, failure has a ton more to do with the CNS than it does with the muscle. So although you may eek out another rep or two, there is a very heavy tax to pay as overtraining is accumulated fatigue and its impact on the CNS. If more work was so important, do another set. Workload is higher (and this is important to training) and CNS tax per unit of work is a hell of a lot lower (and this is important to recovery and being able to train more often with more work)

Some other suff recently put out by Hypertrophy Research from Fortified Iron's board for those who are interested. These are the foundation series and intermediate and advanced series are forthcoming.

Madcow, I know you are an advocate of not training to failure, but sometimes it seems like you may not totally be 100% against it. actually I should say, the way you present yourself sometimes in threads it seems as such. Are 100% against it or do you beleive that if maybe used in conjunction with periodization it may be okay? I ask because I know one time you commented on DC's training in regards to his cruising period. I don't remember exactly what you said, but I remember you coming off like you though his program might be beneficial because it has a cruising period. Maybe I'm just lost today.

 

[glennpendlay]

the object of every training session should be to hit a certain number of sets and reps with a certain weight. if you make your target, you will not have gone to failure. sometimes you will miss, and you will have gone to failure. anytime you start something new in your workout, whether it is a new exercise, new number of sets or reps, or whatever, youll want to start a little conservatively, so that the first couple of weeks after the change you wont be in any danger of failing. but as you add weight each week, eventually you will fail. and its likely that youll be training right at the verge of failure or even going to failure on a set or two for the next couple of weeks after that... then youll change something and be back to a conservative weight again with no chance of failure, and the cycle will repeat.

what madcow advocates, and what i advocate, isnt a complete avoidance of failure, it is the avoidance of seeking failure as a goal in training. it is the method of planning workouts, using steady progression and having a goal each workout of a certain number of sets and reps with a certain weight that will put you just a little bit higher than the workout before. you WILL still fail sometimes, just hopefully not that often.

Madcow, I know you are an advocate of not training to failure, but sometimes it seems like you may not totally be 100% against it. actually I should say, the way you present yourself sometimes in threads it seems as such. Are 100% against it or do you beleive that if maybe used in conjunction with periodization it may be okay? I ask because I know one time you commented on DC's training in regards to his cruising period. I don't remember exactly what you said, but I remember you coming off like you though his program might be beneficial because it has a cruising period. Maybe I'm just lost today.

 

[Madcow2]

Are 100% against it or do you beleive that if maybe used in conjunction with periodization it may be okay?

What Glenn said. Progressively increasing the weights over a period is the stimulus. This is why you don't start at your current max or why starting too high, is the best way to blow up a program based on this. If you never fail, you are doing great because you'll be in PR range pretty quickly and setting new PRs week to week. Sounds pretty cool to me but everybody fails sometime. The changes one makes at that point and alterations to factors over time are the essence of programing. Anyone on this board or any other BBing board can put together one program and do it - very very few can arrange training over long periods for sustained progression especially once they get fairly experienced where going into the gym, getting under a bar, and working hard at it week to week just isn't enough. This is the problem and why people toil endlessly with "routines", swapping around exercises, looking for that holy grail "routine", and spinning their wheels in commercial gyms.

I ask because I know one time you commented on DC's training in regards to his cruising period. I don't remember exactly what you said, but I remember you coming off like you though his program might be beneficial because it has a cruising period. Maybe I'm just lost today.

I think it was that his cruising period is akin to deloading or strategic deconditioning as HST terms it. He understands that you can't push and make progress linearly for long and that linear gains are not possible to carry out to infinity. Basically periodization which avoids the typical HIT trap of reducing frequency all the time vs. just in specific periods (frequency is very important to strength and for a bodybuilder these typically move in line over the mid-long term).

 

[Jim Ouini]

the object of every training session should be to hit a certain number of sets and reps with a certain weight.

That's something that I've really come to rely on now. I used to keep a journal back when I did the 1 bodypart/week thing, but I'd just write down what I did after the fact. Kind of pointless, in retrospect.

When I started doing 5 x 5 and Korte, I was forced to update it prior to the workout with sets/reps/weights, which really keeps me on track, focused and motivated.

I can't see ever training how I used to - go into the gym on 'chest' day, look around, think about what exercises I might want to do, ask my training partner 'how heavy today?' 'how many sets?'

In fact, not having a plan is really disconcerting to me, I don't know how I used to do it.

 

[gjohnson5]

Failure is unnecessary.

Proof:

Failure - temporary failure of a muscle to produce another voluntary contraction (due to excessive mechanical load)

In studies of limb hypertrophy, like in rats, they produce hypertrophy in one back leg by tying the other back leg up tight against the body, forcing the animal to rely on one back leg instead of two. Within a short time, the animal produces significant hypertrophy of the one good leg. At no point does the animal fall over because of failure, the temporary inability of the leg to contract again. Failure is never reached, but the overloaded leg is hypertrophied very significantly.

Therefore, since hypertrophy happens all the time under controlled conditions without failure, failure is not necessary for hypertrophy.

Proved.

The old schoolers were wrong about the necessity of failure. But since going to failure does guarantee the fastest progression of weight possible at any time, would going to failure, by allowing the steepest progressive resistance, enable the greatest accumulation of hypertrophy? (like HIT might allege)

Probably not. Since it's possible to get quite a bit stronger without a significant increase in muscle mass or cross-sectional area. Powerlifters do this all the time. It is believed that nervous system adaptations (more synchronized muscle firing) and fiber adaptations (conversion from slow to fast fiber types) are the main mechanisms for this process. Neither of these adaptations is the desired hypertrophy most bodybuilders want. So the old school idea that progressive resistance guarantees hypertrophy is incorrect as well. Many people progress their resistance and never grow.

What we need to know is how to train and eat so that of the possible adaptations we can manifest, we select out hypertrophy as the primary response, if that is our goal. But human research in kinetics and skeletal and immune system adaptations is virtually nill. We know almost zero. The future holds many shocking ideas, I'm sure. To quote Men in Black, "Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

I'd like to see studies on humans and not rats , but good idea though

 

[gjohnson5]

To be honest I'm one of those old school'ers and I think that varied training always works best. Repeatedly doing anything over and over again shouldn't be done. I use descending sets as well as overload as hypertrophy can be achieved by dropping weight as well. I've never been taught that oly failure training with upward movement of weights produces larger muscles.

Variation , Variation , Variation

 

[putrefied_dead]

wow.... great post... good to see a mature discussion. good stuff blut wump.

 

[Guinness5.0]

I've never been taught that oly failure training with upward movement of weights produces larger muscles.

What is "oly failure training"?