Ultimate truth about Training to failure

[pintoca]

I hear a lot of opinions on this, would like to hear, for once, what is the lowdown on this.

Hardcore Oldschoolers tend to agree that training till failure is the ONLY way. Hence the ages-old "No pain no gain" motto.

New-schoolers, armed with their knowledge, normally say that training till failure puts an extreme load on your CNS, even more if you train daily

So, what is it then? I believe too much of a good thing is bad, so could it be that training till failure (and beyond failure, i.e. stripped sets) should be incorporated every 2 weeks or so, or simply not at all?

I do know that it makes me SORE as hell, which somehows takes away from my other workouts

 

[blut wump]

If you're only working a bodypart once per week then I can see some reasonable use for drop sets, heavy negatives and repeated training to failure to try to blast the muscle such that it'll take a week to get over the abuse and give it an ache that'll last fur or five days.

Once you start to work bodyparts two or three times per week, the excessive soreness from the above techniques is not conducive to a good workout but the occasional use might likely not do much harm. Would you consider a failed 1RM attempt to be training to failure?

 

[pintoca]

If you're only working a bodypart once per week then I can see some reasonable use for drop sets, heavy negatives and repeated training to failure to try to blast the muscle such that it'll take a week to get over the abuse and give it an ache that'll last fur or five days.

Once you start to work bodyparts two or three times per week, the excessive soreness from the above techniques is not conducive to a good workout but the occasional use might likely not do much harm. Would you consider a failed 1RM attempt to be training to failure?

For example, how about if your Triceps training is hampering your chest training 4 days later? (because of soreness) or your biceps training is hampering your back training.

This is what I'm seeing this past week, when I started to change things a bit: I trained biceps on tuesday, more sets than usual, lower weights though, and on Saturday they were hurting for my back (pull) exercises...

My tris still hurt today, from Thursday, and tonight is chest. I can tell it will be inconvenient.

nope, I will not consider a 1RM attempt training till failure, if it's not the closure of a number of series beforehand

 

[majutsu]

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."

 

[Guinness5.0]

A concise definition/guideline is probably a tall order. But you said it - going to failure often will leave you with muscles that are ready to be worked and a CNS that isn't ready to work them. Obviously failing on bench is more taxing than failing on cable crossovers, so what you hit failure on is a factor as well.

IMO using positive muscular failure as the measuring stick of a workout is a very bad idea. It's really tough to train soon after hitting failure on several key movements, and muscles should be trained more than once a week. Spreading the workload over two workouts allows for more work to be performed in the same time period (a week) whle not overworking the CNS.

Here's some links that I think are helpful:

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpost.php?p=6363892&postcount=41

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpost.php?p=6364569&postcount=45

It's tough to seperate failure from the other aspects of a program - volume, frrequency and intensity all have to be accounted for. But my .02 is that constantly hitting failure will hinder progress. You can do more work (move more weight in a given time period) by spreading the work across sets that are tough but not to failure. Nothing special happens to muscles at failure - it's all about the CNS. Nobody gets a trophy for having the toughest, most conditioned CNS

 

[blut wump]

It is astonishing that there are still so few studies other than the ones we do ourselves every week in the gym. As we know, and as Majutsu just gave an example of, failure is necessary neither for strength nor growth.

I've not done any training deliberately to failure at all for about a year and I have no complaints about the year's training. Then again, I no longer have an arms day nor anything resembling it. I squat, bench and pull each at least twice per week usually trying in some aspect to do better than I've ever done before.

I usually have ongoing vague aches around my body but very rarely have any soreness and doubt that I shall ever go back to the old 1x per week type of training with its attendent blasting away to failure.

 

[wayneboard1]

Good posts guys, bump.

 

[Tweakle]

Did guiness just post a link to......... bb.com ??

balancing volume/load/intensity and frequency is such an individual thing so there is no 'final answer'. Just find what works for you no matter how long that takes.

It makes no sense to me to try to model my training on elite athletes or top bbers (either end of the spectrum) because I'm neither.

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

I think training to failure is a great way to go if you want people to give you that incredulous look that you actually lift when you tell them that you've been lifting for years lol.

I've made great strength gains training that way in the high rep ranges (8-12), but very little hypertrophy because I had to wait 7-9 days to train again because I would literally be burnt out from that type of training.

When I first tried the Df 5x5 program I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle the program's volume after having been brainwashed into thinking volume is bad by the HIT crowd for years. Turns out I respond very well to a regulated program like that with a good level of volume, but no training to failure.

Guess it depends on the person, but I think training to failure is garbage.

 

[Madcow2]

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.

dont care what program your on.. what your doing.. who your doing.. or anything like that. Take the 1 hr out of your day to read the following information!

Load

Work

Frequency

Duration

Resistance Training Programs

Kc

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