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

[snapback]526809[/snapback]​

 

[Topside]

i have a report on training to failure and the use of multiple sets versus one set, various rep ranges, and the use of machines or free weights. It gives specific studies that were done and the results. It is extremely interesting, it was written by my exercise physiology professor disputing ACSM's position stand on resistance training. If you want the link here it is the only bad part is its 64 pages or so, but u can skim through it. Basically it shows that there is hardly any difference between multiple sets to a single set when taken to failure and the use of rep ranges between 3 and 15 as long as failure is met in one set 2 to 3 times a week will elicit the same response to split work outs etc. There was a greater response however with working out 6 days a week basically in elite athletes. Heres the link very interesting stuff. It is the second link on the page.Journal of Exercise Physiology

 

[Topside]

on another note i have actually been training this way for the past month and have noticed some decent gains. Basically i have been training one set to failure per muscle group 3 days a week, failing at about the 10 rep mark, focusing a lot on the form and full stretch and range of motion of the movement. The work out consists of about 10 exercise and last me roughly 30 minutes. I have two different work outs that i rotate for some variety. So far its been working relatively similar to all of the split routines and periodized routines i have tried and im out of the gym in under 30 mins. The work out is not easy though. There is minimal rest between sets just catch my breath enough so my form does not suffer on the next exercise. So so far im liking this high intensity style.

 

[kcpmeo22]

Nice post!!

 

[musketeer]

I concur with the above.

After 8 years of HIT, I'm much happier with the DF 5x5

 

[pintoca]

This thread turned out for the better!!

Great posts guys

My personal experience: I've been trraining only for 13 months, it has been always cutting (yeah, I know). My main goal while cutting was to basically KEEP my LBM as much as possible. I dropped 70lbs in one year and not a single lb of LBM, it was all fat.

The way I did it was basically 3 sets per exercise, in the 12 reps range, as heavy as I could manage. I later moved to 12,10,8, with increasing weights... the last rep was probably close to failure, but not total failure.

I then did 2 months of madcows 5x5, not the dual-phase program, but the single factor one... My strenght skyrocketed (obviously, after a year cutting, when I hit the CHO, there was no limit to that I could do)

I went back to cutting (it was simply a pause for my thyroid) and started my 12,10,8 routine again, 3-4 exercises/body part.

The reason I jumped into failure training was because I noted I was NEVER sore anymore with my training, at one point it felt as if I was simply cruising through it, despite the fact that I increased the load everyweek (either one rep more, or little more weight).

So I started doing stripped sets, increasing the sets to 5 or 6... shit, quite the opposite, burning all over, even 4-5 days after the training, which gets in the way of my other workouts.

Hence the question.

 

[blut wump]

I think those who often tend to take sets to failure will be running programs where bodyparts are trained just once per week. As such they'll have a legs day and blast away at the legs with everything they can think of and then hobble around for five or six days until they work legs again. I tried it for a while but it's not for me. You'll often see people discussing splits where they say they try to keep back day as far as possible from leg day and the soreness is why.

Many studies have shown that it's better to train muscles at least twice per week and being very sore does just get in the way.

 

[777-9311]

(1) soreness is an indication of nothing.
(2) if you are training to real failure you should only have one work-out per week, full body, no rest between sets and no need to "work your bi's"

(3) failure means that if I have a knife at your throat, you can not do one more rep.

(4) dont forget negative failure, static failure and positive failure

(5) most guys who say they go to failure....DONT

(6) if you train more than 3x a week (on AAS) you ARE NOT training to failure.

If you train whole body to failure, you'll likely need a nap the day of your work-out and 1-2 days later you might experience flu like symptons.

also, there are tons of study's on training to failure.

 

[pintoca]

I think those who often tend to take sets to failure will be running programs where bodyparts are trained just once per week. As such they'll have a legs day and blast away at the legs with everything they can think of and then hobble around for five or six days until they work legs again. I tried it for a while but it's not for me. You'll often see people discussing splits where they say they try to keep back day as far as possible from leg day and the soreness is why.

Many studies have shown that it's better to train muscles at least twice per week and being very sore does just get in the way.

I find it hard to train muscles once per week, even if you are trying to... when you train chest, you will train triceps as well, back? most likely shoulders will come into play too, if you are deadlifting, then legs as well. For pull exercises (back day) also biceps...

This is the problem I find, a muscle that is accesory in other day not working as it should.

This would work ONLY if you are doing PURE isolation movements. The moment you start doing some compund movements the soreness will get in the way.

 

[blut wump]

That's why people agonize so much about finding the ideal split. They try to put triceps with chest but then realise they don't have enough time for shoulders so that needs another day. Then they find they have to do lateral raises instead of presses since their triceps are still fried. Next they move shoulders a little further away from chest day but that means that back day is now too close legs unless...

On top of that you get the plethora of techniques to pre-exhaust muscles so that you can save support muscles for some session later in the week. You get people talking of using too much delts in a bench press or using biceps too much in their rowing and people not squatting since it makes everything sore. The whole system becomes a juggling act which can never quite be stable until either you get the needle out or settle for low-intensity workouts to allow sufficient recovery.

I was drifting around that spiral when I discovered Elite looking for drugs info and found training info instead.

 

[musketeer]

That was so good to just read BLUT!

Thats what I've been thinking for the past year and never put down so well in one post!

KKK

 

[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"?