Should you train to failure? Training to failure has its followers as well as its critics. A lot of people will not train to failure as they believe it leads to overtraining whereas others believe training to failure helps to build muscle and forces the body to adapt and grow in order to lift heavier weights. Should you really be afraid to push yourself and train to failure in the gym? Lets find out.
What Is Training To Failure?
Training to failure is described as completing a certain exercise movement until you physically fail on a certain repetition. Take for example the bench press. When you reach the point at which you cannot physically bring the bar down and push it back up above your chest you have trained to failure. You reach momentary muscular failure where your muscle currently can not complete another rep. So, to increase your bench press is it worth training to failure? is it worth training to failure on any exercise? In my opinion training to failure definetly has its place in a weight training routine but should be performed sparingly to produce the best results depending on an individuals lifting experience.
Why Training To Failure Can Be Good
In my opinion if used sparingly, training to failure can help you build muscle and strength. Training to failure also incorporates progressive overload into your routine whether your aware of it or not. This basically means that because your training to failure, if your diet and rest is on track then each time you go into the gym you are adopting the principles of progressive overload into your routine. Your not staying at the same reps/weight each and every week, by training to failure your continously striving for more until your body physically fails.
Training to failure can help progression in your routine and progression in your training can only lead to one thing…muscle growth! The other good thing about training to failure is that you get to give your workouts 100%. Cutting your sets short of anything other than 100% is extremely frustrating for some people and can make you feel your not working as hard as you should be. Training to failure completely eliminates this feeling.
Why Training To Failure Can Be Bad
Of course there are two sides to every story and training to failure is no different. Although it can be an effective training method to train to failure, it can on occassions cause more harm than good. Many trainers and trainees are afraid to train to failure as they believe it to be damaging to the body. There is some truth in this. Training to failure on a regular basis can be extremely taxing on your central nervous system (CNS) and consistantly training to failure will eventually lead to overtraining. To counteract overtraining and prevent your body from falling in to an overtrained state you should only train to failure when performing low-moderate training volume and consider only taking the last set of an exercise to failure.
Training to failure can be seen as a type of High Intensity Training (HIT) and should only be performed when using low to moderate training volume (10-12 sets). The reason for this is that there is no way you can take every set to failure on a high volume training routine without reaching a state of overtraining. Note that high intensity training shouldnt be confused with HIIT cardio as both are entirely different things.
So Whats The Verdict? Should You Train To Failure?
Training to failure is a training method that should be used in everyones routine at some stage to help build muscle, adopt the principles of progressive overload into a routine and to help overcome weight training plateaus. Train to failure when using a low to moderate training volume (10-12 sets) and preferably for the last set of each exercise. If you want to train to failure on more sets than just the last set of each exercise then go for it and see how your body responds.
If you find progress stalling by doing this then stop and consider taking just the last set to failure on each exercise. Dont train to failure too often when using a higher training volume (13+ sets).For example, part of a high volume training routine may include 10 sets of bench press. Theres no way you can perform all 10 of those sets to complete muscular failure on a daily basis and not enter an overtrained state. Consider taking just a few of those sets to failure on each exercise and save your CNS from complete burn out.
