Dr. Mike's LEAST Favorite MYTH

[cdot]

The issue is most people that think they’re stopping at 3 reps from failure, are really stopping at 5-6 reps from failure or more.

[michaelscott]

"Stimulate, don't annihilate" - Lee Haney

[SinoMaticPayne]

I just don't know how many reps I am away from failure unless I go to failure.

[BurnerTurner]

It does feel good training to failure, mentally. But I mainly do it because its easier for me to track my lifts and progressive overload.

[MrNickMulgrave]

I usually stop about 20 reps from failure.
Works for me.

[natedogmarik]

For beginners, your biggest thing in the gym is getting technique down, building good habits, and consistency. Once you get those down, you can test your top end weight ranges and you’ll get another sense of how much you can do. For example, I can DB shoulder press 80s for 2, when I do 65s I peak out at around 10-12 on an absolute failure set. So I know 1-2 reps for that is around 9/10 depending on the day. Optimize your workouts and maximize your best despite how you feel. Not everyday is going to be 100% full strength capacity, but you can still give 100% effort

[Dronom-]

A lot of people don’t know this, but the reason Mike Mentzer advocated for “to failure” was because he wasn’t sure if there was a difference in growth stimulus between 80%, 90%, or 100% to failure. So he said just play it safe and train to 100% failure. If Mike was still alive today he would have refined his HIT method because he cared above truth, not dogma. This was in his final book High Intensity Training.

[Arikian]

I go to failure because It's easy to keep track of, it's a lot harder to tell when you have 3 reps left until failure

[MultiStats]

I love listening to this guy! He is so blunt and clear.

[Volttikoira]

2-3 RER in squats? Sure, that's smart. 2-3 RER in tricep extencions? Nah man, I'm 100% pushing that shit to failure.

[gavipk]

Another thing about training to failure, really only applies with heavier resistance ranges. Lifting heavy, pull ups, etc, you really hit a wall. Lighter fare, there's a lot of continuously pushing out one more if you just wait an extra few seconds and contort a bit or whatever. You can get into repetitive stres injuries or rhabdo and things like that depending on the exercise. Like what is training to failure with burpees? Death?

[mrayven]

I do it because im following a low volume approach. Thats it. Simple

[frikandelkroket]

Meanwhile people in the gym busy on their phones.

[xavierfigueroa]

As long as you don’t do a ton of sets per exercise, you can go to failure every set and not be “fatigued” I would say a good rule of thumb is that if your doing an exercise 3 sets or below you can go to failure if you want, any more than three sets for one exercise to failure is usually when fatigue and junk volume really start to effect you.

[dougmurray]

I look at "failure" differently. If you can't fully engage the muscle to the FULL degree, then that's failure, full arc of fuel for biceps; full pulldown for lats, whatever. You'll see ppl even use a cheat where they go very heavy but not use the range of motion b/c they can't in the full range. They do it within what they can tolerate OD the full range and stop about 5% of the way down, for example, on a dumbbell bench press. The weight is too much. Don't do this finding "failure". Full range of movement, for the entire exercise. And slow it down to a 4-6 second per/rep. At this point you can drop the weight by whatever proportion (percentage-wise) and do a further set or two, changing the number of reps based upon intention. Endurance 15-25 reps for one set after hitting failure on your first set of 4. Then follow with, say, a 10% reduction on the weight, and do full range until you can't, at a 4-6 second rep count. But you can drop the weight even lower; 25% less, 50%. You choose. You'll find that sweet spot. Just make the intention very focused on paying attention to every inch OF the movement within that rep. Keep the mind-body connection very pure and purposeful. Make every fiber of the muscle engage itself. I also find that at least 2 exercises per muscle is key. Traditional quats AND hack squats, hammer bicep curls AND preacher curls. And for back, think areas; groups of small muscles; rows in 2 ways, pulldown in 2 ways. The ANGLES change within the scope of a ROUND muscle. Conscious awareness is key.

[marinaelhaybe]

Well, he pushed that myth as well, I would say. Heard many times from him how great it is to only be able to do partials at the end of a set, to be able to continue and further push to failure. He said that many times. Also, he advocated for dropsets, for the same reason. 😮

[sng]

Training to failure is great bc most people don’t have an idea. They do 8-10 reps and call it a day.

[nogodforjoy]

Training to failure is highly enjoyable. 3 reps in reserve sucks.

[MatthewGraham]

What percentage of people in an actual normal gym care to be bodybuilders? This is a very narrow approach to the gym. Most people don't see results not because they are getting too close to failure, but because they don't get close enough. For the serious bodybuilders who want to go the gym 5-6x a week this is good advice. For the vast majority of normal people who are doing well if they go 3x a week, they can handle the recovery.

[ArnB-hkhn]

He's absolutely correct! I way too often use too much intensity, and because of that, I am often overtrained.... I love this channel!!