Here's Why You Should (And Shouldn't) Train to FAILURE

Help me make more cheesy content:

What Is Overreaching?

Picturefit on YouTube! I share some of my health and fitness tips with you. Come check out our content! New fitness topics on a weekly basis. Want to learn about more health and fitness topics? Ask it in the comments! Learn all you need to know and what to do at the gym. Learn about aerobics, strength, hypertrophy, power, and endurance!

Referenced Articles

Training to Failure On Gains

Training to Failure On Recovery

Self-Determined RM

Any information in these videos should not be taken as personal healthcare advice. If you have questions about your health, please speak directly to your personal healthcare professional. #gains #lifting #workout

[CaptainPIanet]

Anecdote: my football lifting class has an AMRAP policy. As a 16 year old I was going through rapid growth and on my last set I had 315lbs for a squat, my previous max. It was set for 3+ reps. I was feeling real strong and got 4 easy. Kept going. By the time I got 6 my form was not looking great. On the 7th my back twisted in a weird way and I was immediately in pain. A herniated disk that was pressed up against my sciatic nerve.

Nine months of PT, chiropractors, and epidural shots later, I needed surgery to fix it. Ended my somewhat promising football career and has caused me trouble ten years later.

My rule now is, any high risk lift does not need to go to failure. That’s mostly squats, cleans, and dead lifts and overhead presses. Just not worth it.

[retrac]

I absolutely love training to failure on everything, it keeps me motivated to go to the gym. If my form starts to struggle then I stop it then. Never got injured from it and I’ve been consistently in the gym for about a year. Just take a few rest days in the week and unless you have any pain or discomfort, you should be fine

[sickandloose]

It's the only way I see any results. The other methods don't work for me.

[TheSwissGabber]

If you don't train the same muscle group within 48h it seems to make sense. I do every group twice a week, so the 72h is no problem. I like the feeling of knowing how far I went. I think I even need this to keep myself from slacking.
Who likes to "finish before the end" ?

[vikoccult]

Recently a new meta analysis with a meta regression came out that used all studies of previous meta analysis and shows a clear favour of training to failure. Science changed its mind.

[tataa]

I'm training for less than 1 year. From my own experience training to failure each set gave me visibly more muscle gain

[MrYokyScape]

A giant meta-analysis just came out saying failure IS better.

[MikeJones-lpux]

Thank you Picturefit for always providing useful fitness information. Can you please make a video on gym safety and proper form?

I want to learn how to be safe when working out alone, and how to use proper form to avoid injuries. Thanks!

[bobbyleglocks]

It all depends on the person. Look at Mike Mentzer, he trained 3 to 4 days a week 1 hr all out. And he could have won Mr Olympia in 1980. So, aside from steroids and meth. I think there is no way to say training to failure is a blanket policy. People find what works best for you, and make sure you rest and get sleep because that's when you grow.

[ironshelter]

I always train to failure except on Heavy Compounds in which case I try to come as close as I can.

[fleuxdi]

Training to failure having a worse stimulus-to-fatigue ratio is not a reason to avoid it. You gaining more muscle while needing to spend less time in the gym/being 'locked out' from the gym for a longer period is a positive thing. If there is no significant difference in muscle growth over a longer period of time then the training approach where you spend less time in the gym i.e. more days in between workouts is a win.

[yavorvlaskov]

As a home gym enthusiast (high upfront cost, but worth it in longevity) I would say that testing out failure is better done with some exercises and equipment and others. I have not trained to failure with my barbell press, for example, but have with my dumbells, simply because in the worst case scenario dropping it to the side rather than my chest is preferable.

[samfarrow]

Depends. When I do a week of high volume training I go hard as I can, then after that’s complete I move on to low volume training to keep up with the endurance and controlling the weight.

[yonatanmonneler]

this is a problem with fitness on the internet, you have videos like this saying training to failure is unnecessarily increasing recovery time, then you have bodybuilders like Mike Mentzer and Tom Platz who trained the failure always and took many rest days, and they were huge. Everything here is inconsistent and extremely overwhelming and discouraging to beginners.

[noumanintown]

I always train close to failure. What I mean by that is in the last 12 months, there have been exactly 2 instances where I failed on a bench press and had to roll it down my body, and only once time in a squat where I couldn't get out of the hole and had to (gently) drop the bar on the safety spotter arms. This keeps me mostly injury-free - I regularly deal with DOMS or occasional hip/back pain from trying very heavy deadlifts but otherwise, yeah, I got too much going on in my life to add visits to the ER to the mix.

The last time training (close) to failure caused me pain was the Leg Press machine, tried to really go hard and something in my right knee just felt weird for almost 8-10 days, every time I would need to bend the knee would feel something unpleasant. So yeah, I stop short of reaching that level of stress on my aging body and I think it's fine, I'm not a competitor. If I hurt myself, I have to take the bus and sit in an ER for 8 hours before someone will see me.

[GamblesMMA]

What about the study: Relationship Between
Estimated Resistance
Training Proximity to
Failure, Strength Gain, and Muscle Hypertrophy: A Series of Meta-Regressions

[sparky]

If it concerns my neck or back, I never train to failure.

If it doesn't, then I always train to failure.

I refuse to fuck my spine up AGAIN.

[iangentry]

Did you see the recent meta analysis on failure training for hypertrophy vs strength

[mikeysaint]

I don't know if it's the passage of time (developing more muscle over the months), but since I set targets for endurance and reps rather than training to failure I've moved on to another level. Training to failure was having some impact of course, but my arms, chest, shoulders, back and legs etc were at the point where nothing much was changing. I put it down to over-fatiguing the muscles so I stopped pushing myself so hard. It seems to have worked, giving me more endurance and better results. A couple of reps close to failure are how I'm mostly doing it now. I'm also finding supersets have been beneficial.

[loganwolv]

When it comes to deadlifts "no pain no gain" definently applies unless you replace your tibia with a robotic tibia.