Was reading another thread and people were talking about training to failure on a set if it was kind of a big deal.

Other than squats or maybe bench press when you don't have a spotter or something to catch the weight, why would anyone stop before they have hit failure? Brb did some reps and then just stopped for no reason.

In fact, going to failure seems kinda lazy when there are so many options like forced reps, negatives, partial reps, drop sets etc to take you well beyond failure.

Age?

I’ve found once I got to mid 30ish training to failure other than a burn out set here and there just lead to injuries

54.

Mid 30s is too long ago to remember if I used to get injured more or less.

rep range of 10+, its good to get close to failure...i guess

range 3-5, better to keep gas in the tank so you can have explosiveness on your next set

I don't get it either. I've always thought dumbbell bench was better. Being able to go to failure is part of why. Squats I get leaving out that last rep. Otherwise, wtf unless you're doing circuit training.

It's normally due to frequency.

Similarly to how, if you max out every week, you start to get weaker, due to lack of recovery; if you go toactualfailure on the same muscles, multiple times per week, you hit problems with recovery.

In addition to frequency, %1RM comes in to play. Type IIx and type II recover slower than type I.

The greater the number of motor units recruited, the greater the recovery penalty for failure.

Somebody can fail on a 16th rep with pretty much no care in the world, whereas failing on the 3rd rep will impact recovery.

Oh helllllll naw.

Progressive overload. You’ll reach your limit faster than you think.

Always lol @ people that just crank out 10 reps and just stop

You can have a few more in you squeeze them out

I agree most people don't train hard enough. However you need to understand you have to balance volume and intensity.

I like to train using a bro split. I like to do 15 'hard' sets' per body part, per day. Wait a week. Then smash it again. You really can't train 15 sets to failure with various angles/movements. Your gas will just run out. The key is at least one set to failure on your primary movement. And on the others you focus on tempo/contraction and just getting a good pump.


As far as the people who say you should never train to failure. My argument against that would be if you are progressively overloading weight or volume (or intensity). Then at some point you will start hitting failure sets. And chances are, the next time you train you'll be able to do more then the week previously.


One of my main issues with 'frequency' based training where you hit everything 2-3x per week. Is its incredibly hard to progressively overload week after week without hitting failure and eventually without having recovery issues. Even if you are blasting anabolics, you have to be able to recover.

Say I can do 15 pullups max. I want to do 5 sets of 10 so at the end of the last set i'm at or near failure. If I do 15 reps on the first set, I might not be able to get 10 by the third set.

Is it better to do 5x10 or 15,12,9,7,6? That is the question.

Same if you're doing 5x5, you could do more than 5 reps on the first set but thats not the program.