Should You Train To Failure?
Here’s what I recommend doing.
Gym rats always find a topic to debate, failure being one of them.
There’s one group that advocates training close to failure and another that stands by training to failure.
Well, I’m in neither camp and I currently do neither.
But first, let’s define what failure is.
What is failure?
Failure is short for muscular failure.
It’s when you rep until you physically can’t anymore without sacrificing form. (demonstrate on video)
The debate is usually between that and training close to failure.
Training close to failure is when you stop one to two reps short of failure. (demonstrate on video)
In my experience, one isn’t superior to the other.
Rather, each technique has a time and place.
Cutting
By definition, when you’re cutting you’re in a calorie deficit.
You usually feel fine at the start of a cut as your hunger and energy levels are normal.
Then later in a cut, your energy will drop and your hunger will increase.
Your metabolism slows and your recovery gets worse.
Depending on how fast you cut, and for how long, your training sessions will also begin to feel worse.
In this state, imagine how training to failure would play out.
You’re pushing your body hard, but your recovery is suboptimal.
Each session would build on fatigue and muscular soreness as your body fails to keep up.
In this case, training close to failure is the better option.
Especially since your goal in a cut is to maintain muscle mass, and not necessarily gain.
And to do that, training to failure is unnecessary.
Maintaining
When you’re maintaining your body weight, your calories are at maintenance.
That is, your calories in are equal to calories out.
In this state, recovery is usually good, and your hunger and energy levels are stable.
If you keep your protein intake high and still weight train, you will naturally lose fat and gain muscle simultaneously.
Which is what some people aim to do in a lengthened maintenance phase.
So since you have the energy to recover, unlike in a cut, and you’re aiming to gain some muscle mass, training to failure works best.
Training to failure will damage that muscle group a little more, and, combined with improved recovery, you will likely gain more muscle mass.
Bulking
Whilst bulking, you’re in a calorie surplus.
You’re technically eating more than your body requires for the sake of fuelling recovery to maximise hypertrophy.
Assuming sleep, stress, water intake, and other health-related factors are stable, recovery cannot get much better.
You also have more energy, you’re stronger and you feel better (albeit maybe more bloated), so you can push yourself harder in the gym.
Since muscle growth is the goal, and you have the excess energy to compensate, I’d recommend neither training close to failure nor to failure, but past it.
You can do that by incorporating techniques like forced reps, half reps, and dropsets.
The idea is to cause as much muscle damage as possible.
The effectiveness of doing this is debatable.
But it makes for a more intense and enjoyable training session.
Caveat
Technically, by making adjustments to nutrition and other aspects of training, you could do either of the three techniques in any of the three phases and still make progress.
For example, you could train close to failure in a bulk or train past failure whilst maintaining.
But in the former, you may want to drop calories to compensate for the reduced calorie expenditure to avoid excess fat gain
If that’s a concern for you that is.
And in the latter, you may have to increase calories to bolster recovery.
Or maybe your goal isn’t to maximise hypertrophy.
Maybe you train for strength or endurance.
In those cases, you’d have a different approach to training.
Final Note
Now, if you’re reading and researching things like this, but not training, you’re wasting time.
A decade ago, I was doing the same.
I watched fitness YouTube videos in bed whilst eating sweets and chocolates.
All that was though, was procrastination.
Sure, when I eventually got in the gym I was better prepared.
But imagine where I’d be today had I started sooner.
Imagine where you’d be today had you started sooner.
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I lost 50 kg and took back control over my life.
I’ll help you do the same.
