2023-05-23 15:30:21
No bread, no gain, right?
You must have already heard it somewhere, to have the best possible results in bodybuilding, you must lifting until reaching muscle failure (or almost).
But what does that really mean? Is it founded? When should it be done?
Today we are going to answer all these questions.
What does going to muscle failure mean?
It is an explicit term which means to carry out repetitions until muscular failureuntil you are no longer physically able to do an additional repetition (involuntary cessation).
On the science side, we will rather speak ofconcentric failurewhich means that one fails during the concentric phase of the movement (when the muscles shorten) without compromising the form of movement.
In other words, you might go for 1-2 more reps on your bicep curl, but that would involve bending over like a limbo contest and using a ton of momentum.
Is it worth it?
Everyone will tell you yes and that failure is an integral part of the best intensification methods in bodybuilding…
But science is not quite of the same opinion.
In fact, research is even quite unanimous on the fact that it would not bring real benefits on muscle hypertrophy and strength(1).
Worse, it might be counterproductive in hindering your recovery(2).
Training to fail is indeed energy-intensivewhat can increase fatigue and recovery time (between sets and between sessions).
So studies seem to show that instead of the minimum 48 hours required, you might need 72 hours between sessions (for the same muscle areas) if you train to failure.
With such conclusions, it seems obvious that muscular failure is akin to an overrated training method…
If we can achieve the same results in hypertrophy with less demand for recovery and be able to do more volume over the week without ever going to failure, we must find a way to quantify the intensity of the coaching.
On the other side of the spectrum…
On the other hand, if you don’t push the slider high enough in intensity, you’re missing out on its true potential.
The scientific literature is also very clear on the subject: it is not necessary to train to fail MORE you must be close enough all the same.
We are talking here regarding keep 1-3 reps in the tank on your work series.
Question: how do you know what training close to failure is if you have never experienced it?!
A 2016(3) study showed that practitioners with years of practice who thought they lifted to their max achieved less muscle gain than subjects who were instructed to push to concentric failure.
In other words, even experienced bodybuilders don’t seem not really know where their failure lies.
This problem with identifying failure might be a good reason for everyone to train to failure occasionallyjust to see.
When to train to failure?
Let’s recap, the goal is to practice close to failure and for that, you have to know where YOUR failure lies.
The sooner you figure this out, the better.
This goes for everyone, experienced practitioners as well as beginners (focus on good technique first though).
From the next session, get a spotter and determine where the muscle failure is on your exercises.
So the next time you will be able to stop 0-3 reps before.
What you must remember, it is that we sometimes think that we are training close to failure, when not at all! Regularly retesting your chess levels can thus allow you to pass plateaus.
A popular strategy is to use failure only for the last repetitions of your exercises.
Example on your bench press:
- Set 1: 6-8 repetitions,
- Set 2: 6-8 repetitions,
- Set 3: 6-8 repetitions,
- Set 4: As many reps as possible.
Although recent studies show that this strategy has little benefit once more, you just have to see it as a good way to know your limits.
A word of safety to end
Constantly pushing to fail seems more risky, right?
Quite surprisingly, on the studies side, it is difficult to demonstrate the correlation.
But if we want to protect ourselves as much as possible from this risk of injury, we want to avoid failure as much as possible, particularly on polyarticular exercises (like on a bench press where the technique has a strong tendency to collapse when things go wrong. complicate).
On isolation exercises like the biceps curl, on the other hand, you can train to fail more often.
What to remember?
Failure training can be a powerful tool, but it has to be used wisely.
You really have to keep in mind that this type of training is very taxing for recovery.
So if you find yourself cutting less and less volume session following session, remove failure from your sessions.
It may not be worth it.
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