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To Fail or Not to Fail
If there is a single most contentious issue in the field of strength training and bodybuilding, I’d probably argue that it is the decades long argument about whether or not training should be taken to failure. Now, this is another topic that could potentially require an article or two to fully address and I’ll try to keep my comments a bit more focused here.
Simplistically speaking, the idea of training to failure is that a set should be taken to the point that another full repetition cannot be completed. Even there there can be different definitions or types of failure including low and high-volume failure (a concept I’m not going to define just to tease you) and that of concentric, isometric and even absolute/eccentric failure. Some define technical failure and others just let the trainee go until they can’t move anymore.
Here I’m going to use the simplest definition of failure, that is taking the set to the point that another positive/concentric repetition cannot be completed. Usually that entails at least trying to do the repetition and either being unable to start the weight or getting stuck somewhere during the repetition.
Some have argued that only by training to failure can you know how hard you’re working. I consider this idea patently false, and discuss some of the reasons why in What Is Training Intensity? With practice and coaching, most trainees can know within a rep or two how close they are too failure; I’d note that figuring this out often entails training to true failure. Many people vastly underestimate what they are capable of; only by training to their actual limits for a while can they get a feel for them.
But what about failure and hypertrophy, does it help, hurt, no difference. And the answer here is…it depends (you knew that was coming).
There are some reasons that training to limits (or at least close to them) might have benefits, my friend Blade has commented on potential benefits regarding fiber recruitment and rate coding and such that may be involved in the hypertrophic response. I’d not that this tends to be most relevant for higher repetition sets; once the load is heavy enough (about 80% of maximum or about an 8 repetition maximum), you get full recruitment from the get go.
However, there are potential drawbacks to training to failure and this has a huge interaction with the goal training volume. As a generality, the more sets you want to do of an exercise, the further from failure you need to stay at least on the initial sets. However, even that is variable and depends on the trainee.
Some (certainly not all) trainees find that going to the point of concentric failure simply burns them out. Often it’s only in the longer term that constant failure training burns them up but I have seen *some* trainees for whom a single set taken to true failure can basically ruin them for the remaining sets of that exercise. I’ve seen the occasional trainee for whom a set taken to true limits can ruin them for the rest of the workout. It’s arguably a neural response and something bad happens to their nervous systems.
For those trainees, failure training needs to be used in a very limited fashion if at all, especially if they plan to do more than one set of a given exercise.
So if they have a goal of 4 sets of 8 repetitions, they’ll need to stop the sets 1-2 reps short of failure until perhaps the final set.
From time to time, I’ll often have them rep out the final set to get a better idea of when it’s time to increase the load.
So if they are doing sets of 8 and on that final set get to 12 or 15 or something, I know they are sandbagging and need to be working heavier across the load.
At the same time, some trainees have no problem going to failure on their first work set, dropping the weight for the next set and continuing and then doing it for however many sets they want to do. I’d point you to Martin Berkhan’s excellent article on Reverse Pyramid Training for a look at this. Again, it’s just an individual thing and trainees need to experiment a bit to see what camp they are in (the ones who can or cannot handle training to failure acutely).
Ultimately, over the decades of folks seeking bigger muscles, despite logical arguments about the topic, the fact is this:
people have made progress both training to failure and not training to failure.
If it were required, this wouldn’t be the case. For many people, failure training simply burns them out; for others it’s no problem. I’ll leave it at that.
Сообщение изменено: AnatolyR (20 декабря 2012 - 04:51)
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