Some bodybuilders are convinced that the best way to build muscle is to lift to muscle failure. Yet it’s a controversial topic since training to muscle failure is fatiguing to the muscles. Fatigue stimulates growth but it can also exhaust your muscles so much that it limits muscle growth.
What is Muscle Failure?
Muscle failure is the point at which a muscle can no longer contract to its full capacity. In other words, you work your muscles to voluntary muscle failure. If you were to pick up a lighter weight, you could do more repetitions, but you’re at a deadlock at the current weight. When you train to failure, the muscle you worked feels stiff and exhausted and it may even appear larger due to the muscle pump.
Why Do People Train to Failure?
The objective of muscle failure training is to increase the demands on your muscles, which will lead to greater growth and strength gains. When you train to failure, you take advantage of your nervous system’s ability to recruit high threshold motor units (the ones that will make the biggest difference in your strength and size gains). Most often, you do this by training with heavy weights. You can also do it by contracting the muscle until it reaches failure. During those final reps is when the high threshold motor units come into play.
Incorporating Muscle Failure Training into Your Workout
There are several ways to incorporate muscle failure training into your workouts. It all depends on your goals and whether you’re taking the high intensity/low repetition or lower intensity/higher repetition approach. To reach failure using a lower volume, you’ll need to use a weight that is near the heaviest you can lift for a given exercise. This is different for each person and will change over time as your body adapts and becomes stronger. You can train to failure using lighter weights, but you have to do more repetitions and that can increase your workout time.
Here are some approaches to training to muscle failure:
Do one set to failure. For example, 1 set of squats at as heavy a weight as you can for 5-6 repetitions. The, do 2 more sets of the same exercise at a slightly lighter weight, but just short enough of failure that you get the benefits without overtraining your muscles. Lifting at a high percentage of your one-rep max is ideal for strength gains too.
Choose a lighter weight and do a higher number of repetitions until you exhaust your muscles and can’t do another repetition with good form. This approach is higher volume and gives you an advantage for muscle hypertrophy. Higher volume favors hypertrophy.
However, you shouldn’t do multiple exercises in a row to failure until you’ve been training for a while. It’s an exhausting way to train.
Do You Need to Lift to Muscle Failure?
Most studies show you don’t need to lift to failure to maximize muscle gains. Training to muscle fatigue is enough of a stimulus to get your muscles to grow. One study carried out by researchers at East Tennessee State University found that training just short of muscle failure is more effective than training to complete failure.
The researchers compared the effects of lifting to failure and to near failure and the later lead to a greater increase in muscle fiber size and the size of muscles as a whole. They confirmed the differences in muscle and muscle fiber size through ultrasound and muscle biopsy.
So, there’s no need to push your muscles to complete exhaustion. You can back off a little and take it a bit short of complete failure and potentially get better results.
But don’t assume, based on one or two studies, that training to failure has no advantages. The problem with studies that look at failure training is they don’t always control for volume. Even when they do control for volume, the findings are mixed. Some show training to failure offers a slight advantage while others don’t.
Drawbacks of Strength Training to Muscle Failure
The drawback to muscle failure training is the fatigue factor. If you’re training a muscle to the point it fails, you won’t be able to do as many sets. So, you can end up trading total training volume for failure. It would be difficult to train to failure on every set, as it takes a lot of focus, motivation, and tolerance to discomfort and fatigue. When you train like this, your muscles fatigue but so does your brain, a phenomenon known as central fatigue. Your brain tells you to stop and take a rest.
There’s another drawback to training to failure. One study found that lifting to muscle failure on every set reduced anabolic growth factors, like IGF-1, that signal your muscles to grow. It also triggered a rise in cortisol, a stress hormone that breaks down muscle tissue. So, training to failure often without enough recovery time can work against muscle building.
The Bottom Line?
Muscle failure is an effective strategy for building muscle in moderation. It recruits those high-threshold muscle fibers, but it’s unpleasant and can overtrain your muscles if you do it for every set and every time you train. Is there a better approach?
Periodize your workouts to emphasize intensity (training to failure) some sessions and focus on volume other times in a cyclical pattern. Lifting to failure isn’t necessary for building muscle, but it is one way to push yourself harder and break out of a plateau.
But don’t obsess over pushing to failure. Focus instead on using good form and a full range of motion on each exercise. Work the muscle until it’s fatigued on most sets but throw in some sets where you work the muscle to failure. Don’t overdo it, as it isn’t necessary for muscle growth.
References:
- Strength and Conditioning Research website. “Does Training to Muscular Failure Lead to Greater Hypertrophy?”
- Sports 2019, 7(7), 169; https://doi.org/10.3390/sports7070169
- Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 21(2), 628-631.
- “Training to Failure” Len Kravitz, Ph.D.
- Izquierdo M, Ibañez J, González-Badillo JJ, Häkkinen K, Ratamess NA, Kraemer WJ, French DN, Eslava J, Altadill A, Asiain X, Gorostiaga EM. Differential effects of strength training leading to failure versus not to failure on hormonal responses, strength, and muscle power gains. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2006 May;100(5):1647-56. doi: 10.1152/japplphysiol.01400.2005. Epub 2006 Jan 12. PMID: 16410373.
- Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 26(9): 1160-11-64.
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