Training to failure: Variables to consider

Question: How many times have you heard people debating the answer as to whether you should train to failure or not? Both sides of the argument appear to hold merit, with notable bodybuilders and weightlifters having great results either training exclusively to the point of failure or training with no intention of ever failing a rep. However, I think it is short sighted to assume there is a black and white answer to the question that applies in all scenarios and to all exercises.

In this article I am going to go over some considerations I think you should take into account when structuring a training program. But first, I’ll give a bit of background on who I am and where my ideas come from. My name is Joe Webb and I’ve been interested in building muscle and lifting weights since I was 13 years old. I began lifting weights at 13 and joined a gym at 14. I competed in powerlifting several times between the ages of 15 and 19 and went on to compete in bodybuilding at age 23. I have done some coaching on and off throughout the latter part of the 14 years I have pursuing this lifestyle and I currently have a handful of clients I help out. I do believe, though, that it is important to have some foundation of formal knowledge alongside a lot of real-life experience. I have a first-class degree with honours in sport and exercise science and I have a certificate of study in biomechanics at masters degree level.

Now, on to the discussion of training to failure. It is important to first define what training to failure is and I think in the world of bodybuilding and weightlifting there are 3 types of “failure” that we can observe.

·       Failure could be the point at which you stop feeling the target muscle do the work. This is mostly applicable to compound exercises. For example, you may feel towards the end of a set of incline presses that your shoulders and triceps begin to take over and you no longer feel your chest doing the work. For most people this is probably the least demanding variation of failure to train to in terms of recovery.

·       Failure could be the point at which your form breaks down during the exercise. This is often most applicable to beginners. For example, you begin to get tipped forward during the concentric portion of the rep while doing barbell squats.

·       Failure could also be the point at which you simply fail to complete another rep. This is typically where a more advanced trainer will be able to take a set to because this requires that you maintain good form and keep tension on the target muscle even as fatigue builds up and lactic acid accumulates.

The main arguments against training to failure that I’ve come across are ones related to safety and recovery. In some instances, the safety concerns may be true. If a person reaches failure in the form of technique significantly worsening, then you’d be hard pressed to justify continuing to complete more reps with worse and worse form. Typically, this makes the exercise both more dangerous and less effective. For that reason, I think of the 3 types of failure identified above, failure to maintain form is the only one of the three that a person shouldn’t ever intentionally push beyond.

However, if the person is able to take an exercise to the point of being unable to complete another rep without their technique breaking down then, with the exception of a few exercises (for example, barbell presses for chest), most exercises can be failed on in a relatively safe manner. Almost all resistance machines are built in a way that you can safely fail to complete a rep on, dumbbells can be dropped safely on almost all exercises and squat racks, leg presses and hack squat machines all have adjustable safety pins. You can easily look through your training program and begin to pick out which exercises for each muscle group would be most suitable to take to failure and make use of that as you progressively increase training efforts throughout a training block.

In terms of the recovery demands of training to failure this varies massively based on the muscle that is being trained and the exercise that is being done, a variable that is seemingly often ignored. This is where the arguments against ever training to failure lose a lot of their merit in my opinion. It seems common sense to me that taking a set of biceps to failure would have a lesser impact on recovery than taking a set of quadriceps to failure due to the sheer size difference of the muscles. Furthermore, taking a set of leg extensions to failure has a lesser impact than taking a set of squats to failure due to the difference in load used and the amount of systemic fatigue created by things like axial loading. The fact that the squat works multiple muscles at once is also a big contributor to the amount of overall fatigue that is created compared to single joint exercises. With that in mind, then, whether training to failure is something a person can recover from or not isn’t really a question that be answered without delving into the entirety of a person’s training plan and looking at which exercises are being taken to the different forms of failure. In my experience you can assume that when recovery capabilities are reasonably high, for example, while in a calorie surplus, while using performance enhancing drugs and/or while overall training volume is low, that some amount of training to failure can fit within most peoples’ recovery capabilities.

Training to failure in each of the different forms we have discussed does carry inherent benefits. Firstly, in simplified terms, the higher the effort applied to the set that is done, the greater the potential for stimulating muscle repair and growth.  While some of the results from studies that have been done lead to the claim that the stimulus from taking a set to failure is too excessive, it is clear to see in real world application that this cannot be the case all the time. There are countless examples of bodybuilders who intentionally take multiple sets to failure and sometimes beyond and appear to be getting great results from doing so. There are entire training ideologies and routines built around the idea of taking sets to some form of failure and beyond and have a large number of fans and followers who tout the benefits of doing so.

Secondly, the training ideologies on the opposite end of the spectrum which prescribe staying a certain number of reps away from failure (often known as “reps in reserve”) need a reference point to allow someone to make that judgement. If a person hasn’t recently taken a set of the exercise in question to some form of failure, the validity of their judgement of how close failure was is questionable. Over time your perception of how close failure is will become less accurate if you rarely or never take sets to the point of some form of failure. This is because there are many factors which contribute to how many reps can be struggled through before failure is reached, and which type of failure is reached first. Fitness levels, relative strength of supporting muscles, nutritional factors and exercise order within the workout are all factors which can change the number of reps a person can “grind out” before failing. Sometimes you might find you can keep pushing more reps out without form breaking down, and with rep speed slowing down just slightly with each additional rep. Other times you may find that you fail a rep seemingly out of nowhere, with the rep performed before failing being a smooth and fast rep. Even training with a prescribed number of reps in reserve then needs some sets to be taken to failure periodically to be maximally effective.

In summary I don’t believe failing reps (via any of the 3 definitions of failure) should be demonised or perennially avoided. I think sets taken to failure should be progressively added more throughout a specific training block if hypertrophy is the goal, and then should be deducted if recovery demands appear unable to keep up. I think in time a person can get a general grasp on how many sets they seem to be able to take to failure and reap the benefits, and this will usually depend mostly on their total training volume and if they are in a calorie surplus or not. I also think training to failure at times allows a person to develop their ability to actually train hard, and often people are surprised at how many reps they can actually do before failing.

To put this all into practice a good place to start may be the following:

·       Any time your technique excessively breaks down during an exercise then for the sake of safety the set should be ended at that point. Besides, the reason you begin the set with accurate and safe technique is because that is the best way to perform the exercise, so why continue to do worse quality reps that give you a lesser return on your efforts?

·       Next, for your weaker body parts, or less growth responsive muscle groups, stop your sets when you fail to feel the target muscle doing the work. Often when people have lagging muscle groups this is because they find it hard to put adequate tension through that muscle when training it, so these muscles may benefit from doing more sets, but only taken to the point where that tension begins to get lost.

·       For single joint exercises (particularly ones that don’t put a lot of tension on the muscle in a stretched position), you can take sets to the point of failing to complete another rep only as often as your recovery will allow. If you increase the number of sets taken to that point and find that the next time you come to train that muscle it is weaker and gets less pumped, then that could be a sign that it hasn’t adequately recovered from the previous session yet.

·       For compound exercises you may want to take some sets to failure if your recovery capabilities allow it. This could be a way to reduce the amount of working sets you need to do for that muscle group or could be a way to standardise the intensity of your efforts week to week and ensure you are always working as hard as possible. However, something to be mindful of is if you find going to failure on larger multi joint exercises causes a big drop off in strength for the rest of your training session, then you need to decide which takes priority – the effort put into that single compound exercise, or the overall amount of work that can be done across the workout.

Hopefully this provides a bit of a condensed summary of the main variables you should consider when deciding how far to push working sets on different exercises during a workout. As always, allow your performance and progression week to week to be an acute measurement of recovery; if one single muscle group or workout is suffering performance wise, while the others are all progressing then that muscle or workout may be exceeding your recovery demands. If generally your gym performance is getting better in some capacity week to week, then you can usually assume you’re recovering from your workouts.