These days, going to failure is made popular by many bodybuilders, such as Sam Sulek, Dorian Yates, Markus Rühl, Tom Platz, and so on. But why is this training style getting so much traction lately?
Today’s article will help us understand going to failure and how we can apply it to our workouts.
What is going on until failure?
Working out until failure is when you have hit your limits and can’t perform a rep with good form or even a rep with sloppy form.
A good example of going until failure is Tom Platz training his legs. He is a great example because he was one of the few who was so passionate about going until muscle failure.
Is training until failure optimal for muscle growth?
Training for failure is optimal if done correctly, meaning if you want to do failure training correctly, you must do failure reps, not failure exercises. When performing a failure set, you go beyond your RIR (the maximum of the RIR is 0 and the minimum is 10).
And who says that you should not go until failure hits your sets?
By going until failure, you will see your limits and can more accurately assess if you should or shouldn’t push yourself. But always remember when doing failure reps not to get injured, meaning if your form starts to get really sloppy, you should stop.
What exercises are best for failure sets?
By now, you know that going until muscle failure on compound exercises is dangerous not only for you but for the spotters too.
So when performing failure sets with compound exercises, I strongly suggest using a lighter weight that you can handle with perfect form and not doing any extra sets if you cannot complete the set with perfect form.
Now, with that away, we can focus on exercises that can yield us perfect results when going until failure or beyond failure.
Machine work is the best for this type of exercise style. With machine work, even if you get sloppy, the chances of you getting injured are low, so keep in mind that going past your limits is a viable option. Going past your limits can be achieved by having a spotter or by doing drop sets.
How many sets should there be until failure?
There isn’t a set number of sets you should go until failure, but I suggest you try to go as close as you can until failure if you are a beginner, and if you are an intermediate, you should probably try going until failure for every set. For advanced individuals, it is mandatory that they go until failure and even beyond failure.
So if you are a beginner and you are doing 10 sets per muscle group per session, you should hit 5 or 6 until failure or as close as you can.
For intermediate individuals, if you are doing 10 sets per muscle group per session, you should be hitting 10 sets until failure or even 1 or 2 beyond failure.
And for the advanced folks, they already know they need to hit every set beyond failure.