With the benefit of hindsight, and without prejudice to any HIT practitioner or HIT guru…… It seems to me that, within the HIT community, the messaging around “training to failure” and “producing deep inroad” has always been a little fuzzy. Or maybe it is just that you can’t boil training methods down to simple slogans.
In any case, the standard Darden/Jones training protocol (2/4 cadence for 8 to 12 reps) resulted in failure with inroad on the order of 25%. They were not suggesting that you take a 1 RM weight and fail on the second rep, because that would not have produced deep enough levels of fatigue or inroad. Likewise, at least initially, they would not suggest doing endless drop sets or strip sets to produce extemely deep inroad, at least not originally. That came later with the introduction of “advanced techniques”.
There was always some uncertainly about just what failure meant: concentric failure, isometric failure, eccentric failure? I remember discussions about failure at a sticking point vs “true failure” vs the onset of form breakdown.
My current view is that this vagueness exists because neither inroad or failure are actually triggers for anything. They are side effects of what really causes muscle growth: you recruit and subject muscle fibers to high levels of tension, under conditions which overload the current capabilities of those fibers. The fibers then adapt to the extent that biology and genetics will allow. There are lots of ways to accomplish this.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that going to failure was the only way to measure 100% effort as 90%, 95% or 98% cannot be measured?
For someone that’s been lifting for more than a few months you can easily pick up on this. Do some failure training as well and you learn when you’ll only have 1-2 reps left in the tank before failure to end a set. It’s a matter of experience in the weight room.
It’s interesting you brought this up. For the past month or so I have started adding percentage notes on my subjective feeling of capacity/failure when finishing a set. All based on my ability for the day on the excercise in question, but nevertheless a great indicator on when it’s time to increase the load. I feel it’s easier to estimate percentage than remaining reps.
Why? It all started because I sometimes fail to go to failure on calves because of a tendency of cramps before I reach failure. This has helped me to estimate progress in terms of percentage. A great tool aside of the weight itself.
There’s a problem here, though. 100% effort on my best day might be deadlifts with 3 plates for 35 reps. But 100% effort on a day where I’m not quite feeling it might be 3 plates for 25 reps. So which number of reps is my “100% effort”? For the concept of 100%, it’s best to choose a number that you can hit on any day of the week, just walking into the gym. If I chose my absolute 100%, best-possible-condition lifts, and tried to go into the gym to hit 98% of them, there’s a damn good chance I wouldn’t come close many days.
That’s where training maxes come in - 5/3/1 uses a training max for the exact purpose of avoiding failure and guaranteeing progression. Choose a weight that you can always hit for 5 clean reps, on any day, and make that your training max. Then, operate off of percentages of that TRAINING MAX, not your absolute max. That way, you know exactly what the numbers are, you know that you can always hit those numbers, and you know that nothing in the program will put you to absolute failure.
Due to Arthur Jones revelations about S & G responders, HiT aficionados were. repulsed by isometrics of any kind at one time period Sisco was read by even Hutchins, as Little was Sisco’s 1st partner. Hutchins promoted dynamic SuperSlow in the beginning. Baye kisses whoever trousers that are in vogue at the moment. Do you remember Trentine and RenEx, and before that the motorized resistance machines. His latest, use a range of motion in the isometric hip belt squat where then hips can be tucked under. Hummmm! Sounds like deja vu, as this reads like the strong range position Sisco and Little promoted.
So does 100% effort correspond to concentric, isometric, or eccentric failure? What about the advice to stop when you can’t maintain good form - is that also 100% effort? What about something like motorized resistance, where you can get very deep inroad but never reach movement failure? That seems more intense than stopping at failure with a fixed weight, so greater than 100%?
Again just pointing out that while going to failure sounds simple, the devil is in the details.
We’ve had this what is failure discussion over and over again on here, long yawn!!!’ True failure is probably the point where you come close to ripping the muscle away from the bone. It seems Darden is moving away from the need to go to failure so why so much discussion on it again?
Scott
I do like to read what these guys have to say but I also realize they are mostly feeding off the words of someone before them. It’s easy to come along and second guess someone one trying to innovate something ,much more difficult to actually innovate something yourself.
Scott
Probably because what he’s describing right now is nowhere close to that level of failure, and is a complete 180 degree reversal of a core part of HIT, while still being labeled extreme HIT.
I’m not exacty an HIT practitioner, but this is big news, and given that people discuss Arthur Jones, Casey Viator, Nautilus machines, and a few other things pretty much 24/7 in here, and the same things were discussed for decades on the other site, I’m surprised people aren’t talking about it more.
The wikipedia article for High-intensity training’s first two sentences are “High-intensity training (HIT) is a form of strength training popularized in the 1970s by Arthur Jones, the founder of Nautilus. The training focuses on performing quality weight training repetitions to the point of momentary muscular failure.”
I’m not saying Dr. Darden is wrong, of course - I’m just saying it seems to me to be the biggest news out of these circles in my lifetime.
I quit going to failure years ago and used to talk about it on the old forum. The results are just as good, or maybe better, simply because it preserves a lot more recovery…and some volume and frequency is important. I train at a good effort though. Maybe 8 out of 10 level with multiple sets. I might even come close to full fatigue on the last set sometimes, but failure is not something I have as a goal.
I do think many fool themselves as “progression” squeezing out the last rep going to failure. Neurological improvements, form compormises, etc. can trick people into think they are gaining muscle. This was one of the big flaws with consolidation training. “I got stronger, but lost muscle.” Yes, you may have lost muscle but didn’t really get stronger. You got an extra rep by cheating, a little body english, or more simply more motor learning efficency.
Most of the time, I use 30-10-30, or a variation of it (10-30, 30-10, and chins and dips negative only). But sometimes, I also apply “going to failure” in a workout, just as I’ve used it for 50 years. Remember also, in several of my books, I recommended not going to failure in certain workouts.
To understand completely the 30-10-30 concept, you need to read the ebook: “Extreme HIT, 30-10-30, Metabolic Challenges for Building Muscle.”
I respect your stance on this. Almost all other HIT advocates are or have been very rigid, ‘Extreme’, and dogmatic around the concept - anything other than scientific.
