Failure Optimal for Hypertrophy

Well, I tried DB Romanian Deadlift and also Bodyweight Rear Foot Elevated Lunges - IT DIDN’T REALLY WORK…

You (I) hit movement failure before contractile failure. If you are a bit unaware of the difference I think particular a rear foot elevated lunge is a good exercises to see the difference.

When aiming for complete failure in this exercise you can see how easy it is to slightly shift tension back and forth between quads and posterior chain. When you almost hit failure on quads you slightly lean back and push your hips through instead. In the end it becomes a movement failure and not contractile failure. Some exercises lend themselves more obviously to see the difference.
It is exactly as CT described in his article.

On a slightly different note: It takes a different mindset and motivation to push through to complete failure. It’s quite a different mental exercise than doing a heavy squat or getting up early in the morning to go train. It’s a different but still same sort of self-discipline. Being skilled at one aspects definitely helps the others aspects.

Coach,
Is this the method that you are using to achieve the 3 sets to failure described in the article.

Ex. 1 activation set of say 8-12 reps to failure, then 2 subsequent sets of say 3 reps each to failure in typical rest-pause fashion?

Thank you

  1. I’m not necessarily doing 3 sets to failure. That was merely reporting the results from the study. I am actually only doin 1 or 2 sets to failure per exercise. But I’m doing multiple exercises per muscle group.

  2. I’m not doing a “set” before my rest/pause sets. I only do a few reps with one or two weights and only to “feel” which is going to be the best training weight that day

Thank you for your response.

So Christian, for example the mechanical drop sets to failure you got us doing years ago in 2008 ( Jack Up Your Arms With Mechanical Drop Sets ) are an extremely good option for hypertrophy gains considering this article?

Christian, what are your thoughts on doing a continuous ramp on the CNS days such as military press continuing into bench press (and keeping the total sets roughly the same).

Or Front squat continuing into back-squats.

Sure. But the ramps should not be maximal. Shoot for something like and 8 or 8.5 on the RPE scale (having 2 more hard reps in the tank).

CT, do you do your muscle/hypertrophy work for a given muscle/muscles the day after you have worked them in a CNS workout or do you put a day or two between?
thanks, George

Understand that I train in a way specific to my goal which is to gain muscle but also to improve my Olympic lifts. So I don’t use a body part split on my CNS days. I have 2 types of CNS days: Olympic lifting in which I train the snatch and clean & jerk and Strength days in which I train big basic lifts to get stronger overall.

Both types involve the whole body to some extent. So regardless of what hypertrophy work I so it will always hit something I trained the day before.

My order is strength day / hypertrophy / Olympic lift… that is a 3 days block and after that I repeat it. Sometimes with different exercises sometimes with the same ones. On my hypertrophy days I only the muscles I feel need more focus on because they are not fully stimulated by the other sessions.

Thankyou Sir, I understand. I just remember that with double stimulation you did pump work the day after heavy work. I understand that failure/hypertrophy training is different that pump work but was just wondering if you had formed an opinion on how to formulate an “every other day” CNS - hypertrophy program. Still I understand what you are saying regarding yourself.
Thanks CT for all you give for all of us.
George

Curious how others have been doing with this. I am enjoying the heck out of it. Toying to find the right exercises to used for the failure parts. I just don’t know if it matters. I switched to a double stim approach because it fits my schedule better.
I am using on the heavy days a 8ish on the perceived level of intensity.
My finding has been, contrary to what I would have thought, that on the days I am using a lighter load to failure, I am wickedly hungry after, and it is very tiring. Feels good though.

What’s your opinion on non-failure training ? On the big movements you don’t want failure because of stress on the body, but what’s when you don’t go to failure on isolation exercises? I remember watching a video with Charles Glass, where he says he never trains to failure, because he can’t go heavier any more, and cant do much work later. Of course that’s a bit out of context and I don’t know how he trains his clients, but still ?

No going to failure will work, it is a different type of stimulus. You will have to do more volume for it o be effective and focus more on concentric acceleration. This will allow you to recruit more fast-twitch fibers and the volume should lead to enough FT work to promote hypertrophy.

It is my opinion that the more fast-twitch dominant you are the less you should rely on failure, even on isolation work. The more slow-twitch dominant you are the more you will need failure to build muscle.

After years of doing high performance style training it is almost awkward to use a more moderate weight and “rep out to failure”.

I’m still not used to going into gym and starting my workout doing this (vs. potentiation, explosive, lower rep stuff). It is like you said psychology/maybe physiological and given muscle growth is pretty slow to begin with, optimal might just be what you enjoy the most vs. what you hate yet speculate will produce more “gains”

Your refeatured NC article got me thinking about this and can’t remember a more exciting/productive time for me than when I was doing this kind of stuff. Dying to go to gym every day, felt explosive, muscles “full” and ready to pop. Vs. more drained recently…failure might or might not be contributor to that

I believe that going to failure has a cost. Neurologically I believe that it is very demanding. It is undoubtably effective to promote hypertrophy but one has to question if FOR HIM going to failure is the right approach. Some people will be more sensitive to the negative effects of going to failure (the more fast-twitch dominant you are the more sensitive you will be) and that might exceed the benefits.

Christian, I find joint issues popping up ever since I have been applying the new concepts for about a month or so. I find them to be much less taxing, but also find I have to be very “in the zone” to take the muscle properly to contractile failure. It requires some concentration. Another challenge is finding the right exercises for me.

I find it weird that backing off volume and intensity creates “joint issues” for me. My shoulder has always bugged me now and then, but now it feels really unstable and sore around the rotator cuff etc.
At the same time my knee has been bugging me (probably from leg extensions), as has my one hamstring (probably from leg curls).

CT I’m also using this training type to give my body a break after Layers, and definitely I’d felt the little draining effect of going to failure but not so much maybe because I’m utilizing your tip to keep myself relaxed neck upwards while going to failure, and using only 1-2 sets/excercise.
I want to do this type of training for 3-4 weeks, followed by your bodybuilding layout, and then layers once more. Should I go non failure and more volume, or keep going like this? My goal is to get stronger in general, and look good while doing so:smile: Btw, I’m enjoying this different type of stimulus.
The split I’m using is
Heavy Day (7-8 RPE)
Push
Pull
Heavy (7-8 RPE)
Legs

And reason why I want to alternate layers=>Failure training=>bodybuilding layout=>layers, is to use somewhat of the alternating intensification - accumulation blocks, you know, to use the strength I gained on layers to build more muscle and to use the muscle I build on bodybuilding type training to build more strength on layers. Please feel free to critique my outlook.

Norcient, I also get problematic knees from leg extensions. So what I do is to use leg press for high reps (1-2 sets in drop set fashion), followed by leg extensions for 10-15 reps (1 set to failure). It’s been really kind to my knees.
What are your exercise choices for upper body? IME, when I go too long disregarding 1:1 push-pull ratio, exercises like Dumbell Fly’s and Lateral Raises start bugging my shoulders.

Jasper41, I do think that the leg press is more kind to knees (just don’t have access to one at the moment - used to). I also think it builds my legs better tbh. I also tried to do the leg-extensions with a lot less weight and much higher reps, which seemed to ameliorate the issue slightly.
But extensions are not something I can have have as a stable.

Regarding exercise choice for upper body, I have been toying around with that a bit. Both “back and front”, so it is still hard to say. I can say though that I find it harder to “isolate” and go to “contractile failure” in back/pulling exercises than in chest/tri/bi/anterior delt exercises.
I would say that my push:pull ratio favours the pulling.
Examples of exercises are chest flyes, dumbbell press (where you squeeze DB together), bottom range motion pushups on handle bars - scott raises, lateral raises w slight lean, DB arnold press, and pulldowns, lighter DB-row with angled torso, cable rows, face pull-type movements, one armed pull-down, motor-cycle rows.
Some worked better than others for me.

For compound exercises the regular ones like squat/front squat, deadlift variations(romanian, sumo), OH press variations and BP press variations.

Having enough volume with compound movements overhead seems to help my shoulders too.

I understand what you mean by hard to explain the exercise selection. I struggled a fair bit too to find the right exercise choices, to give an example, right now what I found to work my pecs a good deal is not one exercise but a combination of three exercises. I start with squeeze press after reaching failure I continue it into fly’s and then presses with the same dumbells. It is a kind of mechanical advantage set for pecs and works my chest good.
But by push:pull ratio, I actually meant to consider the horizontal pulls to push which you have been doing for quite some time. For me what helped alleviate my shoulder issues was to utilize the pull-aparts in between sets and to slack off upon the lat work, mostly vertical pulling while prioritizing all types of rows and face-pulls. It also helped my elbows somehow.