Go to Failure or Leave Reps in the Tank?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
21

here’s my take.

I don’t train to failure on my Max Effort work. I find that going to failure with loads around 90% take too much out of me and take too long to recover from. I always leave at least one rep in the tank. I like to keep my reps fairly fast. I’m a big fan of going to failure on accessory or supplemental work where the loads are moderate and the reps are high. high rep work to failure doesn’t tax my CNS much. I like the pump i get from high rep work to failure. I feel that it actually helps me recover faster from my Max Effort work.

When one talks about going to failure or stopping short of failure, the loads should be the determining factor,IMO. There’s a big difference between going to failure on a set of 20 concentration curls and going to failure on a set of 3 full squats with a load around 90% of your max. you may get some DOMS from the lateral raises that is easily cured with some vagisil. Going to failure on that squat will leave you in a state of uselessness for a long time. I know when i overestimate on an attempt and do go to failure on a big lift, i’m pretty much done with the heavy lifting for that day. But if i follow that up with some high rep work that is taken to failure, I get the blood in there and it seems to help me recover.

or… i could just be a big ol’ pussy.

22

[quote]maraudermeat wrote:
here’s my take.

I don’t train to failure on my Max Effort work. I find that going to failure with loads around 90% take too much out of me and take too long to recover from. I always leave at least one rep in the tank. I like to keep my reps fairly fast. I’m a big fan of going to failure on accessory or supplemental work where the loads are moderate and the reps are high. high rep work to failure doesn’t tax my CNS much. I like the pump i get from high rep work to failure. I feel that it actually helps me recover faster from my Max Effort work.

When one talks about going to failure or stopping short of failure, the loads should be the determining factor,IMO. There’s a big difference between going to failure on a set of 20 concentration curls and going to failure on a set of 3 full squats with a load around 90% of your max. you may get some DOMS from the lateral raises that is easily cured with some vagisil. Going to failure on that squat will leave you in a state of uselessness for a long time. I know when i overestimate on an attempt and do go to failure on a big lift, i’m pretty much done with the heavy lifting for that day. But if i follow that up with some high rep work that is taken to failure, I get the blood in there and it seems to help me recover.

or… i could just be a big ol’ pussy. [/quote]

I think I see my problem. I don’t do concentration curls. Do you keep vagisil in your bag for those sets?

I feel like a brought the house down on my head, drawing all this attention from the big guys.

23

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
maraudermeat wrote:
here’s my take.

I don’t train to failure on my Max Effort work. I find that going to failure with loads around 90% take too much out of me and take too long to recover from. I always leave at least one rep in the tank. I like to keep my reps fairly fast. I’m a big fan of going to failure on accessory or supplemental work where the loads are moderate and the reps are high. high rep work to failure doesn’t tax my CNS much. I like the pump i get from high rep work to failure. I feel that it actually helps me recover faster from my Max Effort work.

When one talks about going to failure or stopping short of failure, the loads should be the determining factor,IMO. There’s a big difference between going to failure on a set of 20 concentration curls and going to failure on a set of 3 full squats with a load around 90% of your max. you may get some DOMS from the lateral raises that is easily cured with some vagisil. Going to failure on that squat will leave you in a state of uselessness for a long time. I know when i overestimate on an attempt and do go to failure on a big lift, i’m pretty much done with the heavy lifting for that day. But if i follow that up with some high rep work that is taken to failure, I get the blood in there and it seems to help me recover.

or… i could just be a big ol’ pussy.

I think I see my problem. I don’t do concentration curls. Do you keep vagisil in your bag for those sets?

I feel like a brought the house down on my head, drawing all this attention from the big guys.[/quote]

for the concentration curls i soak in a bath of berries and cream douche.

24

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Hm. We haven’t had that debate in a while…

Depends on your routine etc. Can’t be answered just like that.

and the person.

DoubleDuce wrote:
Total reps are important[/quote] I originally wanted to comment mostly on that point, but of course I can’t hold a bloody thought while simultaneously eating a slice of pizza and then that post happened lol
FWIW I realized you weren’t saying non-failure is the only way to go, I just went off on a tangent addressed to no one in particular… At least the OP may have gotten something out of that :)[quote], I think maybe more so than set/rep schemes, and failure sets generally lower the volume of a workout and greatly increase time needed for recovery. So not only can I do more reps in a workout I can train muscle groups more frequently.

We could pit DC (or even, once again pX and co, whose reps are all over the place as they go from 1-2 reps at a certain weight to 8-12 eventually) against your theories here and then what? Both ways obviously work… I may not be doing 30 reps with my 3RM or whatever that would be impressive[/quote] There are weirdos out there trying to do just that… [quote] on the deadlift there, but those 1-2 failure sets I am doing allow for a crazy increase in size and strength in a fairly short period of time (in combination with all the other factors involved)…

I agree and one thing my workouts aren’t is short.

You can train to failure, beyond failure, or stop short of failure… All of those styles can be made to work pretty much as well as can be. But all have their individual downsides (general/“CNS” fatigue accumulation vs. joint/tendon degradation and so on).
Just pick one you have the most affinity for/what doesn’t clash too much with your other activities is what I’d say…

exactly

Volume frequency and intesity are all inversely proportional. here you are trading volume for frequency and intensity, which I agree, it can work. My point is not to say that it doesn’t. just that high intensity isn’t the only way to grow, and I don’t prefer it. I tend to accumulate joint problems and injuries when I do. [/quote] Weird, I’m the opposite way. If I go high-load, high volume/high frequency (via staying shy of failure), I run into trouble with my joints and tendons (though I’ve never actually gotten seriously injured as such) and all the wrong muscles tend to take over etc… When doing high “intensity” failure and beyond stuff, the only way for me to get injured is shitty technique/setup and bad exercise selection (traditional skullcrushers/nosebreakers and such, obviously).

[quote]

… All comes down to how you organize your training, what your diet and sleep patterns are like… I’ve trained every bodypart 3 times a week while going to failure on multiple sets per exercise on a 2-way split no wonder you stick to a low number of exercises. hah[/quote] Actually, I generally tend to do that… Even on a lower overall frequency. DC 2-way over 3 days a week pretty much requires 5 main exercises per day, and that wasn’t fun for me… 3-4 is what I usually do on a 1/week/bodypart routine (perhaps training some bodypart or exercise 2-3 times a week to emphasize it/speed up progression)… 2 exercises per session would be my preference, if I could get away with it :slight_smile:
FWIW, this may be due to years of DC training and teaching myself how to get everything out of a work set. Or perhaps I just can’t tolerate any great amounts of volume…[quote]. (usually 1 exercise per bodypart trained in that session)… Full 6 days on. Great strength gains… So has Modok (for a much longer period of time compared to me, heck, he got most of his size from that) and so has DH. Check the Big Beyond Belief thread…
If I were to do that again, I’d drop working sets down to 1 per exercise and change the split somewhat (still a 2-way, but with more rest for the shoulders and a bit more back work perhaps).

Here’s a bit of an odd discovery I made about my own training:
If I train bodyparts at a low frequency (once a week, or once every 5 days or whatever), then doing, say, 4x8 or so doesn’t do shit. It just doesn’t allow me to get strong fast enough.
A single top set, or two at different rep ranges or so work much better for me in that case.
They still work well when I go high frequency (2-3 times a week per bodypart), but in that case, 4x8 also suddenly works (though I don’t like it much). Weird, goes kind of against the whole “the more frequently you train, the less volume you can do per session” thing (in a sets per exercise kind of way, I mean, and I’m excluding multiple low-rep sets completely here as those work in both cases… I’m just not too fond of them unless they’re ramped).

This makes me question all your advice, as you are obviously a freak of nature. HAHA![/quote] ← I wish I were… Why is Vic Richards not my father? That selfish asshole! :slight_smile:

Anyway, my point (I tend to suck at making those, huh I? There I go, writing a paragraph to lead up to my point and then promptly forget to mention said point…) was that it seems as if the frequency with which the exercise is trained may be the overriding principle here in terms of strength gain speed, and that, as long as you don’t train like a pussy or do 50 sets, set/rep scheme pretty much doesn’t matter (for the strength gain aspect, at least. Of course I would die if I had to do 4 sets of 20 on the squat, or any exercise for that matter… And doing deadlifts 3 times a week with any really intense/heavy set/rep scheme is impossible for me, but due to injury potential/low back recovery rather than actual strength issues…)

25

Umm I’m way too lazy to read all this long dialogue.

Going to failure = WIN.

That is all.

26

Depends on how often I’m hitting a muscle group, directly and indirectly.

27

Has anyone read “Better than Steriods” by Warren Whiley. He talks about how progressive overload training has a big disadvantage and thats diminishing returns. He states that eventually you’ll start to plateu and will not make much further progress, and will potentially injure yourself if you continue to try to overload.

He then offers different methods of progression or intensification like: Giant sets, super sets, forced reps, stalled reps, eccentrics, twenty-ones, times sets, partial reps, pre-exhaustion, post-exhaustion, pyramiding, clustesr, etc.

I dont doubt that Progressive overload training has limitations, and that diminishing returns is a factor, but will most people actually even reach a point where their plateu is based on their potential and not based on poor training, recovery or nutrition? Im just wondering if these methods of intensification are the key when POT starts to stall, or whether this just signals that its time to change things up.

28

[quote]dankid wrote:
Has anyone read “Better than Steriods” by Warren Whiley. He talks about how progressive overload training has a big disadvantage and thats diminishing returns. He states that eventually you’ll start to plateu and will not make much further progress, and will potentially injure yourself if you continue to try to overload.

He then offers different methods of progression or intensification like: Giant sets, super sets, forced reps, stalled reps, eccentrics, twenty-ones, times sets, partial reps, pre-exhaustion, post-exhaustion, pyramiding, clustesr, etc.

I dont doubt that Progressive overload training has limitations, and that diminishing returns is a factor, but will most people actually even reach a point where their plateu is based on their potential and not based on poor training, recovery or nutrition? Im just wondering if these methods of intensification are the key when POT starts to stall, or whether this just signals that its time to change things up.[/quote]

I am curious about this too. I think Scott Abel talks about something similiar.

29

[quote]dankid wrote:
Has anyone read “Better than Steriods” by Warren Whiley. He talks about how progressive overload training has a big disadvantage and thats diminishing returns. He states that eventually you’ll start to plateu and will not make much further progress, and will potentially injure yourself if you continue to try to overload.

He then offers different methods of progression or intensification like: Giant sets, super sets, forced reps, stalled reps, eccentrics, twenty-ones, times sets, partial reps, pre-exhaustion, post-exhaustion, pyramiding, clustesr, etc.

I dont doubt that Progressive overload training has limitations, and that diminishing returns is a factor, but will most people actually even reach a point where their plateu is based on their potential and not based on poor training, recovery or nutrition? Im just wondering if these methods of intensification are the key when POT starts to stall, or whether this just signals that its time to change things up.[/quote]

Haven’t read the book, so can’t comment on it directly.

As far as the theory goes though, maybe it has some thread of truth to it at some point. But, by the time that someone actually reaches a point where continuing to focus on progressive overload would be dangerous they’d already be a very large individual.

His theory that the body “adapts” to progressive overload training is a load of crap though IMO. Tell that to Ronnie, Johnnie Jackson, Dave Henry, Bill Kazmaier, Dave Tate, Matt Kroc, basically any really big, strong dude. Getting progressively stronger combined with proper rest and nutrition is THE most time tested and proven method to get to be a heavily muscled individual.

All of those other methods have their usefulness and place, but aren’t foundational elements.

I see lots of 150 lbs kids doing 21’s, super sets, forced reps, and the like all the time. I never see any of them benching 315+ for reps (let alone actual reps and not ego benching). I have only ever seen muscular individuals do that. Draw your own conclusions.

30

[quote]GluteusGigantis wrote:

Izquierdo, Mikel, et al Differential effects of strength training leading
to failure versus not to failure on hormonal responses, strength, and
muscle power gains. J Appl Physiol 100: 1647-1656, 2006.

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of 11 wk of
resistance training to failure vs. nonfailure, followed by an identical
5-wk peaking period of maximal strength and power training for both
groups as well as to examine the underlying physiological changes in
basal circulating anabolic and catabolic hormones. Forty-two physically
active men were matched and then randomly assigned to either
a training to failure (RF), nonfailure (NRF), or
control groups (C).

Both RF and NRF resulted in similar gains in 1-repetition maximum bench press
(23 and 23%) and parallel squat (22 and 23%), muscle power output
of the arm (27 and 28%) and leg extensor muscles (26 and 29%), and
maximal number of repetitions performed during parallel squat (66
and 69%).

RF group experienced larger gains in the maximal number
of repetitions performed during the bench press. The peaking phase
(T2 to T3) after NRF resulted in larger gains in muscle power output
of the lower extremities, whereas after RF it resulted in larger gains in
the maximal number of repetitions performed during the bench press.

Strength training leading to RF resulted in reductions in resting
concentrations of IGF-1 and elevations in IGFBP-3, whereas NRF
resulted in reduced resting cortisol concentrations and an elevation in
resting serum total testosterone concentration.

This investigation demonstrated a potential beneficial stimulus of NRF for improving
strength and power, especially during the subsequent peaking training
period, whereas performing sets to failure resulted in greater gains in
local muscular endurance. Elevation in IGFBP-3 after resistance
training may have been compensatory to accommodate the reduction
in IGF-1 to preserve IGF availability.

SO

They didn’t really show shit all for the difference. Total volumes were matched between the groups, and the hormonal differences don’t mean dick.

IMO, since the results show an improved training volume in the RF group in their common rebound period, that’s what I think they proved works best.[/quote]

Well, only for upper body. They say they found the reverse for lower body.

And in practice I wouldn’t want to match volume.

For example – not week in, week out, month in, month out, but in a given specialization period – I and many others can do a given exercise 6x6 at 70% on Monday, 7x5 at 75% on Wednesday, 8x4 at 80% on Friday, and 10x3 at 85% on Saturday. Not to failure. (No attempt fails.) Productively.

Who can do that volume when training to failure? Not the same person usually, anyway.

Coming to a conclusion that training to failure is superior based on the above study is like saying “If imposing the limitations of System A onto System B, then in the one particular comparison looked at B doesn’t work any better than A: accordingly, I conclude that System A is better.”

That doesn’t follow.

31

Im a big fan of Dorian Yates training theory of warming up with a couple and then doing one or two sets untill failure and a little beyond. so failure ftw!

32

DoubleDuce,

Do you find the 8 x 3 as helpful as 1 x 10 for strength. I tend to get burnt out quickly by going to failure and am wondering if instead I should hit more sets at lower intensity.

33

Wow, that’s a thread resurrection.

Yes, I prefer the lower rep non-failure training for strength. There are a number of programs out there that use that style. I love either version of the old HP mass program by CT. Shieko is another one specifically geared for powerlifting. The DR squat 80 day powerlifting cycle is awesome. Smolov for squatting (there is also the hatch squat cycle, but I’ve never personally done that one). High frequency, good volume, lower intensity on individual sets. Just don’t think go into it thinking low set intensity makes it an easy program. Some of the more advanced Shieko, or smolov, or the DR Squat programs are brutal.

1 Like
34

Lower volume, higher frequency has worked well for me and I’ve been at this 20 years (I’m 38). Full body 3-4 times a week. 1-3 sets per exercise, 1-3 exercises per bodypart. Most exercises taken to a to the point where I don’t think I’ll get the next reps. Some R/P, some strength based circuits.