I fundamentally disagree (mother of all auto-corrects) with this statement. Mechanical Tension is the primary driver of growth. Volume with mechanical tension is helpful to an extent, but if you’re already training to failure, and can hit another 10 sets of anything - you’re not training to failure.
Which is why rep-ranges exist. 8-12-8 method is a Paul Carter special that most bros inherently run by default. Dante Trudel has Rest Pause from 11-15, 15-20, and 20-30. These are all pretty effective ranges when applied to the correct bodypart/lift.
When you are unable to progress from one week to the next, you swap that exercise out.
We’ve said it in abundance that olympia winners/contenders shouldn’t be used as examples. It’s probably not the training, it’s the 20iu HGH, Lantus, and 10+ grams of gear that’s doing it. They could go to the gym over Zoom and still get big.
Agree here. My last two big bench PRs came after doing lots of sets of bench more so than training to failure. Although I would often do an AMRAP set last. Maybe it was the AMRAP sets, which I do believe in (especially for pressing).
FWIW, I have adopted more RIR style training lately. I had some frustrations with my progressions stalling out after a few weeks. Then I’d lower the weight, but I’d want to lower it enough that I could progress for at least 4 weeks with straight sets. Then I’d feel like the first two weeks were too easy and not that productive. RIR allows me to have a bit more consistent effort week to week. I don’t do it on everything, but I have been liking it on the exercises I’ve been using it on.
Training to failure can benefit absolutely everyone, and yeah, in many ways it could be superior… but for how long? These studies are never controlled or done long enough. It needs to be done appropriately. Even at lower volumes it can toast you. The risk of injury goes up too. Like you and Layne re-iterated, most people don’t actually know what failure training is - they think they do but in a lab, they’d have something left.
For most people it’s just not necessary, it could actually send many people backwards.
“The positive slope indicates that training closer to failure has less of an impact on muscle hypertrophy when training with heavy loads. Specifically, loads >77.5% of 1RM exhibited positive slopes but only loads >82.5% of 1RM did not contain a null point estimate within the confidence interval. All loads <75% of 1RM exhibited negative slopes and did not contain a null point estimate within the confidence interval. Therefore, training closer to failure is more beneficial for muscle hypertrophy with lighter rather than heavier loads.”
82.5% 1RM is pretty damn heavy, and the reps you’re hitting are probably just barely over 5, if even that many. Data supports that 6 reps is pretty much the floor for beneficial rep ranges (for hypertrophy), so if you’re barely touching - or not touching the ideal 6-12(maybe up to 20 reps, according to some), you’re probably not getting max benefit out of it.
I do agree with what you’re pointing towards here, I think %1RM applied is a pretty important note to take though.
80% of the time the strongest men in the world are going nowhere near failure. And I know this is a thread about hypertrophy, but strength and hypertrophy are so closely linked despite what the internet sometimes has us believe. For me, I’m the same as you though…I think it’s important to always take at least one close to failure. Whether that’s low volume or 3-4 sets across.
That’s cool man, and I like that attitude, genuinely I do. We’re talking about “most people” here though. I think you’re just getting a bit too married to a methodology.. which is fine by the way. There are so many variables that make training to failure not smart to do long-term for most people. To think it’s always the best way would be quite naive.
Loads of 82.5% are definitely going to be on the low end of the hypertrophy range. My takeaway was that if you’re getting close to this percent of 1RM the benefits of going to failure for hypertrophy start to diminish. Another section of the study talks about 80% being the cut point:
“The positive slope indicates that training closer to failure has less of an impact when training with heavy loads. Specifically, loads >77.5% of 1RM exhibited positive slopes but only loads >80% of 1RM did not contain a null point estimate within the confidence interval. All loads <77.5% of 1RM exhibited negative slopes and did not contain a null point estimate within the confidence interval. Therefore, training closer to failure is more beneficial for muscle hypertrophy with lighter rather than heavier loads.”
The first one I posted is in the section on “Standardized Mean Change” and the second is in the “Exponential Response Ratio”. Perhaps someone smarter than I am can explain what the difference in those sections means thought I don’t know that it matters much for practical application.
Oh, I wasn’t
I don’t advocate failure training for normies.
I attribute much of this to getting me to where I am now. I think an FFMI of 27 is firmly in the “advanced” category and I can speak for myself - alongside about 5 dozen other individuals whom are larger than myself who only made it this far by training to failure.
I cannot answer if this training method works for those in the “elite” category (FFMI >30) but I imagine the drugs they are taking have more of an effect than their training at this stage.
I made most of my progress natty. I’ve got pictures of it somewhere. (Diet x Method)^Years applied = Progress, IMO.
My natty TT was 329 and FT was 7.2. TRT was mostly a quality of life improvement but it obviously had an impact on performance, ability to retain muscle, recomping, muscle carried, etc.
It’s wonderful that you’ve made so much progress training this way. If you continue to adapt and feel stronger every workout then that’s awesome. Many people who switch to training to failure see super-fast gains. We know that growth happens when we adapt and if there comes a point that all we do is recover but not quite yet adapt, then there’s potential for it to actually slow down gains. For every person that’s made amazing progress training this way, there are as many who have stopped training to failure and had progress go through the roof.
There’s an element as well if you look at some of these bodybuilders that are advocates for failure training and how their bodies ended up into their older age. The guys that did the higher volume stuff tend to have had better longevity. I like to train intense, 0-1RIR from my own perception which may or not be accurate… actual to failure training as a regular thing though? Not a necessary potential trade-off for me even if the gains could maybe be a bit better. Occassionally though? Hell yeah.
I would say “If we’re gonna be overly literal, add a probably in there”. I’d actually guess more people have stopped failure training and seen better results than the other way round though, and felt much better day to day in the process. The way that works for the 99% is just fine. The fringe is the fringe for a reason. But that is not to say it doesn’t work.
My overarching point is, to simplify in a way that Dan John would: Everything works until it doesn’t.
I’ve been watching these “House of Hypertrophy” videos on Ewe-Tube.
They try to answer questions like Failure vs RIR or Low Frequency vs High frequency by summarizing a handful of research studies.
A bunch of times they’ve mentioned studies where dudes trained one side of their body one way, and the other side the opposite way. Like one leg does leg extensions to failure, and the other one keeps a few reps in the tank.
And every time one of these studies is used, 1/3 of the guys get better results one way, 1/3 get better results the opposite way and 1/3 of dudes get equal growth both ways.
3:03 for example
Maybe it’s worth experimenting to find if you’re a Sometimes failure guy, an Always failure guy or a Never failure guy.
This is a such an important point, at least when applied to people who know what true failure looks like. I struggle with this – I like training pretty darn close to failure and I feel my results are better but I wonder if my already beat up joints are going to really be screaming at me in 15 years.
