Hi everyone,
I was just reading one of Charles Staleys articles on training to failure where I saw this
“Regular failed attempts lead to a reduction in a lowering of the Golgi Tendon Organ (GTO) excitation threshold3. Successful lifts which are above what the body is used to will raise the excitation threshold of the Golgi Tendon Organ, while failed attempts tend to lower it. What this means in bodybuilding parlance is that the more often you miss a lift, the more likely it is that you’ll miss it again in the future.”
the problem i have with this is that the reference sited is “Personal communication”
I also remember that on this forum John Berardi said that that was not but he gave no real evidence or studies to back himself up.
Can anyone please help, I want to cover this in an assignment but can find no information
thanks
This is something generally thought to be true, but I don’t know if it’s ever been demonstrated in a scientific manner.
You could perhaps say something like, “While not clinically demonstrated, there is a general belief among those skilled in the art that… blah blah blah” and you could cite one of Fred Hatfield’s books where he says this (perhaps “Scientific Bodybuilding,” but I really don’t remember which) and perhaps something by Louie Simmons, who has also probably said it.
Bally…what exactly are looking to cover in your assignment, buddy? The entire mechanism that is the Golgi Tendon Organ, or this specific area? I’d like to lend some thoughts and help out, as I find Exercise Physiology completely astounding. Timbo
it does NOT happen so if you want to cover it I hope you are covering it from the right angle. peace
Hi and thanks for the replys
The assignment is on performance enhancement and im hoping to put a hypertrophy and strength spin on it. Im hoping to take a more T view than the normal trash that is handed in by students citing theories from 1905 without ever questioning anything or looking for anything more up to date.
Heytey Im not going to endorse or diss training to failure merely give uptodate thoughts by some experts.
Its supposed to help the person make up there own mind not dictate what is good and what is bad.
This is a very inexact predicate. There is no accounting for the psychological effect of making or missing a lift, and what is the time interval. Are you saying that at any point in your life making/missing a PR will hurt you in the future, or are you saying that at any point in your life completing a set to failure/not will have an effect? OR are you talking about warming up for a max lift attempt? If you are implying that failing at the end of a set causes you to be weaker that is just bullshit. Also, it looks pretty soft that missing a PR in 1999 will effect (besides psychologically) a lift in 2000. In terms of warming up ala powerlifters this is probably right (but is it psychological or some Glogi Tenden Organ?).
let me give you some reasons why this and the whole “failure teaches failure” crap is just that, CRAP! how does your body KNOW that you “failed”? what if I am avoiding lock outs on squats for example? does my body think the whole set is a set of failures? how does it know the difference between where I choose to stop the rep and when I “fail” to complete a rep because of real muscle fatigue? look at the pecs, think about what the FULL range of motion realy is, doesn’t EVERY exercise for the pecs stop short of what is possible? how does the body KNOW the range of motion (it would have to under this theory because if it did not it would read every rep as a failed rep)? on a similar concept, the idea that failure “teaches” failure, gee does everyone know that at one time vince carter could NOT dunk? realy at one time he could NOT jump high enough, sure he may have been 12 at the time but the time still did exist. how did he get the ability to dunk? yeah thru genetics but also thru MAXIMUM ATEMPTS THAT WERE NOT SUCCESFULL!!! yup, I am sure that he had to TRY many many many times before he was able to dunk. but how could it be? he tried to do something over and over again and failed but how did his body not learn failure? surely he HAD to know that failure teaches failure, that he should not try to do something he could not, wouldn’t he have gotten better results by trying to jump only 8 inches off the ground and not failing? didn’t he know that he would have more leaping ability today if while growing up he never tried to jump higher than he could at that time? didn’t he realy just learn to fail? NO he learned to succeed!! same thing with randy johnson, jordan, armstrong,etc… they got better by trying to do things they had NOT been able to do before and yup, I am sure they FAILED plenty of times, sure hurt them huh?
It is not often that I agree w/ hetyeye, but I think his basic premise is correct. I’m not sure that the body knows what a “failed” lift is. Is doing negatives with supramaximal weights “failing” over and over? Doing negatives at certain stages of training definitely has some benefits. I do not agree with hetyey’s conclusion that one needs to work at their limits all the time. It has been shown in my experience that it burns you out.
Exercise science is a difficult field because
it is very hard or impossible to have a large (hundreds might be needed for statistical significance) group of matched subjects, or even larger group of nonmatched subjects, willing to follow YOUR protocols for months or years, monitoring all of them, and actually having these male athletes do what you say.
If you’ve ever worked with male athletes
then you know that for the most part the
above idea is a joke, unless it is in the
limited context of a sports team.
So, it might be very difficult to prove
this above matter scientifically.
However, I emphatically disagree with
Hetyey and furthermore I doubt you’d find
many who had devoted say a year or more
to both methods of strength training, after
already being experienced trainers, who
would agree, while it would be easy to
find many who emphatically disagree.
If you have the talent to do well in
say powerlifting, the smart money says
you’ll do a lot better to plan your training
where you succeed in virtually all your
attempted lifts and reps, vs. allowing
or actually planning to strive for reps
that actually you cannot finish. There’s
a HELL of a lot of real world experience
bearing this out. “Thought-experiments”
arguing that in “theory” it “ought” not
to be possible for that to be so, really
don’t count for much other than things
to think about (namely, to think about
why the thought experiment leads to
an apparently untrue conclusion.)
bill, you say you dissagree with me but I ask with what??? I stated NO opinion on training in general I just stated an opinion on the idea that failure breeds failue. if you don’t think that whole idea is very flawed then how could you explain my feeble attempt at an example? granted useing pro’s as an ex. is NOT always the best ex. you can give but here I think it does work, because we can ALL remember when we were kids and how we STRIVED to do something we could not before and ya’ know what WE DID IT! you say “both methods” what methods are you speeking of?? I stated no “methods” I was NOT speeking of any “style” of training I was speeking of the failure or anti-failue ideas. I would just like if you could explain where I am wrong. how did repeated maximum attempts hurt carter??? please explain.