How to Go to Failure?

Hi. I’m interested to know how you guys go to true failure. I know it’s not as simple as “doing as many reps as you can” because even if you percieve that you reached failure, you can still grind out a rep or two. This is especially true for beginners who think they reached failure as soon as the bar loses speed.

I think it’s more of a mental thing than a physical thing. When we reach near failure, the pain is so intense that we percieve the pain as failure, when in fact, it’s not. What I do when I want to go to failure is start a set with this mentality:

1)Attempt to complete a good rep no matter how hard or painful it is.
2)Was I able to complete the rep?
-If yes, go back to 1).
-If no, failure.

How about you guys? What kind of thoughts help you reach true failure?

when the spotter needs to help me complete a rep, or when I can’t deadlift the bar off the ground anymore. Pretty simple.

I liked the old avatar better, Austin.

I try not to go to failure. I set a number of reps before I touch the weight and I either make that number or I don’t. Bill Pearl was right. You don’t want to train yourself to fail. I don’t think overtraining is the issue. I think the mental aspect of training yourself to fail is the issue.

Why do you want to go to failure?

[quote]FightingScott wrote:
I liked the old avatar better, Austin.

I try not to go to failure. I set a number of reps before I touch the weight and I either make that number or I don’t. Bill Pearl was right. You don’t want to train yourself to fail. I don’t think overtraining is the issue. I think the mental aspect of training yourself to fail is the issue. [/quote]

I never thought of it that way. Then again, Aren’t training yourself to fail and training to failure two different things? I’m sorry, but I don’t think we mean the same thing by failure.

In any case, I also set a rep range, but if I want to go to failure, the weights I use will be such that I reach true failure within that rep range.

[quote]Brant_Drake wrote:
Why do you want to go to failure?[/quote]

That’s another topic, but just so you know, I usually avoid failure, but right now, I want to use it to compensate for decreased volume (it turns out that ectos like me don’t respond to high volume well).

Anwyay, what helps you guys reach true failure?

[quote]FightingScott wrote:
I liked the old avatar better, Austin.

[/quote]

I needed some change. A cross between Levrone and Arnie would be my ideal physique. Mass and Proportion, As well as a huge set of guns :). I know I’ll be up there one day!

Here is how I do it. I have a rep goal, I pick a weight that I can get half of that rep goal with, and then I get as close to that goal as possible.

I’m not understanding how it’s so hard for people to reach failure. Maybe I’m misenterpruting the question, but once you cannot reach a positive rep ,it’s failure. Rep out until you can’t rep anymore. Trial and error.

[quote]Brant_Drake wrote:
Why do you want to go to failure?[/quote]

why not?

As someone who studies psychology as it relates to exercise I do the latest trick to get in the right mental mindset. Ready?

I turn my f’in brain off and don’t rerack the weight till I gave it everything I had, sometimes biting off more than I can chew but going after it anyways.

[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
I’m not understanding how it’s so hard for people to reach failure. Maybe I’m misenterpruting the question, but once you cannot reach a positive rep ,it’s failure. Rep out until you can’t rep anymore. Trial and error.[/quote]

Like I said, it’s not as simple as “doing as many reps as you can” because we sometimes think we reached failure when in fact we still have a rep or two left in the tank. Reaching percieved failure is easier than getting rid of that pain barrier and reaching true failure even if your mind is telling you that you failed before even getting there.

[quote]undeadlift wrote:
austin_bicep wrote:
I’m not understanding how it’s so hard for people to reach failure. Maybe I’m misenterpruting the question, but once you cannot reach a positive rep ,it’s failure. Rep out until you can’t rep anymore. Trial and error.

Like I said, it’s not as simple as “doing as many reps as you can” because we sometimes think we reached failure when in fact we still have a rep or two left in the tank. Reaching percieved failure is easier than getting rid of that pain barrier and reaching true failure even if your mind is telling you that you failed before even getting there.[/quote]

I know when I reach failure. Im not afraid of pain, and work through everything. My reps rarely go above six. I’ll put it this way, if Im using 300 pounds for reps when I bench, I fail at 4 reps. When I go down on the fifth, it aint coming up.
Thats how training was yesterday.

When I deadlift 430 after 5 reps I can’t even budge the weight off the ground. My body would not let me. My body fails before my mind because in my mind I want to lift everything. To be quite frank, and this is not directed toward you, only pussies and people who do not take lifting seriously cannot make it through this pain period, which Arnold refers to often. True weightlifters know how to reach failure if there regimen calls for it, they go balls to wall!

[quote]undeadlift wrote:
austin_bicep wrote:
I’m not understanding how it’s so hard for people to reach failure. Maybe I’m misenterpruting the question, but once you cannot reach a positive rep ,it’s failure. Rep out until you can’t rep anymore. Trial and error.

Like I said, it’s not as simple as “doing as many reps as you can” because we sometimes think we reached failure when in fact we still have a rep or two left in the tank. Reaching percieved failure is easier than getting rid of that pain barrier and reaching true failure even if your mind is telling you that you failed before even getting there.[/quote]

The ability to go to failure is one of those things that some people will not acquire until they have been training for a decent amount of time. This is the knowledge that even though your body is telling you “enough”, its just because its been pushed to that threshold and it doesnt want to go any farther, even though it has the ability to.

How do you know you have reached failure? You are pushing and pushing and pushing, and the weight is still not moving. Its fight or flight, your body wants to choose flight, but you have to know yourself well enough to push it to fight.

Going to “true failure” is more a matter of mental strength than physical strength. Everyone has the physical strength to go to failure, not everyone has the mental strength though.

In actuality it IS as simple as “do as many reps as possible”. The problem that some people have with going to failure is that they are (to use Austin’s term) “pussies” and aren’t mentally strong enough to endure the discomfort that comes with going to failure.

[quote]austin_bicep wrote:
I know when I reach failure. Im not afraid of pain, and work through everything. My reps rarely go above six. I’ll put it this way, if Im using 300 pounds for reps when I bench, I fail at 4 reps. When I go down on the fifth, it aint coming up.
Thats how training was yesterday.

When I deadlift 430 after 5 reps I can’t even budge the weight off the ground. My body would not let me. My body fails before my mind because in my mind I want to lift everything. To be quite frank, and this is not directed toward you, only pussies and people who do not take lifting seriously cannot make it through this pain period, which Arnold refers to often. True weightlifters know how to reach failure if there regimen calls for it, they go balls to wall! [/quote]

This is kinda opposite to what Doug Young used to say. To him, it’s the mind, not the body, that limits your potential. He says that one needs to free the mind in order to let the body to realize its full capabilities.

In any case, amen to what you said. If anyone wants to reach failure, he should get over the pain and just do it. The question then is how to psych yourself for reaching that state of true failure.

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
The ability to go to failure is one of those things that some people will not acquire until they have been training for a decent amount of time. This is the knowledge that even though your body is telling you “enough”, its just because its been pushed to that threshold and it doesnt want to go any farther, even though it has the ability to.

How do you know you have reached failure? You are pushing and pushing and pushing, and the weight is still not moving. Its fight or flight, your body wants to choose flight, but you have to know yourself well enough to push it to fight.[/quote]

This pretty much captures what I meant when I compared percieved failure and true failure.

I do not see how someone can ‘perceive’ failure, if you choose to stop doing the exercise due to pain, then that is NOT failure.

For example, doing DB bench presses, I stopped at 6 reps on my first set, not due to pain, but because the weight would not go up anymore.

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
I do not see how someone can ‘perceive’ failure, if you choose to stop doing the exercise due to pain, then that is NOT failure.

For example, doing DB bench presses, I stopped at 6 reps on my first set, not due to pain, but because the weight would not go up anymore. [/quote]

Like I said, people sometimes equate pain as failure. Imagine a noob thinking, “Oh my, that was a hard rep and it’s so hard and painful. I guess I can’t do another one. I guess I reached failure. I better stop this set.” He could have tried to do another one, and he probably could complete another rep if he didn’t equate the pain with failure.

You don’t feel pain when going to failure?

Are we talking about “true failure” as in Mentzer’s example where you go to failure, and then someone holds a gun to your head and says they’ll kill you if you don’t get another rep, so you do. And then tell you that they’ll kill your family if you don’t get another rep, so you do. And that is “true failure”?

Or are we talking about just not being able to complete another rep in good form (as hard as we may try)?

If it’s the former, then realize that while there might be truth to Mentzer’s statement, it would be a stupid way to train on a regular basis.

If someone told me that if I didn’t get another rep they’d kill my family, I’d get that rep. I wouldn’t care if I injured myself doing it, I’d get the weight up. But, throwing caution to the wind like that on a regular basis is a fast lane to injury.

You’ve got to weigh the pros and cons of what you’re doing. Is that one extra rep really worth the risk of not being able to train that body part again for months (and in some extreme cases never again), or having nagging pain for the rest of your life? To me it’s really not.

You don’t get huge/extremely strong just by getting that one extra rep in today’s workout. You get there over the course of years of workouts in which you beat your previous performances.

Just something to think about.