Once again, my friends and I had a discussion, this time about failure. One of my friends mentioned something weird. He said that there are categories of failure. There are 4:
I. Initial Failure (aka Alpha Failure)
-when at least 1 muscle fibre fails (ie. Waterbury’s end of the set)
II. Primary Failure
-when enough muscle fibres fail so that contraction is impossible at particular weight (ie. HIT’s definition of failure, failure after rest-pause)
III. Secondary Failure
-when enough muscles fail so that contraction is impossible at a different weight from the weight used in primary failure (ie. superset, giant set, drop set, wherein all weight changes happen ONLY AFTER primary failure is achieved)
-a secondary failure can’t exist without a primary failure before it, but the second failure of a set doesn’t have to be secondary (ie. rest-pause has 2 or more primary failures because there is no weight change)
IV. Absolute Failure (aka Omega Failure)
-when ALL muscle fibres don’t contract anymore even with no resistance
Primary failure can be divided into 3 types - 1) Concentric (beta failure); 2) Isometric (gamma failure); and 3) Eccentric (delta failure) The concentric/isometric/eccentric scheme is the same for secondary failure, but I didn’t bother remembering the Greek alphabet names my friend mentioned.
Basically, my friend said that further you go down the Greek alphabet, the more powerful the growth stimulus and the higher the risk of overtraining. The discussion after was long and some of us were impressed. I’m a little skeptikal though about the validity of these classifications of failure. For one thing, he didn’t tell us where he got this info.
Do you guys know anything about this? Can this be applied in training somehow? Any experience? Any comments you might wanna share? Is this right at all?
I’d say this type of thinking would constitute intellectual failure, or at the very least cognitive failure. Just kidding. Don’t put so much thought into it. There was a recent article by, I think, Jason Feruggia that attempted to get a good definition of what failure really is.
I’m gonna disagree with him about the “further down the Greek alphabet you go the better the growth stimulus and higher the risk of overtraining.” I mean, come on, he is making this shit up. All of it. Either he did, or Arthur Jones did. Either way it isn’t worth bothering with.
Think about it, who in their right mind would try to classify “types of failure” using letters of the Greek alphabet? And for that matter, why would it be desirable to reach “Omega failure?” Sounds like a coma to me!
I’ll let someone else (hopefully) say what needs to be said about working hard vs working smart, etc, etc.
I don’t think Ferrugia ever went this far. At least not that I can remember.
As far as I’m concerned there are only 2 types of failure worth distinguishing and only one of them is applicable to training.
When no amount of effort I can consciously generate results in positive movement of the exercise I have failed.
The second kind is attainable only when faced with a life or death circumstance for either yourself or a loved one.
I guess you could differentiate concentric and eccentric, but to me negative/eccentric failure is the only kind I care about. The rest is semantic gobbledygook.
This is not a sacredly help position worth defending any further than that. It’s just the way I view the topic.
The “omega failure” ( cool name isn’t? kinda Marvel-esque ) reminded me of the people who wished to overtrain to the point of depression because of the promisse of better gains.
You know if you are a recreative weight lifter you gotta to draw the line somewhere.
Somethings are just not worth it.
I can dig alpha failure and beta failure, but I can’t figure out why someone would classify failure into 8 different kinds. I wonder my friend got all that info.
I don’t think Ferrugia went that far either, just that he (or someone who contributes to T-Nation seldom like he does) said it’s important to have a common definition of failure and then proceeded to define it.
[quote]undeadlift wrote:
Once again, my friends and I had a discussion, this time about failure. One of my friends mentioned something weird. He said that there are categories of failure. There are 4:
[/quote]
First let me say that this sounds like nothing more than mental masturbation and a huge over-complication of a fairly straight forward concept.
Without the use of an EMG it would be basically impossible to determine when only 1 muscle fiber failed. Even determining when a single motor unit failed (which depending on the muscle may control literally hundreds of individual fibers) is tough without sophisticated equipment.
For this reason, this “type” of failure would have little use or applicability to actual training.
From my understanding Waterbury’s advice on when to terminate a set has more to do with the fatigue of the HTMU’s than it does with the fatigue of a single muscle fiber.
Perhaps that’s just semantics, but then this whole discussion/topic is really just theory anyhow.
This is probably really the only definition of failure worth concerning yourself with. The inability to complete another rep (regardless of weight, I really think you could combine this with “secondary failure” into one single category).
The inability to lift the weight is really all that matters, the weight you’re using (whether it be the starting weight or not) makes little difference IMO.
What if you did another drop after your “secondary failure” and another, and another? Why didn’t this person include a third stage, and a forth, and fifth, etc…?
This would basically be Central Nervous system failure and isn’t something that is either likely to be encountered during weight training, nor even beneficial from a muscle building standpoint.
Really the only application I can think of where this might actually have some benefit would be for Special Forces training or Extremely intense combative arts training where the athlete needs unbelievable amounts of both physical and mental endurance and toughness.
And even then, it’s probably going to take literally days of constant exertion to reach this point.
This I think actually has some merit, but for the majority of situations concentric failure is really the only one that most people need to concern themselves with.
Like a lot of things there is a point of diminishing returns. The shock and stress that you put on your body by going to “Omega” failure is indeed the most severe. But, it’s also going to leave you completely unable to train (and in many cases even function normally during everyday life) for quite some time. The amount of time that you’d actually have to wait to be able to overload your muscles (beat your previous performance) would be weeks or even months of time. Not to mention the havoc this would wreak on your other recovery systems (immune system would probably fail and you’d likely get sick, only serving to prolong recovery time even further).
People who make comments like the one you quoted above don’t really understand the process of muscle building. The workout that you do today isn’t the one that gets you hyooge. It’s the summation of all of the workouts in which you beat your previous performance (progressive overload) which builds muscles.
So yeah, you can run yourself into the ground in a single session all you want, but that’s really only going to prolong the amount of time you need to recover from that workout and put more stress on your recovery systems. In the long run it’s not going to lead to better gains.
[quote]
Do you guys know anything about this? Can this be applied in training somehow? Any experience? Any comments you might wanna share? Is this right at all?[/quote]
Hopefully some of our comments have been helpful. My honest advice would be, that if you want to go to failure, then “Primary” failure (which I would include “secondary failure” into) is the only one you really need to concern yourself with IMO.
[quote]conwict wrote:
I’m gonna disagree with him about the “further down the Greek alphabet you go the better the growth stimulus and higher the risk of overtraining.” I mean, come on, he is making this shit up. All of it. Either he did, or Arthur Jones did. Either way it isn’t worth bothering with.
[/quote]
I agree with your first statement, but why bring Jones into this discussion? A quick glance at his training methods would suggest that not only did Jones not agree with that statement, but rarely (in fact never in any of the stories I’ve ever heard about his training sessions) went beyond “Primary Failure”. His program was all about one all out set to concentric failure, of several exercises, back to back, one for each major muscle group, in a full body format.
I’ve never heard of him taking a trainee to “Omega Failure”.
Also, Jones has a pretty damn good track record. He’s built some serious muscle and his programs have gotten results. Not only that, but he was the first to think “outside the box” and challenge the notion that one needed copious amounts of volume in order to build muscle. He is also responsible for many of the training concepts and innovations that we make use of today, and even has a pretty impressive track record with training athletes.
To suggest that his philosophies “aren’t worth bothering with” is a little foolish IMO. If you want to ignore what’s worked in the past feel free, but I personally wouldn’t suggest that others do the same.
[quote]
I’ll let someone else (hopefully) say what needs to be said about working hard vs working smart, etc, etc.[/quote]
To be honest I hate that quote about working hard vs. working smart. Anyone who tells you that building muscle/getting in shape/improving performance isn’t going to involve you working hard is either trying to sell you something or just plain ignorant.
IMO it’s just a marketing ploy to get money off of lazy unmotivated people. Everyone wants a “short cut” or “get fit in 10 minutes a day without breaking a sweat” program. Late night t.v. is full of infomercials promising “six pack abs” or a great body if the watcher will only buy this “magic” piece of equipment, or their “secret” exercise plan. Heck, I’ve even seen one where this woman promotes a “motionless” exercise program!
On the other hand I do understand the point about working smart. To me that just means following well designed programs, eating a healthy nutritious diet and getting plenty of rest (basically a healthy lifestyle). That and learning and using good exercise form.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
From my understanding Waterbury’s advice on when to terminate a set has more to do with the fatigue of the HTMU’s than it does with the fatigue of a single muscle fiber.
Perhaps that’s just semantics, but then this whole discussion/topic is really just theory anyhow. [/quote]
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too. I mean if you had 1 failed muscle fibre, you’ll lift the weight 0.0001 mm/hr slower, but that’s being too technical. I think they’re essentially the same thing.
What I think he meant is that the stimulating effect of a secondary failure after primary failure (drop set) is more intense than two primary failures (rest-pause). Maybe it has something to do with more muscle fibres failing in secondary.
Scott Abel mentioned absolute failure in the link I posted. What I’m skeptical about though is if reaching true absolute failure is actually possible during a single workout. Scott says it’s possible in his ultimate legs program while you mentioned it would take days, and I don’t think anybody has the guts to actually find out by trying to reach it himself. It would be scary if you can’t move your legs.
Yeah, although some HIT proponents like Mentzer have experimented with eccentric failure before (ie. negative only dips) and had success. I myself did negative only dips once and had some quick strength gains. I think eccentric failure has its applications in eccentric only training (ie. training one-arm chins when you’re still too weak to do a concentric).
Yup. I guess I’ll have something to laugh about the next time we discuss about it.
Yeah. Thanks a lot for the long reply. Maybe alpha failure can be helpful too if you’re doing Waterbury, but omega failure is pushing it too far. In any case, I rarely let myself reach primary failure and beyond.
Sento, to revive that maxim, it goes…one guy uses a sledge, the others uses an axe to chop a tree down. BOTH are working hard, one is working smart. The maxim is in agreement with you ;-). I don’t think it’s trying to sell anything or market a product; it’s just useful for discussions like this one when someone (apparently Undeadlift’s friend) suggests that the harder you work, the better the results, PERIOD.
Oh, sorry, I mis-typed. I meant that whether someone else made this hierarchy of failure, or undeadlift’s friend did, it’s hardly worth bothering with. I didn’t intend a wholesale dismissal of Jones’ work, just that he (in my opinion) often overcomplicated things. I didn’t really think he made up “omega failure” either, but I do think that his analytical mind sometimes led him to over-categorize things.
[quote]conwict wrote:
<<< BOTH are working hard, one is working smart >>>[/quote]
You do need both. What Sentoguy is talking about is the maxim that says “work smarter NOT harder”.
Thinking is not a substitute for sweat and sweat alone is not optimal, but the simpleton busting his ass will out progress the techno babbling callous-less geek every time.
