I usually don’t read the old posts that someone digs up again to make a final point but this one is too good to pass up…HIT “trains your body to fail”!!! What kind of nonsense is that? By extension, that would apply to going to concentric failue under any training philosophy as would the use of negatives. Joe Weider should adopt this lulu as Principle Number 26,971.
AvoidsRoids, I stand by my statement that training to failure trains one’s body to fail. Maybe I should explain further that training to failure harms neuromuscular efficiency, and athletic performance, and injury prevention, are all about neuromuscular efficiency. If you want to try this out, do a set of squats to failure, then go out the next day and play pickup basketball. I guarantee you that your performance will be severely compromised. I know that there are strength coaches for some pro teams who have their athletes train to failure. While this may help them add muscle mass, I am positive that it does not help their speed or useable strength. Finally, I have little interest in being right or wrong. I just think that athletes interested in performance enhancement need to make as informed a decision as possible when choosing how to train…
It all works, some only up to a point. I’m 48 and been lifting for 12 years on a regular basis again for the 3rd time in my life (first as a kid, then with track). I got on my low carb program which I stay on, I like the way I feel, I still get enough carbs etc~and I got the strongest I’ve ever been with my poundages~setting 5, 6 records in a row!! I did low reps (up to 10) and as heavy as possible, with few sets for the first time in my life. But I felt tired after about 2 months of that, so I went back to med-heavy, heavy and more reps, but again, because of my most of the time busy job, I have to do few sets, for my body to recover from workouts and work. Each of us is different, and at my age and with my job, I’m at my most muscled in my life, and I can keep it with incredibly short workouts NOT to failure, because it would hurt my recovery too much! And no matter how few sets I do, I warm up before going heavy, and mostly because of my split, it ties in with each other, so again I’m working almost each muscle group indirectly and directly before I actually get to it, so I can go heavier in my first sets. I only work twice a week, Leg, back, bis, abs on Fri; shoulders, chest, tris, abs on Mon, and in that order, sometimes only 2 sets per exercise (and even one), and I think that’s the best way, maybe only for ME. The main thing is to work and challenge the muscle, then let it rest and grow, and if it feels you didn’t work it long enough or plain old heavy enough, on the next workout~fry those things!
Okay, I’m going to lend my perspective on the “training to failure teaches the body to fail” theory. FIrst off, the idea of training to failure is that it is the only 100% accurate measure of full muscle fiber recruitment. How do you REALLY know when you’re one rep short of failure? Now that the muscles have been thoroughly exhausted, they need to recover. If you go out to play hoops the next day, I can guarantee that your muscles haven’t recovered, and thus, yes, your performance will suffer. Taht is also why HIT tends toward “intense, infrequent” training. Now I will grant that there is a mental struggle with failure – the mind will tend to avoid painful activities, and will thus “pull back.” You have to fight this tendency. I see a lot of people stop as soon as the weight hesitates in motion. Usually, the person can finish the rep by just pushing through that spot. So, no, training to failure doesn’t train the body to fail, but it can set up a mental block that, if the person is mentally lazy, allows the body to fail prior to true failure.
Im not gonna touch the Hit vs multi set thing, but before the internet all(99%) of the books article ect that were available would overtrain almost anyone,but the internet for the most part has presented the opposite, even Ian Kings routinues are really rather short. Everyone is so fearfull now that they are overtraining that a lot dont make progress. Maybie Im a genetic freak(after 7 years of training gained 40lbs) but I can gain doing 4 hard hour workouts plus running 4 x weekly and doing special neck/forearm/low back/hammies work 5 days a week. I think the internet has become as dangerous as the old articles towards progress largely due to this rampant fear of overtraining.
please refer to the current thread “It’s not one VS the other” as it was meant to be my reply to this dialogue.
pnfdog to brider, my point about training to failure is that it neglects the development of neuromuscular efficiency which is so crucial in every sport except bodybuilding (in which the sole criterion is aesthetic).
Hey Goldberg,let this be your lesson on HIT trainers…Plain and simple,there is NO one way to train,anyone who thinks otherwise,is an idiot!They’ll give you great examples of Captain Methamphetamine deadlifting 500 for 12 or whatever, to justify the HIT training principles.What they fail to mention is that the captain followed regular training priciples for 15 years,and hasn’t gained 1 pound,wieghtwise,or strengthwise,since the 3rd week of HIT!Just vary your training,and let this 138 lbs HIT Jedi continue to machine curl 15lbs for 12 with 10 negatives to build his eleven-teen inch arms!!!
Why do alot of football teams advocate HIT if it does not increase performace?
The only reason football teams use HIT is because the guys are already mutants and they can finish their training in the weight room quickly and put more emphasis on sports specific activities.
Okay, I’m going to lend my perspective on the “training to failure teaches the body to fail” theory. FIrst off, the idea of training to failure is that it is the only 100% accurate measure of full muscle fiber recruitment.***********
Actually, Brider, motor unit recruitment is maximal or near-maximal at weights as light as 40%-60% 1 RM, depending upon the muscle group. Beyond these weights, your body increases force production by increasing the rate at which the motor units fire, rather than actually increasing the number of units recruited. Thus, if you’re using a weight that is, say, 70% 1 RM, motor unit recruitment is maximal from the first repetition. So, no, you don’t need to go to failure to ensure maximal motor unit recruitment. You just need to make sure the weights are heavy enough.
Now that the muscles have been thoroughly exhausted, they need to recover.
The idea that muscles need to recover before they adapt is an idea that comes from the HIT camp, but this idea is not supported by science. Elevated protein synthesis in skeletal muscle will begin within hours after training and will continue for up to 48 hours post-exercise. Thus, your muscles are “growing” soon after a workout, before they’ve “recovered.”
Synergistic ablation studies on rats (the gastrocnemius is cut off so that the soleus must bear much more load) result in tremendous growth of the soleus muscle in a period of only a few weeks. This occurs with no “recovery” period or “training to failure” whatsoever, because the soleus is under constant overload. While this model of hypertrophy is not completely applicable to humans, it does show that “recovery” is not necessary for muscle growth to occur.
However, what training to failure does do is cause immense fatigue of the nervous system, hence why so much recovery is needed. Some research suggests that overtraining in the gym is more related to the CNS rather than a lack of recovery of actual muscle itself. Check out some of Brian Haycock’s articles for a more detailed explanation.
Since protein synthesis doesn’t seem to occur beyond 48 hours after a workout anyway, it’s most likely that more frequent training, using submaximal loads, is the best approach to hypertrophy. In one study, researchers compared 3 sets once per week to 1 set 3 times per week. The 1 set group achieved greater muscle hypertrophy than the 3 set group. Brian again talks about this in more detail. A lot of people seem to be having good success with his HST program, which is based on high-frequency, submaximal training. And these results are without MAG-10 or anything else.
Achieving muscle growth isn’t about “annhilating” a muscle group and then waiting for days for it to recover. It’s about achieving an imbalance between protein synthesis and protein degradation. If you want muscle to grow, you need to provide enough of a stimulus so that protein synthesis exceeds protein degradation and there is an accretion of muscle protein.
Regarding the “training to failure is teaching athletes to fail”, this IS true if you are an Olympic lifter. Olympic lifting is a highly technical sport, and training to failure in these lifts will result in a breakdown in technique, causing bad habits to form. Hence, this is why Olympic lifters should never train to failure. Yet, they still get stronger. And the reason they get stronger is due to progressive overload, not due to training to failure.
If that’s Stephen Hetyey, he’s done some pretty big lifts, like 700dl & 400-something bench press @198, so it obviously works for him! Maybe he’s tried everything else & didn’t get good results for whatever reason! Maybe that’s why he says nothing else works!? I hope this stupid friggin post gets erased pretty soon because all this bashing pisses me off. Why does somebody HAVE TO train a certain way?
How does this keep reappearing?
Good question how DOES this keep reappearing? Look that the date on this stupid post!