Is working out to failure a fast way to gain mass?
Make a search around the site , both in posts and articles, this as been discuted so many times.
Or in English…
You might also go to the Articles, by Author, and look for some of Chad Waterbury’s articles. He explains very well why going to failure frequently is not a good idea.
But yes, search, read, learn.
Im surprised to hear that training to failure is not recommended? Im not saying anyone is wrong, its just that I have almost always trained to failure and I have stayed injury free and made some amazing gains. I will read the articles in this web site about not going to failure. As I am new to this web site I know I have a lot to learn as far as powerlifting, but I have trained for a little over 10 years now with max intensity and never following any kind of routine or set program. All I have ever done is use my instincts and listen to my body. Following the advices of these professionals is the best recommendation… so read on!!
[quote]maddog87 wrote:
Is working out to failure a fast way to gain mass?[/quote]
Look at training to failure as a powerful tool which can easily be overdone. Try to use them sparingly.
A better program for Hypertrophy can be found by using the T-Nation search engine. Anything by Christian Thibadeau or Chad Waterbury.
By the way I highly recommend Christian Thibadeau’s “Black Book Of Training Secrets.” One look at CT and you will see why!
[quote]STR500 wrote:
Im surprised to hear that training to failure is not recommended? Im not saying anyone is wrong, its just that I have almost always trained to failure and I have stayed injury free and made some amazing gains. I will read the articles in this web site about not going to failure. As I am new to this web site I know I have a lot to learn as far as powerlifting, but I have trained for a little over 10 years now with max intensity and never following any kind of routine or set program. All I have ever done is use my instincts and listen to my body. Following the advices of these professionals is the best recommendation… so read on!![/quote]
You go to failure always? As in on every set you attempt a rep that you do not complete? You must be dumping a lot of squats.
Don’t mistake “failure” for proper load selection.
A tool to be used wisely as others have stated.
I do think however that many have swung this to far. The whole dont go to failure thing. To the point of not working hard enough due to fright of going to failure, or an excuse to work hard.
Failure I think has a place to be used every now and again. Even moreso in a relatively new trainees. Not a total newbie but after an intial break in period.
Why? They reall;y dont know what failure is. By going to what they feel is failure they learn what actual failure is. Preceived failure and actual failure can be WAY off in new trainees. It is amazing how much more a person can do when they learn how strong their mind can be and how far it can actually push them.
Once they get an understanding of this then using the 10x3 type of protocols with never reaching failure find their true benefit.
Just my take,
Phill
Here’s something from an Ian King article that recommends training to failure only once every 3 weeks. This actually helped my training alot, since I was training to failure too often.
[quote]Phill wrote:
A tool to be used wisely as others have stated.
I do think however that many have swung this to far. The whole dont go to failure thing. To the point of not working hard enough due to fright of going to failure, or an excuse to work hard.
Failure I think has a place to be used every now and again. Even moreso in a relatively new trainees. Not a total newbie but after an intial break in period.
Why? They reall;y dont know what failure is. By going to what they feel is failure they learn what actual failure is. Preceived failure and actual failure can be WAY off in new trainees. It is amazing how much more a person can do when they learn how strong their mind can be and how far it can actually push them.
Once they get an understanding of this then using the 10x3 type of protocols with never reaching failure find their true benefit.
Just my take,
Phill[/quote]
I agree Phill. After an intial couple break-in workouts, I had my sister training to failure for 2 weeks. This taught her what failure was and how to go to near-failure for future training. Now she is about to start heavier loading after an introductory loading period in the 8-12 range. I would recommend this for any beginner.
I’ll share my own experiences with failure. I trained to failure for years, using HIT. I stopped because I stopped recovering correctly and strength gains were no longer ensuing. I was an endurance athlete at the time and not eating to support mass gains, nor was that the goal. But strength gains slowed extremely in my upper body and all but stopped in my lower body. Train to failure too long, even with 1 set per exercise, 1-2 exercises per muscle group as in HIT, and you will burn out. At least most people.
[quote]RIT Jared wrote:
STR500 wrote:
Im surprised to hear that training to failure is not recommended? Im not saying anyone is wrong, its just that I have almost always trained to failure and I have stayed injury free and made some amazing gains. I will read the articles in this web site about not going to failure. As I am new to this web site I know I have a lot to learn as far as powerlifting, but I have trained for a little over 10 years now with max intensity and never following any kind of routine or set program. All I have ever done is use my instincts and listen to my body. Following the advices of these professionals is the best recommendation… so read on!!
You go to failure always? As in on every set you attempt a rep that you do not complete? You must be dumping a lot of squats.
Don’t mistake “failure” for proper load selection.[/quote]
Pretty much, yes. Except for warm-ups. I was in the military for over 13 years and thats how we usually trained. If we were doing push-ups we had to do them until we could not push our body up and then a spotter would lift us up and then we would hold a push-up in the up position while my arms were shaking like I was a nerve agent casualty. Lifting weights was just about the same. If I ever stopped a set before failure we all got ripped on. As for squats over the years I was never able to do them much because we had to run such long distances with no warning. If I were to do squats at the gym one night and then the next morning find out that were are running a 10K on the beach I would never make it with jello legs. This has happened to me once, but only once. Trust me there is no wrath like falling out of a platoon formation run. So you can imagine my legs are fairly thin compared to my upper body.
Now that I am no longer on active duty, I have started squating like a mad man and already moving some good weights.
Failure is a double edged sword, if you look into sports science on its most basic levesl you’ll see that there are 2 main theories when it comes to training
-
single / one factor (theory of overcompensation)
-
dual factor (fitness fatigue)
Look them up and you should find loads of info floating around…
Single factor in its most basic sense is the old ‘break down and build up’ theory. You batter yourself in the gym, send your body into a biochemical catabolic frenzy, your body (trying to recuperate itself) thinks sh*t gotta sort that out and overcompensates making you bigger and stronger. Like the saying whatever doesnt kill us makes us stronger, (arent I full of cliches this morning!)
Its all based on homeostasis, which basically means remaining at a constant! Your body (mine too!!) is like a beligerent old fart (british term for grumpy old man), the geezer doesnt like change!!! anyway lets call him Stan!! he’s quite comfortable staying right where he is (on the lazyboy chair eating nachos and blowing a methane hole into the badboy!) place a stimulus in front of stan (hes drank a few budweisers lets say!!) and the bloke’s gotta piss!!! so temporarily stan begrudingly gets his fat hairy arse off the chair and goes for a slash (british term) then flops himself down back in the chair, but he’s broken the seal (another British term for needing to p*ss every 5 seconds once you’ve had a few). So if stan keeps drinking he’s gonna frequent the pisser more and more, and have to get off the chair, if he stops now he gets to revert back to sitting eating and stinking the place out.
Its the same with the body, you’ve got to force it to break its routine, but it will always end up back in a comfort zone, hopefully (if you dont train like a moron!) one step beyond where it was before.
Simple!
Now training to failure at a basic level seems to make sense doesnt it? the stimulus for growth appears to be a response to damaging your muscles and your body responds by healing itself better than before so it wont happen again (gotta love evolution!) like a scar overhealing.
However, there been like a billion studies that have shown that taking your body to that point isnt neccessary, believe it or not by taking your self to the point where there are sufficien fatigue enzymes present (so that your body thinks: shit this aint easy but alright then fat boy hit me harder if you can") but no damage to the connective tissues or musculature is much more productive as you take less time to recuperate and thus can train more often. We all know what the law of repeated effort means.
Now then, fitness fatigue is concerned more with correct stimulation and timing rather than blasting and building
in science terms, your always going to accomodate and the overcompensation effect as a result of failure training will become redundant for a number of glaringly obvious reasons.
The biggest is centred around fatigue (remeber the dual factor theory is called fitness fatigue!!).
Its like Arnold said, bodybuilding is akin to being a sculptor, training are your tools to create a masterpeice, now I say in my eloquent melodic articulacies: you keep chipping away with your hammer and chisel mate and your gonna break the bstrd.
O.K, theres 2 types of fatigue that we’re concerned with:
- Peripheral (muscular fatigue)
& - Central (Nervous system fatigue)
See where this is heading?
By continually chpping away with your failure chisel to create loads of peripheral fatigue its only a matter of time until that central fatigue grabs you by balls and squeezes your peeled plum tomatoes of all its lovely mascuine test faster than Glen Ross (no mate, your not the daddy your a fat b*stard) can push his way through to the buffet table.
Once the centralfatigue has got you, your f*cked.
Now with training its all about carefully considered timing and thoughtful planning based on proven scientific models, (there are more in this site if you search than yuo can imagine!!!).
Interestingly, Bodybuilding is the only “sport” that really doenst utilise the dual factor theory for its training needs.
Should you dismiss failure training (no bloody way its a good tool to use sparingly) it should not be the basis of your workout goals but should simply be a facet of your training arsenal. If you focus all training around and judge all your progress on how sore you get you only end up creating loads of microtrauma leading to macrotrauma or muscle tears, OTS etc etc, and in case you ask, by resting, eating more and decreasing your frequency you wont be able to stave off this effect.
Old glen ross will always get his buffet!!!
Get reading mate, digest the info available to you and get training.
Learn to manage failer. And research a lot.
Good luck
Will42
[quote]dave1980 wrote:
Failure is a double edged sword, if you look into sports science on its most basic levesl you’ll see that there are 2 main theories when it comes to training
-
single / one factor (theory of overcompensation)
-
dual factor (fitness fatigue)
Look them up and you should find loads of info floating around…
Single factor in its most basic sense is the old ‘break down and build up’ theory. You batter yourself in the gym, send your body into a biochemical catabolic frenzy, your body (trying to recuperate itself) thinks sh*t gotta sort that out and overcompensates making you bigger and stronger. Like the saying whatever doesnt kill us makes us stronger, (arent I full of cliches this morning!)
Its all based on homeostasis, which basically means remaining at a constant! Your body (mine too!!) is like a beligerent old fart (british term for grumpy old man), the geezer doesnt like change!!! anyway lets call him Stan!! he’s quite comfortable staying right where he is (on the lazyboy chair eating nachos and blowing a methane hole into the badboy!) place a stimulus in front of stan (hes drank a few budweisers lets say!!) and the bloke’s gotta piss!!! so temporarily stan begrudingly gets his fat hairy arse off the chair and goes for a slash (british term) then flops himself down back in the chair, but he’s broken the seal (another British term for needing to p*ss every 5 seconds once you’ve had a few). So if stan keeps drinking he’s gonna frequent the pisser more and more, and have to get off the chair, if he stops now he gets to revert back to sitting eating and stinking the place out.
Its the same with the body, you’ve got to force it to break its routine, but it will always end up back in a comfort zone, hopefully (if you dont train like a moron!) one step beyond where it was before.
Simple!
Now training to failure at a basic level seems to make sense doesnt it? the stimulus for growth appears to be a response to damaging your muscles and your body responds by healing itself better than before so it wont happen again (gotta love evolution!) like a scar overhealing.
However, there been like a billion studies that have shown that taking your body to that point isnt neccessary, believe it or not by taking your self to the point where there are sufficien fatigue enzymes present (so that your body thinks: shit this aint easy but alright then fat boy hit me harder if you can") but no damage to the connective tissues or musculature is much more productive as you take less time to recuperate and thus can train more often. We all know what the law of repeated effort means.
Now then, fitness fatigue is concerned more with correct stimulation and timing rather than blasting and building
in science terms, your always going to accomodate and the overcompensation effect as a result of failure training will become redundant for a number of glaringly obvious reasons.
The biggest is centred around fatigue (remeber the dual factor theory is called fitness fatigue!!).
Its like Arnold said, bodybuilding is akin to being a sculptor, training are your tools to create a masterpeice, now I say in my eloquent melodic articulacies: you keep chipping away with your hammer and chisel mate and your gonna break the bstrd.
O.K, theres 2 types of fatigue that we’re concerned with:
- Peripheral (muscular fatigue)
& - Central (Nervous system fatigue)
See where this is heading?
By continually chpping away with your failure chisel to create loads of peripheral fatigue its only a matter of time until that central fatigue grabs you by balls and squeezes your peeled plum tomatoes of all its lovely mascuine test faster than Glen Ross (no mate, your not the daddy your a fat b*stard) can push his way through to the buffet table.
Once the centralfatigue has got you, your f*cked.
Now with training its all about carefully considered timing and thoughtful planning based on proven scientific models, (there are more in this site if you search than yuo can imagine!!!).
Interestingly, Bodybuilding is the only “sport” that really doenst utilise the dual factor theory for its training needs.
Should you dismiss failure training (no bloody way its a good tool to use sparingly) it should not be the basis of your workout goals but should simply be a facet of your training arsenal. If you focus all training around and judge all your progress on how sore you get you only end up creating loads of microtrauma leading to macrotrauma or muscle tears, OTS etc etc, and in case you ask, by resting, eating more and decreasing your frequency you wont be able to stave off this effect.
Old glen ross will always get his buffet!!!
Get reading mate, digest the info available to you and get training.[/quote]
Great post Dave. Lot of effort went into that one. Well said.
ps - don’t mind the British terms and analogies, they make perfect sense.
“broken the seal…” LOL, I love that one.
Remember when we were kids and we received those slot car race tracks for Christmas? You set them up and then once you got the hang of it, you started having races with your dad, brother, friend, etc.
Think about your finger on the control button-you want to go as fast as possible, but if you just jam the button all the way down–the car jumps the track and breaks—you want to go as fast as the track allows–on the ramps and the ovals, you have to back off a bit, but on the straightaways, you can occasionally hit the button…“almost” all the way down…but not for very long.
same with training. I think failure is a huge mistake for a newbie, but once you get the feel of things and have a foundation, it can be a useful tool on occasion-but its a tool, not a principle or a way of life-and many, many folks have missed the difference.
Keith
i did hit for forever and didnt get very far…just my 2 cents