Should I train to failure to gain muscle?

Training to failure is a very popular training method and because it completely exhausts you both physically and mentally, quite a few people don’t like it. However, some people think that you have to practice like that to effectively gain muscle. So do you need to exercise to the point of exhaustion to gain muscle, or can regular exercise also gain muscle? Let’s find out below.

What is training to failure?

Training to failure (also known as training to failure or absolute failure) is the definition of not being able to move the weight (or body if you are training bodyweight) any further without changing your technique. your body (standard posture), your muscles and mind are literally completely tired.

Quite a few people often claim that they often practice to the point of failure, but in reality, that is not the case. They often stop at the point where they start moving the weight very slowly, but that is not the level of failure because according to As defined above, if you can’t move any further, it’s called failure.

Based on the RPE cognitive effort scale, training to failure is equivalent to RPE level 10

Is practicing to failure good? What are the benefits of exercising to exhaustion?

In theory, training to failure has many benefits: pushing your body to the limit, you will reap significant improvements in strength, muscle mass, accelerated muscle gain benefits for you.

But is training to failure the optimal way to build and maximize muscle strength?

Most coaches give advice and train smart rather than train hard, which means training to failure is not high on their list of priorities.

Typically, training to failure is a weightlifting technique used by bodybuilders or those wanting to optimize muscle growth. It is much less common in strength athletes, powerlifters, and Olympic weightlifters.

The main reason for this difference in using training to failure as a technique to help get bigger muscles is to increase strength. Building bigger muscles often involves higher volume training, where a few more repetitions per set can help accelerate muscle growth through triggering protein synthesis. muscle.

Essentially, the more mechanical tension you can achieve in a workout session, the greater your potential for muscle growth.

To maximize your mechanical tension, you need more time under tension, which may correlate with higher repetitions without rest between repetitions (e.g. like, more repetitions in one set before resting through the next set).

The reason that increasing mechanical tension or time under tension in an exercise best facilitates muscle growth is because the longer your muscles contract or maintain effort against the load. the more mobilization units are mobilized.

To better understand how this has the potential to increase muscle mass, let’s briefly look at what motor units are and how motor units work.

A motor unit consists of a motor neuron, which originates in the brain, then travels to the muscle, where it innervates anywhere from just a few muscle fibers to over 1000 fibers, depending on size and muscle type.

When a motor neuron fires, all the muscle fibers in that motor unit contract as long as the neuromuscular signal (called an action potential) passes a certain intensity threshold.

With consistent exercise training, neuromuscular function improves and motor units can contract more efficiently and quickly without causing fatigue.

This results in more coordinated, stronger, and faster muscle contractions, allowing you to generate more power and strength.

There is an order in which motor units are recruited in a muscle when you are performing an exercise or contracting that muscle.

The reason training to failure is thought to stimulate muscle growth is because the greater the mechanical tension on your muscles and the longer they need to contract to produce force without rest. rest, the more motor units, and thus muscle fibers, are activated.

Essentially, although an individual motor unit operates on an “all or nothing” basis, most major muscles involved in strength training exercises have hundreds or even There are even thousands of movement units in there.

Our bodies are always looking for ways to use energy in the most efficient and economical way, so it will require as few motor units to be activated as possible to begin and continue to produce force for an exercise. exercise or to support your body during a daily movement activity.

Furthermore, when you first begin to contract your muscles, slow-twitch muscle fibers are the first to be recruited. Slow-twitch muscle fibers (type I fibers) are durable muscle fibers that can use oxygen to produce energy.

When slow-twitch muscle fibers tire, according to Henneman’s principle of muscle fiber activation, fast-twitch muscle fibers (type II muscle fibers) begin to contract to allow you to continue generating force to maintain the contraction. again.

As time passes and you continue to perform repetitions, more and more muscle fibers are recruited as other muscle fibers fatigue, so you can actually activate all or almost all of the fibers muscle within muscle.

Finally, by the time you reach the point of exhaustion when you train to failure, all the motor units, or all the muscle fibers, have been activated and used to their maximum capacity. they.

Increasing muscle size is primarily achieved through the growth of type II muscle fibers, so training to failure is a great way to really recruit all muscle fibers, especially those The most important muscle fiber you need to train when trying to achieve muscle hypertrophy.

Likewise, another benefit of training to failure for muscle growth is that when you don’t train with enough intensity, your potential muscle protein synthesis is not maximized. Multi.

By default, when you train to failure in a workout, you are using the maximum intensity you can sustain, which, in turn, can induce a more significant muscle protein synthesis response. much more than training with fewer repetitions and leaving more “in the workout”. tank.”

Finally, as mentioned, muscle growth, or hypertrophy training, is thought to be best aided by increasing your training volume.

Therefore, in theory, it seems that training to failure, which essentially maximizes the amount of volume you can handle, will optimize muscle building results.

So is there any downside to practicing to failure?

Although it sounds like practicing to failure can bring many benefits, there are also many risks if you decide to practice to exhaustion. Even the research is mixed on whether training to failure is actually beneficial.

First of all, practicing to failure is extremely uncomfortable and not fun for most people

As such, it can reduce motivation and increase psychological stress or fear when exercising. This can reduce your ability to stick to your strength training program or cause you to become more distracted during your workout.

In other words, you may find that your physical and mental energy to give it your all during strength training sessions wanes when you know you can’t stop until you’re exhausted.

You may even find that you’re reaching muscle failure sooner or with fewer repetitions simply because your central controller (or brain) is telling your body that it’s reached. Get the failure level so you can rest.

The mental impact of high-intensity strength training on muscle growth should not be underestimated.

Enjoying your workout, having a positive mindset, feeling motivated and energized can lead to better performance in the gym, which can ultimately lead to good results. than.

From a physiological standpoint, studies have found that training failure can lead to excessive muscle damage.

In turn, this will increase your recovery time and may mean you can’t do your next workout right away, reducing your training frequency and, therefore, your overall training volume.

Research shows that training to failure can prolong recovery time by up to 24 to 48 hours compared to stopping before reaching a state of exhaustion.

Furthermore, according to research, fatigue can build up over time as you train to failure, which can increase your risk of overtraining.

Research has even shown that in a given workout, when you perform a set where your muscles are not working, your performance in subsequent sets can suffer.

This will hinder your potential progress in the gym and your muscle growth.

If training to failure isn’t the best strategy for building muscle, what is?

PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD may be the answer for many people who do not want to exercise to the point of exhaustion but can still gain muscle.

Training is something that takes a long time, practicing to failure too early without gaining enough experience can affect the performance of each training session and cause the total training volume to decrease.

Not to mention constantly reaching a state of exhaustion can seriously affect your spirit, and of course when your spirit is affected it will also affect many other things you do such as work and life. Every day, relationships…

Most strength coaches and research recommend training 3-5 reps above your threshold of failure, and according to the RPE scale of perceived exertion, this equates to level 7-8

From a practical standpoint, this means that if you are capable of performing 14 repetitions with the weight you are using, then you should perform 9-11 repetitions to maximize benefits and lose weight. Minimize the risks of hypertrophy training at high volume.

Training to failure is not necessary if the goal is just to gain muscle, you can still gain muscle if you train regularly and gradually increase the weight over time to create PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD.