Why You Should Train To Muscle Failure
One of the best parts of the gym is the ability to grunt and make faces like a real brute and get away with it. This usually happens when you’re pushing through some pain and yelling at your muscles not to fail on you.
This article will show you why training to failure is important and how to do it properly.
Every person in the gym that’s worth their salt has pushed their muscles to the limit.
I reached failure yesterday on the incline bench with 85 lbs dumb bells. If I didn’t have a spotter, I would’ve been in serious trouble.
I knew I’d reached my limit on my chest so I moved on the next muscle, unlike most, that continue to pound away.
When you train to complete muscle failure, you’ve recruited (just about) every fiber in that muscle to do a particular movement and they’ve ALL failed. The lactic acid build up from your muscles oxidizing themselves has reached a critical limit and they can’t move anymore.
When you micro-tear most of the muscle, you’ve given yourself the maximum chance of recovery.
If you damage 60% of your muscle, that 60% will repair itself. But if you damage 98% of your muscle, you leave room for much greater repair. When more muscle repairs itself, you’ll see greater and faster growth. The time added to this growth is minimal compared to the extra gains you will see.
Make sure your tempo and technique remain constant. Be sure the failure is from your muscles and not your joints. Have a mind-over-matter attitude and push through the pain until you can’t perform the exercise any longer.
With that being said, it’s a good idea to have a spotter with you when you do this. Either your training partner, or someone else. This can be dangerous as I’ve pointed out above, but if you want to see greater growth, this is a great strategy.
Your spotter needs to be vigilant as to when you’re about to fail and you need to communicate your failure point with your spotter.
I would end with the cliche, No Pain, No Gain, but that’s not exactly true, lol. So I’ll just say, Train Hard and Train Smart.
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