Have you ever heard the concept of training to failure? Training to failure is a popular methodology utilized by people who are trying to focus on muscle growth and size (hypertrophy). This methodology is used as a way to completely exhaust the muscles, accrue a large amount of volume (total work), and create cellular stress. This method has gained a lot of popularity in the bodybuilding community because it causes people to feel a “pump.”

Popular Doesn’t Mean Correct

If working until failure isn’t something that sounds fun or enticing, the good news is you don’t have to in order to see results. In fact, training until failure can actually have a detrimental effect on hypertrophy. The amount of cellular stress and muscle tissue damage cause by training until failure makes it extremely hard to recover from the workout. What most people forget is that it’s the recovery process that enables muscle growth and strength progress. 

Working to failure has other risks, especially when using compound movements. Doing deadlifts until failure sounds like a great opportunity to throw out your lower back. So instead of working until failure to expedite progress, try increasing the total work for your workouts (reps x sets x weight used). Small incremental increases in working volume over time is a sure fire way to see hypertrophy progress without undergoing the risk of training until failure.

Fear Not For You Have Options

This strategy may not be effective, but the good news is there are plenty of strategies that are. If you want to learn more strategies that deal with changing the composition of your body, make sure to join my free facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/nerdswholiftweights).