February 2, 2010

Why Training To Failure Is Important

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.

In this article today, I’m going to be explaining the importance of muscle failure and how to achieve it.

We’ve all been there. That point of complete exhaustion when your muscles cry Uncle and you can’t lift a single thing.

I was on the incline bench yesterday lifting a lot heavier weight than usual. On my third set, as I was coming down, my muscles reached their limit. If I didn’t have a spotter, 85 lbs would’ve come crashing onto my face.

I knew I was done with chest for the day, and unlike so many other trainees, I moved on to another exercise after that.

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.

This is important because you’ve now effectively torn that majority of the muscle. Giving you the maximum chance of recovery.

It’s like this. If you only damage 60% of your muscle, only 60% of it will repair itself. But if you damage 95% of your muscle, 95% will repair itself and you will see growth a lot faster. It may take longer to recover, but generally, you’ll see greater growth because you have greater repair going on.

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.

Of course, you need to know when you’re close to failing and communicate that, and your spotter needs to be vigilant.

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.

Get Big. Get Ripped. Get Fit With Mitch.

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