Do You Need to Train to Muscle Failure for Hypertrophy

Training to muscle failure in order to gain muscle mass has been a staple in lifting culture for some time. In his book The Science and Practice of Strength Training, Vladimir Zatsiorsky wrote that “a muscle fiber that is recruited but not fatigued is not being trained.”[1] However, those seeking impressive muscle gains were already training to muscle failure long before he published his book. So was he just confirming what others already knew to be true?

We've all heard pro bodybuilders talk about training with 100% effort every day and focusing on those last few reps, but as time goes on it seems that there may be a better way to achieve hypertrophy than training to muscle failure.

Go Big or Go Home

Bodybuilding in the traditional sense is inspiring to many people. Those who are involved in weightlifting know how much work it takes to maintain an impressively muscular physique. It's important to note the difference between those who use steroids and those who don't. There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of pharmaceuticals as long as it's done correctly and safely. However, it's important to understand that those who use steroids have an advantage when it comes to recoverability.

How Much Should I Be Training?

You would be surprised how small an amount of weight muscles need to lift to grow. We often see it with novice weight lifters – those individuals who, in their first year or two, see amazing results if they put in the work. Only when they have a surprised look on their faces when the same methods stop working as well as they did those first couple of years do the rest of us smile and say “welcome to the show.”

Unfortunately, there are not many studies on advanced trainees. However, we can still paint a pretty solid picture of what our aim should be. Wernbor et al. concluded that while there is not enough evidence to make a recommendation for high-level lifters, both novice and intermediate will benefit more from higher frequency training per muscle group with novice trainees benefiting from training muscle group up to four times per week, and intermediate trainees training each muscle group two to three times per week[2]. The relationship seems to depend on a trainee’s ability to perform higher-effort sets and is also dependent on the volume that each muscle is exposed to.However, this data is not perfect and it should not be taken as meaning that you should do two to three full training sessions per week per muscle group. Rather, you should include an exercise or two for that muscle group several times per week. Now, onto the fun part!

More Pain, Less Gain

Think about the last time you either started a new program or had an extremely high volume training session to failure. How did you feel the following days? Chances are, you were pretty sore and wouldn't be able to do that same workout the next day.

It is not probable that you would be able to perform as well if you were tired.

Initially, it was thought that in order to achieve the greatest amount of muscle growth, one had to incur the greatest amount of muscle damage. However, when researchers took a closer look at what was happening to the muscles in the hours after a resistance training session that caused a high degree of muscle damage, they found that the resulting increase in muscle size was mostly due to swelling, and that the elevation of myofibrillar protein synthesis was directed more towards repairing and remodeling muscle, rather than causing muscle growth. In fact, it appears that muscle growth is actually inversely related to high levels of muscle damage.

To be fair, the effect of this is not very long lasting. Our bodies adapt to the damage of a given training session and muscle growth increases. So if we eventually get used to the amount of muscle damage, how does training to muscle failure fit in?

Muscle Failure versus Gains

You might think that training to failure would promote muscle growth, as the point of that style of training is to create as much muscle damage as possible. However, this might not always be the case. It is possible to train too hard, which can actually lead to stunted growth.

If you generally train with heavy loads, it doesn't appear that taking your sets to failure (not being able to complete the set) has any additional benefit over not taking them to failure, when volume (the total amount of work done) is equal.[6] However, when using low loads (around 30% of your one-repetition maximum, or 1RM), it takes more effort to induce a muscle-building response, and that's where training to failure has been shown to have a benefit.

In the study by Lacerda et al., the participants were divided into two groups, those who did exercises until they reached muscle failure, and those who did not. The purpose of the study was to see if it was more important to do a certain number of repetitions, or to do a certain amount of work (measured by the total volume) in order to increase strength and muscle size. The results showed that training until reaching muscle failure or stopping just short of it produced similar results in terms of strength and muscle growth.

Is Training To Failure Good?

Training to failure is commonly thought of as the best way to train for muscle growth for a few main reasons.

The main driver of muscle growth is mechanical tension. To maximize mechanical tension and the resulting growth from each of your sets, you need to be able to recruit as many muscle fibres as possible during that set.

What research has shown is that as we do additional repetitions and get closer to failure during a set, our muscle experiences more motor unit recruitment and overall muscle activation. This means that in theory, going to failure would lead to maximal motor unit recruitment and mechanical tension, and thus more growth.

Muscle protein synthesis is lower when you don't train hard, which means you won't grow as much.

It would appear that doing more repetitions per set would lead to more muscle growth, given the positive relationship between workout volume and muscle growth.

Training to failure seems to be the best way to maximize growth.

Well, not so fast.

Training To Failure Comes With A Cost

The negative aspects of training to failure outweigh the positives for most people. It's unpleasant, tiring, and requires a lot of motivation to stick with.

The research has shown that training until you can't go anymore causes a lot of damage to your muscles and makes it so that it takes you much longer to recover. For most people, it takes about 24 to 48 hours longer to recover from working out until failure than it does to stop just before failure. This can be a problem since it means that you can't workout as often.

Additionally, damage to muscles can have a negative impact on future workouts later in the week. This can inhibit your ability to perform well in those workouts.

The text is discussing the negative effects of working out too much. It says that research has shown that when people work out for long periods of time, they eventually reach a state of “overtraining.” This state causes a reduction in their anabolic hormones, which makes it harder to build muscle.

There are various benefits to pushing yourself to the limit and training to failure every workout, but there are also potential downsides. You're probably wondering just how hard you should train to maximize growth.

There is an ideal balance that can be struck.

But Going Too Far From Training To Failure Is Also Inferior For Muscle Growth

You should get close to failure during your sets, but not all the way to failure, in order to maximize muscle growth.

In other words, if I do a set of curls and can't finish the set, it's a very difficult and tiring set. If I only do 1-3 reps before I have to stop, it's still a demanding set.

Even though people might not realize it, they can usually do more reps than they think they can before failing. This often leads to them not training as hard as they could be.

This was shown in a 2017 paper. They found that subjects significantly underpredicted the number of reps they could do to failure:

• Least experienced lifters – underpredicted by around 4-5 reps on average
• Most experienced lifters – underpredicting by around 1-2 reps on average

Final Word

So far we know that in order to see significant progress in muscle hypertrophy, we should train the target muscles 2-3 times per week. We also understand that too much volume can cause muscle damage, which can impede our ability to recover and grow. Therefore, it is a priority to first decide on a total number of sets/week for a given muscle group, and then split that volume over a training week. This will ensure that we can hit our working volume without creating too many “junk reps” that just cause us to fatigue.

The type of load you select will determine the style of training you might use. If you're training with a higher load, you can train 2-3 reps away from failure and see the same results. As you start to decrease the load, you will still see growth as the reps increase, but here is where you can start adding sets to failure. The goal is to use movements that have the lowest effect on central fatigue and create failure in the local muscle.