If You Train To Failure You're Training To Fail

 What that means is if you always train to failure eventually you're going to fail in your activities. Your central nervous system will be fried. Instead train for success.

 Maximal strength and even strength endurance need to be built carefully. Maximal strength means low rep activities like overhead and bench presses, squats, and dead lifts. There are also a few body weight examples like 1 arm push ups and 1 leg squats. No one has ever made progress just mindlessly trying to crank out more reps but instead failing, often hurting themselves in the process. All this does is lead to setbacks, frustration, and often just quitting.

 The key to success for strength is not more reps per se but rather generating maximal tension within the body, then practicing it regularly, while at the same time staying fresh. The body will eventually get in to a groove and produce results.

 The 2 most well known strength experts , at least with weights, are power lifters and Olympic lifters. Power lifters almost never go beyond 5 reps per set. Often they'll train a specific lift once a week using 5 reps x 5 sets with 75+% of their max weight. Note we're talking 1 lift  once a week, not all 3 lifts 5 or 6 days a week. The rest of the week they may use other low rep plans, such as 3 reps x 3 sets while using 90% of their max, or maybe even 1 rep x 16 -20 sets using 95% of their max. You'll notice in all cases they're using heavy weights while still not maxing out  nor are they doing lots of non stop reps but rather a few reps at a time while putting intense effort.They also leave a few in the tank, meaning they could have done a couple of more reps but they stopped while they were ahead. Intensity is more important than reps.

  Olympic lifts are more technical so they usually do 1 -2 reps at a time with numerous sets. They also lift heavy, 50% -80% of their max depending on their exercise. They do sometimes also do 5 x 5 but that's a lower weight and often a variation of an exercise. They also train 5-6 days a week. They train frequently but not to failure. They stay fresh, building their skill.

 Even strength endurance can be developed by careful training. Marine officer Greg Donahue wrote how he trained for 20 pull ups by carefully doing 60% -70% of his max reps once a day, 5 -6 days a week. In the article he wrote how Pavel Tsatsoulines father in law was able to do 20 pull ups by doing 5 pull ups through out the day. He also notes body builder Clarence Bass who did 10 pull ups 2 or 3 times a day and eventually also made it to 20 pull ups.While the 3 men trained slightly different they all trained  daily and they all avoided failure. Their central nervous system was trained to complete reps.

  With maximal body weight strength exercises , like the 1 arm push up or 1 leg squat, not training to failure is even more important. You're using your whole body. This requires full concentration and full maximal internal tension. Such tension can be held for only so long.

  I can say from experience that frequent but not all out training can pay off.  My best weight to strength dead lift, which I have a video of on this blog, was a 300 lb pull with a body weight of 136.6. About 21/4 x my weight. I got there using much of what pavel tsatsouline outlined in his book "Power To The People". Basically he says to do 2 sets of 5 reps ( he has since changed it 3 sets going 5, 3, 2 ). A total of 10 reps. Also , you use progressive weight increases in work out after work out. But you stop before you get to your maximal weight. Instead you go back to start a new cycle but now you start with 5 lbs more than you did last time. I did this. I also tweaked it in little ways. I sometimes did singles x 10 - 20 sets or doubles x 10 sets. But other than an infrequent test, I never maxed out or failed. I did however train 5 - 6 days a week.  I also took long rests ( 2:00 -5:00 ) between sets. This definitely worked.

 I also have finally achieved the 1 leg squat. I'll go into detail how I achieved it in a future post . The short of it was I trained daily, but never failed. I sometimes would train more than once a day but carefully. Doing it right is far more important than just mindlessly shooting for more reps.

  There is a place for max reps , particularly with strength endurance, but even here it should be limited. Some trainers like former SEAL Stew Smith have you do a day of max rep, set after set. But this is just once a week. The rest of the week is normal training . And it may take more than a day to recover, which isn't really good.  While you can train to failure once a week with strength endurance,  anything more will set you back. Instead a good idea is to do circuits but keep the reps at 25% -30% and certainly no more than 50% of your max reps. Example: if your max pull ups is 10 , your max push ups is 30,  and your max leg raises is 40, you could do 3 pull ups, then immediately 10 push ups, and finally 15 - 20 leg raises. Do that for 5 - 10 sets. 10 sets would mean 30 pull ups, 100 push ups, and 150 - 200 leg raises in a work out. You could in theory do that every day although I would recommend mixing up the exercises .  Maybe mountain climber pull ups,diamond push ups, and flutter kicks on the next day. You get the idea.

  There are a couple of reasons for the wrong, "always train to failure" attitude out there. Modern body building started it because the American public confused looks with fitness. And of course I'm going to beat up on a frequent target of mine, the commercial fitness industry. The vast majority of commercial gyms don't care what works, they just want members. And of course most of the trainers in these places don't know any better and they themselves follow this logic. See how many of them have anything to show for it. I believe Mark Twain said something like "Get your facts right , then you can twist them."

  Seriously, whatever you train for, train with progression, not regression. I think you'll like that much more.