Last week, I shared that the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recently released a landmark update to their position on resistance training.
Today, in part 2 of my review, we’re diving into a key topic they covered - the concept of training to failure.
I especially appreciated this portion of the study. It’s always healthy to update the software of our training models and do away with outdated beliefs.
Before I get into the findings, it's important to define our terms. "Failure" is a bit of a misnomer in the fitness world because there is no universal definition. Think of it like acell phone battery life... there's technical failure and absolute failure:
- Technical Failure: Your phone hits 1% and enters "Low Power Mode." It’s still on, but it’s dim, slow, and won't let you open heavy apps.
- Absolute Failure: The screen goes black and it completely dies.
In the gym, when people talk about failure, they usually are referring to technical failure, i.e., the point where you can no longer complete a rep with perfect form or finish the "upward" (concentric) motion. Even if you can’t finish a bicep curl perfectly, your muscle isn't "dead," so to speak; you could probably cheat and use your back to swing it up, or slowly lower the weight (eccentric strength).
Now that you know what failure really is and how it's defined, here's what the ACSM found...
You do not need to go to failure for long-term health.
In my opinion, this is a win for most people.
Eliminating extreme fatigue greatly reduces the risk of injury. Injury happens when the external force applied to a tissue exceeds that tissue's capacity to handle it. To stick with the cell phone analogy, by staying a few reps away from the "blackout screen," you keep your joints and tissues in the safety zone.
Now, while you don't need to hit failure, I see a common problem in the gym...
Most people have no idea where their threshold actually is!
I recently was talking to a gym-goer who was powering through a massive amount of reps. When I asked why they were doing 30 in a row, they said, "Well, my program says 3 sets of 10, so I just do them all at once without stopping."
This is a prime example of insufficient stimulus. If you don't need to rest between sets, you aren't pushing close enough to the "burn" to see real change. To grow lean muscle, you need adequate stimulus. You don't have to hit a wall, but you do need to lean into some significant (and healthy) discomfort.
With that said, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the benefit of mental toughness and the "self-limiting" rule. I’m still a believer in occasionally pushing to the limit (failure) for two reasons:
- Mental Discipline: If you can discipline your body to push through discomfort, you can discipline almost anything in your life.
- Calibration: You need to know where 100% is so you can accurately train at 80%.
As I mentioned in my last post, you need to weigh the risk-to-reward ratio of any given exercise. That will let you know how hard you can push. I only recommend hitting failure on what I like to call "self-limiting" exercises. For example:
- Safe Failure (The Sled Push): If you go to failure on a sled push, you just stop moving. Your heart rate peaks, your legs burn, and you’re done. Your risk of injury is likely very low.
- Dangerous Failure (The Max Squat): If you hit absolute failure on a heavy back squat, you risk a herniated disc or a collapsed lift. In this case, your risk of injury is likely very high.
In conclusion, you don't need to train to failure to be healthy or make progress, which is great news for those who hate the burn of exercise or have some type of health limitation. While not mandatory, training to failure is a tool to break through plateaus, provided you choose the right exercises and respect your body’s limits.
Not sure where to start with any of this? We specialize in an integrated, orthopedically-minded approach to fitness. We help you find the sweet spot of effort that gets results while keeping you moving well.
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