Fail—to be strong

Muscle & Fitness, Oct, 2004 by Jim Stoppani

Bodybuilders frequently train to failure when they work out--it's how they define intensity. Powerlifters and other strength athletes, on the other hand, define intensity by the amount of weight they lift; they rarely train to failure. Yet if your goal is to build strength, you may want to think more like a bodybuilder. Thanks to researchers at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra, it now appears that going to failure is important for maximizing strength gains. The question is: How often should you go to failure when lifting? That's exactly what the Australian research team recently set out to discover.

Failing Science | Aussie scientists performed two studies to address the failure question. In the first, they had athletes perform either four sets of six reps (with failure being reached on the last set) or eight sets of three reps (without ever reaching failure) on the bench press. At the end of the study, the failure group demonstrated double the strength increase (about 10% vs. about 5%) of the group that did not train to failure. The second study looked at the amount of failure required to maximize strength. Three groups of athletes trained for six weeks on the bench press. Group 1 trained with four sets of six reps (reaching failure about four times per workout), Group 2 trained with eight sets of three reps (reaching failure about two times per workout) and Group 3 trained with 12 sets of three reps (reaching failure about four times per workout). Despite the difference in the amount of times they reached failure in each workout, all groups had an increase in strength of about 6%.

SUCCESS IN FAILURE

This graph shows the percent increase in bench-press strength observed in relation to the number of times failure was reached. Although this graph uses data from two different studies, it's easy to see which method works best to maximize strength. Training to failure is a must, but too much is counterproductive.

HOW TO FAIL TO SUCCEED

BASED ON THE RESEARCH from AIS, if you're training to maximize strength, consider going to failure only on the last set of the exercise. Training to failure more than once will not lead to better strength gains and may actually limit your progress. Not going to failure at all also appears to limit the amount of strength you will gain.

BY JIM STOPPANI, PHD