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A long time ago I remember reading, probably on misc.fitness.weights or something like that, that the lay crowds misunderstood “to failure”, and that it was int

by jghn 4y ago

A long time ago I remember reading, probably on misc.fitness.weights or something like that, that the lay crowds misunderstood “to failure”, and that it was intended to mean “until you can’t maintain perfect form”. No idea if there was ever a shred of scientific method behind that statement but it struck me as good common sense wisdom anyways.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
> A long time ago I remember reading, probably on misc.fitness.weights or something like that, that the lay crowds misunderstood “to failure”, and that it was intended to mean “until you can’t maintain perfect form”. That seems funny to me. While someone's form breaking down leads to inefficiencies in specific muscle targeting and / or an increased chance of injury I think that approach would end up leading to people bailing when things start to get hard. I've seen a lot of people never put additional weight on the bar because they were afraid of their form breaking down when in reality measured incremental load increases are what helps makes one big and strong.
- debacle 4y ago
  A good example of "to failure" is when you can't perform a lift symmetrically, or you find yourself cheating by e.g. moving your elbows, lifting your heels, etc.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    So the idea is that the minute you're moving your elbows you're no longer getting any training benefit from the activity?
    - vidarh 4y ago
      I believe the thinking is more that you're taking an injury risk that gain you nothing compared to stopping and resting, and doing another set once recovered if you want more volume. Because injury will set you back far more than missing out on a few reps.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        Certain breakdowns of form certainly will cause injury. You don't want to round your lower back while dead lifting, but adding a bit of swing to your bicep curls will not.
    - debacle 4y ago
      The idea is that you are increasing your chance of injury because you've hit short term hypotrophy of the CNS/muscle. "To failure" is a relative term. Someone who has lifting for a very long time knows their body very well. "To failure" some days might mean they don't even finish their warmup.
      - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
        The reason I started this whole conversation was in response to the quote that failure is “until you can’t maintain perfect form”, which implies it's not a relative term.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- jghn 4y ago
  > end up leading to people bailing when things start to get hard Funny you should say that as I remember it coming up in the counterarguments at the time. Both in terms of neuromuscular control and also general personal motivation type angles.
- naasking 4y ago
  > I think that approach would end up leading to people bailing when things start to get hard. If you can still maintain form while it's hard, then you haven't reached the limit yet. Velocity of a lift decreases as you approach failure (you're in the "hard zone"), but you should keep going until you either can't complete rep without twisting and cheating, or if you know yourself well enough that you know you'll have to do that on the next rep. Periodically you should try going to actual failure to make sure you know what that really feels like.
flamebreath447 4y ago
There are a couple different definitions of failures Mechanical failure - your form is being compromised, usually induced by muscular load Throughput failure - you could maintain form but your cardiovascular capacity is the limiting factor and you are starting to decrease in tempo (either in the eccentric or concentric) Partial Failure - you use assistance on the concentric or eccentric to continue to do the one that’s still has workload capacity Each type of failure induces a different level of lactic acid build up, or muscle tearing, and can be increased in different ways. Usually one of them is a limiting factor and is why progressive overload is proven to improve strength and size. Most of the people I’ve worked with don’t know true failure (within 1-2 RIR [reps in reserve] left) because they’re limited in cardiovascular capacity to even reach failure or they aren’t pushing themselves due to fear of form breakage/injury. The reality is you shouldn’t be doing 1 rep maxes often, but you should be lowering the weight and experiencing true failure in order to progressive overload properly.

by jghn 4y ago

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

> A long time ago I remember reading, probably on misc.fitness.weights or something like that, that the lay crowds misunderstood “to failure”, and that it was intended to mean “until you can’t maintain perfect form”. That seems funny to me. While someone's form breaking down leads to inefficiencies in specific muscle targeting and / or an increased chance of injury I think that approach would end up leading to people bailing when things start to get hard. I've seen a lot of people never put additional weight on the bar because they were afraid of their form breaking down when in reality measured incremental load increases are what helps makes one big and strong.

debacle 4y ago
A good example of "to failure" is when you can't perform a lift symmetrically, or you find yourself cheating by e.g. moving your elbows, lifting your heels, etc.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  So the idea is that the minute you're moving your elbows you're no longer getting any training benefit from the activity?
  - vidarh 4y ago
    I believe the thinking is more that you're taking an injury risk that gain you nothing compared to stopping and resting, and doing another set once recovered if you want more volume. Because injury will set you back far more than missing out on a few reps.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Certain breakdowns of form certainly will cause injury. You don't want to round your lower back while dead lifting, but adding a bit of swing to your bicep curls will not.
  - debacle 4y ago
    The idea is that you are increasing your chance of injury because you've hit short term hypotrophy of the CNS/muscle. "To failure" is a relative term. Someone who has lifting for a very long time knows their body very well. "To failure" some days might mean they don't even finish their warmup.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      The reason I started this whole conversation was in response to the quote that failure is “until you can’t maintain perfect form”, which implies it's not a relative term.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
jghn 4y ago
> end up leading to people bailing when things start to get hard Funny you should say that as I remember it coming up in the counterarguments at the time. Both in terms of neuromuscular control and also general personal motivation type angles.
naasking 4y ago
> I think that approach would end up leading to people bailing when things start to get hard. If you can still maintain form while it's hard, then you haven't reached the limit yet. Velocity of a lift decreases as you approach failure (you're in the "hard zone"), but you should keep going until you either can't complete rep without twisting and cheating, or if you know yourself well enough that you know you'll have to do that on the next rep. Periodically you should try going to actual failure to make sure you know what that really feels like.

flamebreath447 4y ago

There are a couple different definitions of failures Mechanical failure - your form is being compromised, usually induced by muscular load Throughput failure - you could maintain form but your cardiovascular capacity is the limiting factor and you are starting to decrease in tempo (either in the eccentric or concentric) Partial Failure - you use assistance on the concentric or eccentric to continue to do the one that’s still has workload capacity Each type of failure induces a different level of lactic acid build up, or muscle tearing, and can be increased in different ways. Usually one of them is a limiting factor and is why progressive overload is proven to improve strength and size. Most of the people I’ve worked with don’t know true failure (within 1-2 RIR [reps in reserve] left) because they’re limited in cardiovascular capacity to even reach failure or they aren’t pushing themselves due to fear of form breakage/injury. The reality is you shouldn’t be doing 1 rep maxes often, but you should be lowering the weight and experiencing true failure in order to progressive overload properly.