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Training to failure for mass gain?

Franco78

New member
Hi guys!

Today i spoke with a trainer.
He says that to cause hypertrophy, the mass gain, must have to train your muscles until they fail.

For biceps example:
Curl dumbell 4x5+5+5+5 stripping technique Curl Barbell 4x5+max+max rest pause technique
Pull Ups for biceps super set with hammer curl 4x8

What do you think? don't you risk overtraining?

I for example, I'm used to doing for biceps:
Curl barbell 4x10
Panda Scott 4x10
Curl dumbell 3x10

His idea confused me...

What do you think?
 
Short answer: no, you don’t need to train to failure to elicit hypertrophy.

Long answer: Invalid Link Removed (someone shared this a couple weeks ago - great read).

Here’s a small excerpt from the intermediate section:

“1. Ramp up your training intensity for the main lifts a bit (doing most of your training with 75-85% of your max, with very little work below 70% and very little above 90% unless peaking for a meet) to continue improving your technique and skill lifting heavy weights.

2. Include more variation for your main lifts. This will allow you to push your lifts hard, while avoiding monotony and overuse injuries from sticking with the exact same movements all the time. Paused squat, front squat, close grip bench, bench from pins, opposite stance deadlifts, deficit deadlifts, etc.

3. Keep volume for your main lifts low to moderate, and stay at least 1-2 reps shy of failure at all times (avoiding technical failure). You don’t need a ton of high quality, heavy work to maintain and improve neural factors, but getting the bulk of your training volume from your main lifts will generally beat you up a bit more, and limit how much total training volume you can handle per session and per week.

4. Get the bulk of your training volume from accessory lifts for all major muscle groups, with sets of 6-15 reps, training each muscle/movement 2-3 times per week for 4-6 sets (or 40-70 total reps) per session. I recommend accessory lifts over lighter sets of squat, bench, and deadlift to cut down on risk of overuse injuries, and to keep training specificity high for the main lifts (since lifting heavy stuff for low reps and lighter stuff for higher reps are different skills, you don’t want to “water down” the motor learning you’re doing your main lifts, unless you’re splitting your training into more distinct phases, as we’ll discuss later).

5. Plan for weight increases and PR attempts for the big lifts on a realistic time scale. At first, use 4 week training blocks, shooting for small PRs every 4 weeks. When you aren’t hitting PRs consistently on that time scale any more, transition to 8 week cycles, then 12. You should be able to PR every 12 weeks (during bulk phases) throughout the duration of your time doing intermediate, hypertrophy-focused training.

6. Periodization isn’t overly important for hypertrophy, but varying your training a bit simply helps keep workouts feeling fresh.

7. Split your training into bulking and cutting phases. This generally allows you to gain muscle at a faster overall rate than attempting to gain it with minimal body fat fluctuations. Aim to gain about half a pound per week until your body fat percentage reaches about 20-22% for men, and 28-30% for women, then slowly cut back down to 10-15% for men, and 20-25% for women, losing about 1% of your bodyweight per week. I’d highly recommend this article for more in-depth details.

8. Don’t tie up too much of your time in training to peak for competitions. A simple 3-4 week peak will be enough for most people to hit very solid lifts on the platform since you’re training the main lifts fairly heavy throughout this period.”
 
aaronuconn said:
Short answer: no, you don’t need to train to failure to elicit hypertrophy.

Long answer: Invalid Link Removed (someone shared this a couple weeks ago - great read).

Here’s a small excerpt from the intermediate section:

“1. Ramp up your training intensity for the main lifts a bit (doing most of your training with 75-85% of your max, with very little work below 70% and very little above 90% unless peaking for a meet) to continue improving your technique and skill lifting heavy weights.

2. Include more variation for your main lifts. This will allow you to push your lifts hard, while avoiding monotony and overuse injuries from sticking with the exact same movements all the time. Paused squat, front squat, close grip bench, bench from pins, opposite stance deadlifts, deficit deadlifts, etc.

3. Keep volume for your main lifts low to moderate, and stay at least 1-2 reps shy of failure at all times (avoiding technical failure). You don’t need a ton of high quality, heavy work to maintain and improve neural factors, but getting the bulk of your training volume from your main lifts will generally beat you up a bit more, and limit how much total training volume you can handle per session and per week.

4. Get the bulk of your training volume from accessory lifts for all major muscle groups, with sets of 6-15 reps, training each muscle/movement 2-3 times per week for 4-6 sets (or 40-70 total reps) per session. I recommend accessory lifts over lighter sets of squat, bench, and deadlift to cut down on risk of overuse injuries, and to keep training specificity high for the main lifts (since lifting heavy stuff for low reps and lighter stuff for higher reps are different skills, you don’t want to “water down” the motor learning you’re doing your main lifts, unless you’re splitting your training into more distinct phases, as we’ll discuss later).

5. Plan for weight increases and PR attempts for the big lifts on a realistic time scale. At first, use 4 week training blocks, shooting for small PRs every 4 weeks. When you aren’t hitting PRs consistently on that time scale any more, transition to 8 week cycles, then 12. You should be able to PR every 12 weeks (during bulk phases) throughout the duration of your time doing intermediate, hypertrophy-focused training.

6. Periodization isn’t overly important for hypertrophy, but varying your training a bit simply helps keep workouts feeling fresh.

7. Split your training into bulking and cutting phases. This generally allows you to gain muscle at a faster overall rate than attempting to gain it with minimal body fat fluctuations. Aim to gain about half a pound per week until your body fat percentage reaches about 20-22% for men, and 28-30% for women, then slowly cut back down to 10-15% for men, and 20-25% for women, losing about 1% of your bodyweight per week. I’d highly recommend this article for more in-depth details.

8. Don’t tie up too much of your time in training to peak for competitions. A simple 3-4 week peak will be enough for most people to hit very solid lifts on the platform since you’re training the main lifts fairly heavy throughout this period.”
Click to expand...

Wow! great answer!!!
Thanks bro
 
Yeah, the science shows you will adapt to a stress, regardless of if that stress is 100%. Which makes some sense. You don't need to get a sunburn to get a tan.

Having said that, I believe training to failure is a great way to train. But 4 sets to failure, as you suspect, is a great way to overtrain- especially is you are going beyond failure with drop sets.

I personally do 1 triple drop set per bodypart per workout, training each bodypart 4 times in 3 weeks. Even with such a low volume and reasonable frequency I can tell I need a break every 6-10 weeks. But it has also created some of the most consistent gains I have ever seen in 25 years of training.
 
HIT4ME said:
Yeah, the science shows you will adapt to a stress, regardless of if that stress is 100%. Which makes some sense. You don't need to get a sunburn to get a tan.

Having said that, I believe training to failure is a great way to train. But 4 sets to failure, as you suspect, is a great way to overtrain- especially is you are going beyond failure with drop sets.

I personally do 1 triple drop set per bodypart per workout, training each bodypart 4 times in 3 weeks. Even with such a low volume and reasonable frequency I can tell I need a break every 6-10 weeks. But it has also created some of the most consistent gains I have ever seen in 25 years of training.
Click to expand...

I may be misunderstanding you, but let’s say you’re training chest. Does your entire chest training session consist of some warmups, then a triple drop set, or is a triple drop set how you finish each session?

Also, how long are each of your training sessions? I’d imagine if you’re doing the former of what I laid out above, that makes for a relatively quick session
 
But I also love incorporating drop sets and rest-pause sets. Probably lean more heavily towards rest-pause sets as I’m training by myself in a home gym and adjusting weights takes too long for it to be a proper drop set typically
 
aaronuconn said:
I may be misunderstanding you, but let’s say you’re training chest. Does your entire chest training session consist of some warmups, then a triple drop set, or is a triple drop set how you finish each session?

Also, how long are each of your training sessions? I’d imagine if you’re doing the former of what I laid out above, that makes for a relatively quick session
Click to expand...

So, my workout is basically split S a PPL, 4x per week.

I basically rotate with a heavy compound, lighter isolation, heavy compound again, medium isolation or compound- but that order will start depending on the other exercises in the day. So, for instance, on days I do heavy push presses, I am not going to be doing bench presses as well.

So push day 1 is Dumbbell flies, shoulder push presses, and close grip bench presses.

Push day 2 is flat bench, regular military presses, rope press downs.

Push day 3 is incline presses, push press, close grip bench presses.

Push day 4 is flat bench, dumbbell presses, lying French presses.

For dumbbell flyes I will do 1 warm up and the. 2 sets to failure because dropping the weight on the adjustable dumbbells I have and then getting back in position is just unreasonable for a drop set. Wish I had a rack of dumbbells...but $$$

Everything else in this list is a 15 rep warmup and then 1 triple drop set to failure each drop. If it sokething like squats or deadlifts I may do 2 or 3 warm up sets and I am no longer doing triple drops on deadlifts. Triple drops on squats can be the most brutal thing I have ever experienced, with DOMS like pain setting in within minutes of the set, for real.

My workouts generally take 30-40 minutes but I could probably bang it out in under 20 if I needed...I just take long breaks between bodyparts to make sure I can muster the true mental intensity to hit failure like this.

It is a lot like Doggcrapp training mixed with some Mentzer.

I was setting PRs on everything except deadlifts up until 2 weeks ago when I hurt my back. Not sure if I am getting old, but I suspect my form was failing on triple drop deads and I pulled a muscle just enough that I feel fine mostly until I start hip hinging under loads.

I started this routine in March after a long lay off and the gains were consistent until I reached all of my lifetime max weights, and they slowed a bit but I am still gaining. If I didn't hurt my back I have no doubt I would be well beyond my records in almost everything.
 
Not at all. Good information in this thread. As an old timer (53 yrs old), you will learn that maxing out like your trainer advised can suck the gains right off of you and lead to injury. Don't max out on everything all the time, but max out on one body area each workout. And don't maxout on the same area more than once a week.
 
HIT4ME said:
So, my workout is basically split S a PPL, 4x per week.

I basically rotate with a heavy compound, lighter isolation, heavy compound again, medium isolation or compound- but that order will start depending on the other exercises in the day. So, for instance, on days I do heavy push presses, I am not going to be doing bench presses as well.

So push day 1 is Dumbbell flies, shoulder push presses, and close grip bench presses.

Push day 2 is flat bench, regular military presses, rope press downs.

Push day 3 is incline presses, push press, close grip bench presses.

Push day 4 is flat bench, dumbbell presses, lying French presses.

For dumbbell flyes I will do 1 warm up and the. 2 sets to failure because dropping the weight on the adjustable dumbbells I have and then getting back in position is just unreasonable for a drop set. Wish I had a rack of dumbbells...but $$$

Everything else in this list is a 15 rep warmup and then 1 triple drop set to failure each drop. If it sokething like squats or deadlifts I may do 2 or 3 warm up sets and I am no longer doing triple drops on deadlifts. Triple drops on squats can be the most brutal thing I have ever experienced, with DOMS like pain setting in within minutes of the set, for real.

My workouts generally take 30-40 minutes but I could probably bang it out in under 20 if I needed...I just take long breaks between bodyparts to make sure I can muster the true mental intensity to hit failure like this.

It is a lot like Doggcrapp training mixed with some Mentzer.

I was setting PRs on everything except deadlifts up until 2 weeks ago when I hurt my back. Not sure if I am getting old, but I suspect my form was failing on triple drop deads and I pulled a muscle just enough that I feel fine mostly until I start hip hinging under loads.

I started this routine in March after a long lay off and the gains were consistent until I reached all of my lifetime max weights, and they slowed a bit but I am still gaining. If I didn't hurt my back I have no doubt I would be well beyond my records in almost everything.
Click to expand...

Ok, you follow a fullbody workout 4 time a week?

And you train every muscular group with 1 set of warmup (2/3 for squat and deadlift) and 1 set with drop?

Right?

If so... i never tried a full body training
 
Franco78 said:
Ok, you follow a fullbody workout 4 time a week?

And you train every muscular group with 1 set of warmup (2/3 for squat and deadlift) and 1 set with drop?

Right?

If so... i never tried a full body training
Click to expand...

No, I do a push, pull, legs split 4x per week....ok, I set it up as pull, push, legs but....that means:

Day 1: Back and biceps.
Day 2: Chest, shoulders and triceps
Day 3: Legs
 
Franco78 said:
Hi guys!

Today i spoke with a trainer.
He says that to cause hypertrophy, the mass gain, must have to train your muscles until they fail.

For biceps example:
Curl dumbell 4x5+5+5+5 stripping technique Curl Barbell 4x5+max+max rest pause technique
Pull Ups for biceps super set with hammer curl 4x8

What do you think? don't you risk overtraining?

I for example, I'm used to doing for biceps:
Curl barbell 4x10
Panda Scott 4x10
Curl dumbell 3x10

His idea confused me...

What do you think?
Click to expand...

I've pretty much been training to failure on most sets since I was 14, unless it's a superset or dropset (most every set), then I'll save a little for the drop. I don't get that good pump feeling (the whole reason I go to the gym) if I'm counting reps.
 
HIT4ME said:
No, I do a push, pull, legs split 4x per week....ok, I set it up as pull, push, legs but....that means:

Day 1: Back and biceps.
Day 2: Chest, shoulders and triceps
Day 3: Legs
Click to expand...

old skool....same exact workout here. Although leg day day varies when i'm feeling the best and got some sleep the night before.
 
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