How Often Should You Take Your Sets to Fail?

The Strength Log

Do you build more muscle mass when you train to failure, versus stopping a few reps short?

In today's episode, we discuss a new study that examined this. Then we’ll zoom out and debate a lot of different scenarios, to give you a better understanding of when it might matter more if you train to fail, and when it might matter less.

Two common definitions of training to fail are muscular failure (when you can’t lift the weight anymore, no matter what), and technical failure (when you can’t lift the weight anymore with the technique you want to use). Both definitions are legitimate, and regardless of which one you use for your training, we believe you will learn useful information from this episode!

We finish by answering a handful of questions from our listeners on this topic, including:

• How hard is knowing when you’re 1–2 reps from failure?
• How does training to fail affect recovery?

Let’s go balls to the wall!

***

Do you like what you hear so far? Please leave a five-star review in your podcast player. And hit that subscribe button!

You can also follow us on Instagram. You’ll find Daniel at @strengthdan, and Philip at @philipwildenstam.

Become a part of our community on Facebook here.

***

This podcast is brought to you by Styrkelabbet AB, Sweden.

To support us, download our free workout tracker app StrengthLog. It's completely ad-free and the most generous workout tracker app on the market, giving you access to unlimited workout logging, lots of workouts and training programs, and much, much more even if you stay a free user for life.