FAQ

There's a number of reasons why training to failure consistently doesn't make sense in the long term.

1. You’re more likely to get injured. When you’re injured, you can’t train properly, and that could mean you ultimately end up losing muscle as a consequence of spending time out of the gym. Training to failure is very demanding on the body & by constantly pushing yourself to your absolute limits, the risk of injury naturally becomes far higher. 

2. Going to failure is MASSIVELY demanding on your central nervous system. Central nervous system fatigue is rather debilitating, and will drastically affect your ability to perform in the gym in addition to your ability to recover. Consistently going to failure when you train will contribute to far more central nervous system fatigue. 

3. Training to failure is not necessary for building muscle. You need to stimulate, not annihilate - the driving force behind building muscle is progressive overload (lifting more and more total training volume over time). You don't need to be consistently going to failure in order for this to happen. Plus, how do you continue increasing volume over time after you've reached failure a few times? How can you possibly hope to continue doing more than failing? You'll inevitably end up seeing a reduction in training volume because you can't possibly continue to lift 'more'. 

4. It's likely you'll allow poorer execution to bleed into your workouts. Perhaps not something that is necessarily going to happen, however there's certainly a greater risk of your form deteriorating when consistently going to failure, and that could mean you struggle to target the specific muscles in question (the ones that you're actually trying to target).

5. While your muscles may take a pounding on a set where you go to failure, your joints and tendons do too. Going consistently to failure all the time is a surefire way to leave you with pains, sprains and strains. Ever had Golfers Elbow or Tennis Elbow or any pain in your elbow? That's an overuse injury, and we'd prefer you avoided those. 

6. You’ll eat into your recovery. You can only build muscle/ gain strength/ lose fat as fast as you can recover. If you’re consistently destroying yourself and going to failure every time you train, your recovery is going to go way down which in turn will affect your performance. 

7. You hit plateaus far sooner. Getting stronger consistently requires sub-maximal training. If you’re always training maximally, you’re going to be stagnant for far longer, as there's simply no room for improvement or progression when you're constantly pushing your limits.