There’s a popular training method among bodybuilders (and those serious about building muscle) known as “training to failure.” As its name suggests, this practice involves pushing your muscles to the point of failure, which in turn will signal to them that it’s time to grow and get stronger.

I personally love training to failure and have definitely seen favorable results, especially when it comes to growing my “chicken legs” (aren’t elementary-school nicknames fun?). For example, at the end of a lower body workout, I often add a set or two of bodyweight squats or lunges that are done until, you guessed it, failure. (You know you’ve reached your legs’ failing point when you stumble around like a gangling baby giraffe immediately after your set.)

 

 

When it comes to strengthening my back for pull-ups, I like to do sets of negative reps, meaning I jump up to the bar and lower down as slowly and smoothly as possible. I perform these negatives after my regular sets of pull-ups, all to ensure that my back muscles are pushed to their limits and don’t plateau by growing accustomed to certain loads and repetition ranges. (Whether it’s pulling more weight or pulling the same weight more times, my goal is to always improve my exercises in one way or another!)

 

Today, I’m going to share my favorite ways to train to failure, so if your goal is to build strength, add some muscle, or experience an incredible muscle pump, take notes!

FIT FACT: In a 2007 Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research study, researchers found that training to failure increases motor unit activation and the secretion of muscle-building hormones, like HGH and testosterone, compared to conventional methods.[1]

 

A little disclaimer before I continue: Training to failure is not recommended for those new to the gym as keeping form in check is key, especially on failure sets when it’s tempting to let technique fall to the wayside. Never let any desired number of repetitions supersede proper form as doing these, or any, movement incorrectly could result in injury, which is not the kind of failure we’re going for here!

Also, I don’t go suggest going crazy with failure sets, that is to say filling your entire routine with them and doing them every day; more is not better, as the saying goes. The dose I have found to be both safe and effective is two to three sets, and only with light to moderate weight (the low-rep range of one to five reps is a no-no in this case). Though I absolutely love squats, deadlifts, bench and military presses, I don’t go to failure on them because, as I mentioned earlier, form is number one, and pushing ourselves to the limit on these by doing rep after rep after rep when we’re already smoked may do more harm than good.[2]

Now, are you ready to fail!? Excellent! Here we go!

Failure Move #1: Chin-Ups Negatives

Most of us know that barbell and dumbbell curls are some of the best moves for growing some guns. But when the weight gets heavy, many of tend to swing our hips and do all sorts of gymnastics to complete the exercise.

Instead of giving your hips a workout, set down the weights when you feel your form deteriorating and head for a pull-up bar.

Use a box or bench and, holding the bar with a chin-up (reverse) grip, jump to the top of the bar and slowly lower yourself down. Then repeat, focusing on the tension of your biceps as you complete the negative. Do one set of as many reps as you can while keeping the lowering phase controlled – no letting gravity do all the work!

Failure Move #2: Pull-Up Negatives

You don’t have to be able to do pull-ups to do perform pull-up negatives. In fact, negatives will help you achieve a pull-up faster! After you do your working sets of regularly paced pull-ups, assisted pull-ups, or lat pull-downs, do the same thing that you did for the chin-ups:

Use a box or bench and, holding the bar with a wide, palms-out grip, jump to the top of the bar and slowly lower yourself down. Then repeat, focusing on the tension of your lats as you complete the negative. Once again, do one set only, but give it all you’ve got!

Failure Move #3: Triceps Dips Negatives

As with #2, you don’t have to have dips down before you do negative ones. Performing these will strengthen you so that you’ll be doing unassisted dips in no time!

After you complete your working sets of assisted dips or bench dips, go to the dip bars and jump up to the top position. As with the previous movements, lower yourself to the ground as slowly as possible. Repeat as many times as you can while maintaining a slow and steady pace.

Failure Move #4: Single-Joint Drop Sets

Finally, drop sets are an excellent way to suck any remaining juice out of your muscles at the end of a workout. Single-joint movements (a.k.a. exercises that only require one joint to move through the entire range of motion) are great to train to failure because, being less complex than multi-joint movements, they’re generally safer.

A drop set is a technique whereby you perform an exercise and then reduce (drop) the weight and continue for more reps until you reach failure, and then complete that pattern until, well, your muscles get that lovely noodly feeling.

I like to do a total of four to six drop sets for a given exercise. For instance, if I want to do lateral deltoid raises, I’ll choose a pair of dumbbells with which I know I can bust out at least four reps. Then, I’ll immediately grab a lighter pair at which I know I can do eight to twelve reps. I’ll do an even lighter set for fifteen or so reps, and then a final set with the lightest weights I can find and just go until my deltoids scream uncle (it’s usually by rep number three!).

Other terrific drop-settable movements are curls, triceps extensions, triceps kickbacks, front deltoid raises, leg extensions, lying hamstring curls, goblet squats, and weighted sit-ups, all of which you can find instructive videos for on YouTube.

 

I hope this post has been helpful and encouraged you to push your muscles past their comfort zones! Tweet me if you have any questions or comments at @dandersontyler. I would love to hear from you and help with your fitness journey!

 

 

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17530977 (accessed September 30, 2016 )

[2] If you have a spotter, bench press and squat negatives are okay – just don’t go super heavy!