Muscular failure: Is it effective? Our opinion

Whether you're a regular or occasional bodybuilder, you're bound to want to progress, whatever your goal. So you'll be looking for ways to get there, trying out different training methods. It's a safe bet that, caught up in the game, you're going to try out different intensification techniques recommended by some, tried and tested by others.

And you'll hear some people talking about muscular failure to be achieved either occasionally or with every set. But what are we talking about when we talk about muscular failure?

What is muscular failure?

First of all, you need to know that it's an intensification technique which consists of pushing your muscular effort to the point where you're unable to do more than one repetition of a given exercise. However, if we stop there, we can consider that we never reach complete muscular failure, because we often stop our effort when we're unable to lift the load with which we started our series, but do we still reach muscular failure?

The role of the nervous system

What prevents us from doing one more repetition is not the muscle's inability to contract, but the nervous system's exhaustion. The nervous system exhausts itself more quickly than the muscle, and the same applies to recovery: the nervous system takes longer to recover than the muscle. This nervous exhaustion serves to protect against possible injury. The nervous system acts as a "fuse".

That's why, to achieve muscular failure, you need to spare the nervous system. To do this, you mustn't try to work systematically heavy and short, as this is what puts the nervous system to the test.

How do you achieve muscular failure?

To achieve muscular failure, it's advisable to work on longer, lighter sets, of the order of 12 to 15 repetitions, and tonnage. In other words, you need to push the muscle to its limits, relying on the amount of weight lifted for the same muscle over the session.

For example: if you do 4 sets of 6 reps at 100kg (600kg X 4 gives 2400kg)

If you do 4 sets of 12 reps at 80kg (960kg X 4 gives 3840kg), in terms of the amount of weight lifted, you'll be pushing your muscle harder, with a greater chance of failure, without overtaxing your nervous system.

Mistakes to avoid

However, you mustn't work systematically until you fail, otherwise you'll exhaust your muscle fibres and end up injuring yourself.

To progress steadily, you need to consider training in cycles, so as to work the muscle fibres in depth during sets until failure, and work on resistance and muscular strength by performing short, heavy sets.

The benefits of muscular failure :

During training, the loads you use will cause micro-tears in the muscle fibres, forcing your muscles to adapt by getting bigger.

However, you never work all your fibers, as there are always some that are still fresh. This explains why, if you lighten the load, you'll still be able to do a few extra reps. By working to the point of muscular failure, we're almost certain to reach the maximum number of fibers, and thus stimulate maximum muscle growth.

In fact, the more fibers are impacted, suffering micro-tears as a result of training, the more fibers will have to adapt in anticipation of future sessions, and therefore grow.

However, you mustn't work systematically until you fail, otherwise you'll exhaust your muscle fibres and end up injuring yourself.

To progress steadily, you need to consider training in cycles, so as to work the muscle fibres in depth during sets until failure, and work on resistance and muscular strength by performing short, heavy sets.

In short, if you want to progress, you need to work in cycles that will challenge muscle fibres in different ways and avoid nervous exhaustion, as the nervous system takes much longer to recover from exhaustion than the muscle itself. The aim of working to failure is to push the muscle to its limits and force it to adapt.

But don't forget that recovery is essential to progress.

So don't forget to plan your workouts in cycles for regular progression.

Author Alexandre CARPENTIER

Bodybuilding Champion N.A.C 2012

Alexandre shares his bodybuilding experience with MegaGear blog readers