Your new thought for the week is about training to failure. Now, I have been questioned time and time again by HITers about how I train. I am asked, "do you think that training to failure is good?" and "do you ever do it?" Well, here are my answers.

Training to failure is a great way to gain strength, that is if the trainer is ACTUALLY going to failure. You see, too many people, especially HITers like to call what they do "going to failure" when in reality they are only doing high-rep exercises. For instance (and to all of you HITers who might be offended, this is just an example), a lot of guys who do multiple rep power lifts, like say 20-rep squats or deadlifts, like to call that "training to failure." In almost every case, this just isn't right. Chances are, if you actually do a set to failure, your reps won't come out even like that.

I will say that that 15 or 20 reps might be a good goal to shoot for when going to failure, but if when a guy gets to 20 and then stops, that is NOT doing the lift to failure. Do you all know how a set of failure squats are ended? They finish with the lifter crashing to the power rack because he tried and failed his last rep. Then he truly knows he could not have done another rep.

This brings me to the answer of the other question: "do you ever do them?" I train to failure on about half of every set I do, from deadlifts to overhead presses. But wait...I usually do singles, don't I?! That's is exactly the point that I am leading up to. Extremely low reps are the best way to train to failure.

Why?

Because when you try a heavy deadlift and can't pick it up twice or even once, that is the ULTIMATE failure. When you try a bench press and can't lock it out at the top for one rep, that is the ULTIMATE failure. Now again, I say that I don't always train to failure. I don't go into the set knowing that I will fail. THAT is the main difference between this failure method and the muli-rep failure method. But when I do fail on a single, it is just as certain that I could not have done another rep- especially since I couldn't even finish the first one.

And as a bonus, there is an unwritten law known to every real strongman who ever lifted in a gym. It is the old common sense training mindset that if a guy wants to get bigger and stronger, he needs to use heavier weights. See where this is going? You can use the heavier weights and still train to failure. It's like the best of both worlds.

Just some useless thoughts from a narrow-minded old man!