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Old 04-16-2007, 11:31 AM
EricT EricT is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2005
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I agree with everyone. Don't take the failure thing out of the context it was written in. And remember that there is a difference between reaching momentary failure and "failure training" which is what the article is reffering to. I.E. making going to failure a GOAL of training because some people believe that if you don't go to failure on every set or on every last set ore something your muscles won't grow.

Kelly is just saying that is not true. And if you went to failure every time on something like Rippetoe...you wouldn't progress. That doesn't mean that your are not going to reach failure sometimes and it is certainly going to be necessary to do that. But if you DON'T reach failure but increase the stimulous next workout you adapt and get stronger and grow. Whereas continuous working to failure causes more fatigue and more inroads on recovery.

That actually reminds me of that progression example I told you was wrong. Where you miss reps add weight, then miss more reps and add more weight....that was more like failure training. Here when you reach failure you are actually either holding over the weight or lighteining the increments or backing off, etc...all of which serve to allow recovery to catch up and mangage fatigue.

Given that it is perfectly ok to work to failure on some things...such as your pullups in Rippetoe. And besides, for myself when it's getting tough and I am trying to push out that last hard rep I have no intention of failing! I just had a bench press rep where I got stuck in the middle (where I always do) and the bar hovered in the air for at least 5 seconds maybe more unitl I got it up. That's a long time. But I got the rep. It wasn't forced. I didn't technically train to failure. Quite frankly I doubt many people could do it and there is no way I could do that if I hadn't pushed out those last seemingly impossible reps in the past or at least tried to.

Remember that a huge part of strength development is neural. Your nervous system has to learn to call the muscle fiber to action more effeciently. Those hard reps can be a big part of that process.

If you were to stop short of that point when it comes in the interest of avoiding failure it would be detrimental to your abilitly to generate intensity. Failure is a tool just like anything else which can be used correctly or abused.

Anyway, sufficeth to say that what you are doing is perfect and you have nothing to worry about. Just keep plugging.
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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

Last edited by EricT; 04-16-2007 at 12:05 PM.
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