Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Is straining to failure the wisest move?

By Jon Cardozo

If you have any experience at all in the bodybuilding world, you have probably heard of the term training to failure. It is one of the most popular concepts and is really promoted by most people in the industry, yet many people don't know what it really means.

I thought it would be a good idea to define some of these terms for you to avoid confusion. One important term I would like to discuss now is training to failure.

There seem to be a lot of people that throw around this term without really knowing what it means. Don't worry if you're one of them, we'll get you straightened out pretty soon!

The concept is actually pretty simple, but many people make it more complicated than it really is. If you train to failure, you perform a certain exercise on a particular muscle group until that muscle cannot handle it anymore. The muscle is exhausted and fails to lift anymore. It cannot perform another repetition (at least not immediately) on its own.

However, there's one trainer in particular who cautions us about how we interpret this concept. Vince Delmonte makes a distinction between momentary failure and complete failure. So what's the difference? I'm so glad you asked.

If you train to momentary failure, you work a muscle until it is exhausted and cannot lift anymore weights at that time. You can do the same thing going from one muscle group to the other. However, this is different from training to complete failure or absolute failure. Doing the latter means that you will end up training until you're completely exhausted and your body cannot go on anymore.

This kind of training is usually considered over training and can put a heavy strain on your nervous system and immune system, not to mention your muscles themselves. Because your nervous and immune systems take longer than your muscles to recover, you need to be very careful to avoid over training in the gym.

I know you're probably eager to make progress as quickly as possible, but taking the time to learn a few things can go a long way in the future. Learn to take care of your body, and learn when to rest your muscles.

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