By Elena Voropay

Nearly every bodybuilding aspect is controvercial leading to misapplication, misunderstanding and improper logic. And training to failure is no different. Used properly, failure can serve as a useful tool in guiding progress. When it comes to weight training, failure refers to performing a set until the point of being unable to complete one more rep with correct form. Surprising as it may sound, exercising to muscular failure is not, and never has been, a requirement of stimulating muscle growth. There is virtually no human activity that involves going to failure in real life. For example, a person who makes his living by digging with a shovel would never dig to the point where he could not lift one more shovel of dirt. He would never swing a pick ax until he could no longer lift it to complete one more "repetition". And yet, people who perform such manual labor can develop tremendous muscularity. How is it that they can develop above average muscularity without ever, in their life, going to failure? Similarly, you can spot sprinters and bikers by their distinguished hamstring and quadriceps muscles. But who sprints to failure? Who crosses the finish line and cannot take one more step?

What 'Failure' Does To Your Body

Most trainees that 'fail' every workout, or even every set of every workout, end up overtraining without proper rest and fuel. First of all, you know that you break down your muscle tissue in the gym while growing it during rest. Every time your increase the intensity or work load, or even change exercises, new stimulus is given to your muscles. Lifting beyond simple comfortable weight causes tissue rupture. In order to adapt and to prepare for the next loading session, muscles need time for relaxating and fuel for growth. You eat, sleep, and the lean mass becomes denser, stronger, larger. Next time you arrive at the dumbell stack, your body is well prepared for a great workout surprising you and everybody around with heavier lifts and razor-sharp pump-up muscles.That's in a perfect world.

How many people really get good 8 hours of deep sleep every night? And how many follow stress-free lives, stretch every day, eat right all the time, support muscle growth with appropriate supplements, etc.? If you are seriously overtrained you will reach failure at a lower point with lesser weights than needed for the progressive intensity stimulate new muscle growth.

Advocates of training to failure, particularly those who adhere to the Arthur Jones model of only one set to failure, believe that the last rep is the most productive rep of the set. As the rational goes, the first reps takes very little of your effort, the second, third and forth reps take corresponding more effort until you reach that last rep which requires all the effort you can muster and yet can not be completed. This most difficult rep is considered by some to be the most productive rep in the set as it is the one that triggers muscle growth stimulation.

Can your muscles grow with 'failure' training? Absolutely. It just makes the picture more complicated than necessary. If you train too heavy - you break down the muscles too much during the workout. And despite all the rest and fuel they fail to cope with induced stress. What's more, you may end up either putting on undesirable fat tissue with excessive calorie packing or, as an alternative, you will find yourself losing precious muscle mass with insufficient energy supply. With the gradual slow progressive increase in intensity you will trigger muscle growth without ever going to complete failure.

This mechanism has been working for people engaged in heavy physical labor since ancient times. It operates for ammature bodybuilders today. And it works for all gym junkies who look for more muscularity and denser bodies.

How does the unscientific mind measure intensity? By feel, by burn, by pump, by soreness, by failure, by rep count, by set count, or by the advice from others. Fatigue, failure and intensity may all becove very perceptive depending on how you feel that particular day at that exact moment. And these, in turn, depend on your rest quality, outside stress amounts, and fuel purity. So, remember to manage the rest of your daily pressures when you leave the gym.