Should you train to failure every set I How often should you train to failure
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts explains whether and how trainees should train to muscular failure. He begins by defining true muscular failure, noting that most lifters underestimate their capacity and often stop short of actual failure. He stresses the importance of experiencing true failure safely—using bodyweight exercises, safety racks, or spotters—to develop an accurate sense of effort. Roberts then distinguishes warm‑up sets from working sets, emphasizing that only the latter count toward program volume. He introduces the Reps‑In‑Reserve (RIR) scale as a practical tool for gauging proximity to failure, recommending that most working sets be performed within 0–3 RIR (ideally 1–3) rather than to absolute failure on every set. The video outlines how to apply these principles differently for compound versus isolation movements: heavy, multi‑joint lifts (squat, deadlift, bench) should stay away from full failure due to higher injury risk and systemic fatigue, while accessory or isolation exercises can be taken closer to or at failure with lower risk. Roberts also advises limiting warm‑up volume (few reps, moderate weight) to preserve energy for working sets. Finally, he connects training near failure to the physiological stress needed for strength and hypertrophy adaptations, explaining that sufficient stimulus triggers recovery and growth. The video concludes with practical take‑aways: use 1–3 RIR for most sets, separate warm‑up from working sets, prioritize safety when testing true failure, and reserve full‑failure efforts for low‑risk, isolation work.
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YouTube, what's going on? In this video, we are going to be talking about should you be training to failure when you're doing your workouts, when you're doing your exercises, when you're doing your sets? Should you be taking your sets to failure? Should you be not able to lift one more rep? Should you be dropping the weight on you? Should you be pushing super, super hard? Or should you maybe stay away from failure and not do it too much, or maybe do it sometimes? We're going to talk about all that in this video. Okay, so number one, we're going to talk about what true failure actually means because I want to make sure you just really understand what true failure means. It might be simple, but I wanna make sure you understand. Number 2, we're gonna cover something called working versus warmup. And then over here, we're gonna talk about exactly what you should do. You know, talking about every single set, talking about separating things, you know, types of exercises, all of that good stuff. So without further ado, let's dive right into the video. Number 1, true failure. Here's what I would say. Most individuals that are gonna watch this, including myself, Most individuals don't know what true failure actually looks like. And what I mean by that is oftentimes our brains are gonna say, hey, cut that, stop doing that, like you don't have any more, right? When in reality, we can always probably do a little bit more. They did a study on people with the bench press, okay, the bench press exercise. And they did a study where they told people, hey, put on your 10-rep max. So, you know, essentially how much weight can you put on to do 10 reps max? Literally every single person in the study did more than 10 reps. Some people got 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 reps. So what does that tell you? We think we can't do something, but when we actually get pushed to it, We can actually do it. If somebody, let's say they thought 225 was their bench press weight they could do for 10 reps max and they got 22 reps, they weren't anywhere near actually going to true failure at 10 reps. They had 12 reps or 8 reps or 9 reps left in the tank. They had 10 reps left in reserve. So that shows us most individuals, because it's It's just really hard to go to true failure and our brains just don't really want to do it. Most people don't know what true failure actually looks like. Things might be hard and like that's normal, but going to true failure is something where if you haven't ever done it, you don't truly know what it means. And I don't mean like, for example, if you can't do a push-up right now, I don't mean that, right? Like if you're somebody who you can't do a push-up on the ground yet, If you can't do that yet, I don't mean that way. I mean, like, let's say you're doing a set of bicep curls or a set of shoulder presses or whatever the case may be, right? And you're like, man, this is getting really hard. I don't think I can do anymore. But if you actually pushed, you could get 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 more, like, easily. And so what I always try to tell people is find a way to— before you worry about anything else, you have to find a way to Safely replicate true failure. And like, you have to go to true failure. This could be something, for example, if you can do push-ups right now, take a set of push-ups to failure, absolute failure. And don't like just do half-ass push-ups and just like keep bumping them out. No, like good reps, but take a set of push-ups all the way to failure where you literally can't, your arms are shaking and you can't, you know, push yourself back up. That is a way to safely get to true failure because what's going to happen? You're just going to just drop to the floor, right? Like you just drop to your knees and just like that, you're not going to hurt yourself, right? Or let's say for example, you're doing a squat with a barbell on your back, right? You could set the safety racks up on the squat rack to set it to where, you know, if you squat down and the bar comes to right here, you could set the safety racks to right here. So if you have to eventually just drop the weight or just kind of like go all the way down, you're not going to like crumble underneath the bar. You're just, it's going to, they're going to drop on the safety racks and you'll be good to go. Or you can have a spotter or— Whatever the case may be, but finding a way to replicate true— this could be, again, this could be doing a bicep curl and just like, you know, having very strict form, but like going to true failure where like you literally can't get another rep and you're really struggling. Unless you know what true failure actually feels like and what it looks like, you won't know if you're getting anywhere close to it or not because you don't know what true failure Actually is. So kind of a prerequisite to all this, we have to make sure that, you know, you know what true failure feels like. Again, do it safely. I don't need you going into the gym and doing like, you know, 20-rep sets on like a barbell deadlift. You're just gonna absolutely ruin your back, you know what I mean? So like find a way to do it safely, but finding a way to get to true failure is gonna be how you know if you're actually training to failure or not. And again, most people underestimate what they can do. You know, they think they can do 225 for 10 reps. In reality, they got 18 reps. So That actually wasn't to failure for them. You know what I mean? So that's what I'd say, number 1. I think it's super important. And again, if you can find a way to do it safely, please do it. So that's number 1, and that's going to kind of set up the other things we're going to talk about here. So number 2, we have to differentiate this very quickly. I want to differentiate a warmup set versus a working set because not all of the sets are created equal. So let's just take that 225 bench press, for example. If you are going to bench press 225, let's say set number 1 you do like, you know, the bar for 5 reps. Let's say set number 2 you do 135 for 5 reps. Let's say set number 3 you do 185 for 3 reps. And then set number 4 you do 225 and that's like your working set. Well, set 1, set 2, and set 3 Those were not working sets. Those were just warm-up sets. Those sets don't count towards your actual program, the warm-up sets. So let's just say, for example, you had 3 sets of 5 reps on your bench press, right? So that 135 and that 185, that didn't count towards your 3 sets of 5 reps. That did not count. That did not count towards your 3 sets of 5 reps. And I want to make that very clear because Oftentimes I get people asking me this question, but we have to differentiate what is a warmup set versus a working set. A working set is going to be— we're going to talk about this here in a second over here— but a working set is when you're actually having the weight that you're using that like, all right, cool. This is where I'm pushing myself. Whereas opposed to, if you're just working your way up to the weight that you want to get to, that's not a working set. That is a warmup set. So we have to make sure those 2 things are consistent. Considered and known first because, again, I often get confusion of like, well, and again, we'll talk about this over here, but like, should I go to failure on the last set only, or all the sets, or some of the sets, or whatever? Just make sure you know that like there's a difference between a warmup set and a working set. A working set is taking, you know, pretty much close to failure. A warmup set is like, that doesn't count towards your actual program. None of that volume, which is just volume means sets and reps. None of that volume counts towards your actual workout program. So if your workout program says 3 sets of 5 reps, 135 and 185, that did not count towards your actual program. When you get to 225, that's what counts. And so just making sure we understand that as well. And now, you know, diving right into it over here, what should you do? Well, here's— typically speaking, here's what I recommend with the research shows and all that kind of stuff. You should be taking— if you're doing a working set, I kind of already said it. If you're doing a working set, you should be taking your working sets anywhere between 1 to 3, maybe even 0 to 3 reps shy of failure. So let me kind of dive into this really quickly. There is something called the RIR scale, and it stands for reps In reserve. RIR, reps in reserve. This essentially means, alright, when you get— if you're doing a set of 10 reps, when you get done that 10th rep, you have to make sure if you're doing a working set, you have to make sure you're saying and you're realizing, man, I maybe could have done 1, 2, or 3 more reps max. That would mean, let's say you got done a set and you're like, man, I could have done 2 more reps. That would be a 2 RIR. Okay? Let's say you got done a set of 10 reps and you're like, you know, if I really pushed myself, I could have gotten maybe 5 or 6 more. That's an RIR of 5 or 6. That would be considered a warmup set because you're not pushing yourself close enough to failure for it to account for a working set. Are we understanding here? So again, if you're doing a working set, you should be taking every set Within 0 to 3 RIR. So you should get done your set, whether it's a set of 5, a set of 8, a set of 10, whatever. You should get done that set and say, I maybe could have done 1, 2, or 3 more reps max. And again, this is going back to over here. For you to be able to do this, you have to know what true failure actually is, because oftentimes people think, oh man, I only had 2 reps left. And then like Something happens and they do one more and they do one more and they do one more and they do one more. They're like, holy shit, I had 4, 5, 6 reps left. Like, okay, that actually wasn't a 1 or a 2 RIR. That was actually a 6 or a 7 RIR. And this is where you kind of get into this concept of like working out but not necessarily seeing the best results you want to see because you think, for example, you think you're going very close to failure, but you're not actually going very close to failure because either you don't know what failure actually feels like or you're just underestimating Your RIR. Like, you could have done 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 more reps if you really pushed yourself. So you want to make sure you are taking your working sets within 0 to 3 RIR, and a 0 RIR means, like, you essentially failed that rep. So if you're doing a bicep curl, like, you could not get that last rep up, that would be a 0 RIR. And so every working set should basically be taken close to failure. Now, When talking about like, should you take all of those sets, some of those sets, so on and so forth, here's what I'd say. Very rarely myself or my clients, very rarely do we say, all right, we're going to go to complete failure every single set. Like, I don't really know of us like going to failure. It's, it's very taxing on your body. It's very taxing on your nervous system. It's very taxing on your muscular system. You better make sure you're able to recover from it. And so I wouldn't necessarily you know, go from every single set going to failure. I would probably stay within that, you know, 1 to 3 RIR range. Because if you have a 0 RIR, then you're going— obviously you're failing, right? So I'd probably try to keep most of your sets within that 1 to 3 RIR range. Now, there very well may be some times where you're going to complete failure and you can't get the rep up or whatever the case may be. But oftentimes you want to stay within that 1 to 3 RIR for all of your sets. And now we also have to remember, we have to separate working sets versus warmup sets, right? That's why I covered this first. You have to be able to separate if you're doing dumbbell shoulder press, for example, and let's say, you know, set 1 is at 3, is at 1 set of 10 reps with 30 pounds. Set 2 is at 1 set, uh, I'm sorry, 1 set of 10 reps at 40 pounds. And then set 3 is a set of 10 reps at 30 pounds, or at 50 pounds, I'm sorry. So again, let me say it one more time. Set 1, 10 reps, 30 pounds. Set 2, 10 reps, 40 pounds. Set 3, 10 reps, 50 pounds. Remember, we have to separate set 1 and set 2. You clearly weren't going to failure on those. You weren't going close to failure because if you're going 30, 40, 50, if your last set is the heaviest weight, That's your first set. It wasn't these 2 sets right here because those 2 sets were not taken to failure. So those 2 sets do not count. You only did that one set. So instead of having these, you know, what I tell my clients is, let's say for example, let's take that same situation. Let's say you're working up to 50 pounds for 10 reps on a shoulder press, right? Let's say you're doing that and you want to kind of warm up first. Cool. What you would do is say, all right, cool. I'm going to grab the 20s and do, I'm going to, I'm going to do a set of 5 reps. I'm going to grab the 35s and I'll do a set of 5 reps. Those 2 things are your warmup sets. Great. Get into your heavy sets now. Get into your working sets. Do your 50 pounds for 3 sets of 8 or whatever your program calls for. Like, get into your working sets and don't spend all of this time— like, you should have some warmup sets and there's nothing wrong with that because you want to get the form down, make sure the muscle's working, all of that stuff. But remember, you got to separate what is a working set versus a warmup set. And something I see so often is like, oh, well, I'm going to do 30 pounds, 40 pounds, 50 pounds, and like that. You only did one set. You only really did one working set. So those 2 other sets do not count. So just kind of keep that in mind and be able to separate those 2 things to where if your program— again, it depends on your program, but if your program calls for 3 sets of 10 reps, realize you doing 30 pounds and 40 pounds for 10 reps, that doesn't count towards your program. That doesn't count towards your 3 sets of 10 reps. Or whatever your program is calling for, doesn't count towards that. Those are warmup sets. You want 3 sets of 10 reps that are working sets. So you have to make sure you separate that. Um, number 2. Now number 3, talking about going to failure on certain exercises. Typically speaking, you can go more closer to failure on your accessory slash isolation movements. So let's take a squat versus a bicep curl, for example. Taking a squat to actual failure where you can't get up from a squat, number one, it's way more injury risk, right? Your risk of injury goes higher 'cause this barbell on your back is literally pushing you down on the ground. You could get injured, those kind of things. It's also very taxing on your nervous system, on your neurological system, on your muscular system, on all of your systems 'cause there's so much tissue working. Your legs, your hamstrings, your glutes, your quads, your core, your upper back, your lats. So much stuff is working, right? It's a very big compound movement. And typically speaking for the bigger compound movements, since you're able to work so much more tissue, you're going to have more weight. And the more weight you have and the more tissue you're working, the more neurologically and systematically demanding that exercise becomes. And then it takes longer to recover from, it takes more to recover from, so on and so forth, right? Now let's take a bicep curl, a bicep curl, like your squat. You could squat hundreds of pounds. A bicep curl, unless you're like, I don't know, a bodybuilder with steroids, you're not curling 100-pound dumbbells, right? You're curling 10, 15, 20, 25-pound dumbbells, right? If you go to failure on a 20-pound dumbbell curl, number one, your risk of injury is so much lower. Like, what's gonna happen? You're just gonna like drop the dumbbell eventually. You're just not gonna get it up, right? So the risk of injury is super low and how taxing it is on your body for your body to recover from is way less. You're taxing this small muscle right here. And like, it's not too small, but you're taxing this small muscle right here as opposed to essentially taxing your entire body. So your body does not have to recover from as much because you're taxing a specific tissue as opposed to taxing your entire body. So from a muscular standpoint and from a neurological and nervous system standpoint, it's much less taxing to take your isolation/accessory movements Closer to, if not failure, as opposed to your more, you know, bigger compound movements. And so I would say for, you know, things like squats, deadlifts, bench press, those kind of things, you know, staying in that 1 to 3 RIR range, typically not going to complete failure. And then for your, you know, if you want to take a side lateral raise to failure, like what, you know, what's going to happen? You're, you're just going to not be able to get it up and like your body, it won't tax your body that much. So from like an exercise Maybe think about that as well when you're considering what do I take to failure, what do I not take to failure, so on and so forth. That is number 3. Then number 4, again, if your main goal is to build strength and build muscle, you've got to make sure you're having that 1 to 3 RIR. I've done an entire video on learning how much weight you should be lifting, so if you want to check that out, feel free to check it out. But if your main goal is to build strength and build muscle, Drop my pen, marker. If your main goal is to build strength and build muscle, you need to make sure you are taking your sets close to failure because if not, essentially how your body works is, and you might have heard me say this before, but essentially how your body works is your body is able to create this stress, right? So when you work out, you put stress in your body. You have to create enough stress and almost like hit this threshold and like tick this thing off where it's like, All right, there's stress, there's stress, there's stress, there's stress. All right, you know what? Enough stress. Once you hit that threshold of stress, your body's gonna say, all right, we gotta adapt to this. And this is why progressive overload is so important and so on and so forth. But your body's gonna hit a point where it says, oh shit, like, you know, the tank is full, that meter is full. We gotta make sure we adapt to this 'cause this stress is high enough for us to cause an adaptation. And that adaptation is again, getting stronger, more defined muscles. So you have to make sure you hit that threshold of stress, that threshold of stimulus. And then once you hit that, that's how your body's going to change. But the only way you're going to hit that for a muscular and strength-based adaptation is making sure you push your muscles close enough to failure during your workouts. That's how you hit that threshold. And basically, you know, you trigger that process of like, Your body says it's enough stress, your body starts to recover from it, your body then adapts to it, right? And that's how you change your physique. And so if that's your main goal, changing the way your body looks, getting stronger, you've got to make sure you're lifting close enough to failure. And again, this is why I started by talking about knowing what true failure feels like, because unless you know what true failure is, you don't really know how close you're getting to it. So just keep that in mind. It's super important. I think if you're watching this video, that is probably your main goal. So make sure you keep that in mind and it's super important to have that happen. All right. That is, should you be training to failure on your sets? Remember, most of your sets should go between 1 to 3 RIR. Again, if you want to learn more about RIR and those kind of things, I did an entire video on that, so feel free to check that out. But most of your sets going close to 1 to 3 RIR, separate working sets versus warmup sets, and also don't spend too much energy on your warmup sets. For example, I see so many times people are like, all right, well, I want to work up to 225 on my bench press. 10 reps or whatever the case may be. And so they go 135 for 10 reps, 165 for 10 reps, 185 for 10 reps, and by the time they get to 225 they're absolutely burnt out, right? So let's say, for example, you want to work up to 225. Do the bar for like 4 reps, do 135 for 4 reps, do 185 for 2 reps, and then when you get to 225 you'll have much more energy, stamina, endurance, uh, all that. You haven't used as much energy, so you'll have more energy For your actual working sets. So just kind of keep that in mind as well. Don't burn yourself out on warmup sets, especially with weight and with reps. Like, you don't need to be doing 10 reps on a warmup set. Do like 3, 4, 5 reps, get the movement down, and then move on to your working sets. All right. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop them below. Thank you for watching the video. If you enjoyed it, feel free to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and let me know below. All right.
