Mark Ottobre says training to failure works for hypertrophy but not strength. Isolation exercises like bicep curls can go to failure safely. Heavy compounds like squats and deadlifts shouldn't, because the injury risk is too high.
If you want to be jacked, you need to train to failure. In fact, if you're not training to failure, are you even training? Are you suggesting that you should take a deadlift to failure? Because if you are, that is an extremely dangerous idea, bro. All I'm saying is that Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman, and all the best bodybuilders train to failure. And if you want to be big, you should train to failure too. But here's the thing. Most people don't want to be bodybuilders. And I think you need to understand the difference between strength training and hypertrophy. So in strength training, we absolutely want to leave reps in reserve and we want to focus on the pattern. The pattern should be repeatable and we don't want to have that pattern break down. Whereas we look at hypertrophy, it is proximity to failure. We want to go as close to failure as possible to get muscle growth. But here's the thing, not all exercises are created the same and different exercises have different neural demands. So for example, if we're doing a bicep curl, we absolutely can take that to failure and sometimes past failure with things like force reps or supersetting. But if we're focusing on the big 3 where patterns matter, we definitely don't want to take those to failure, and taking reps beyond that is a doorway to injury. Dude, you sound really smart. Where can I learn more? Follow Mark Ottobre for daily coaching tips.
