Weight rooms are usually places where those who come out looking the worst due to the intensity of the session are those who have trained the best, and if we vomit it counts double. Scientific evidence has proven on numerous occasions that less is more, and that Training to muscle failure can not only be worse for gaining strength, but it can negatively affect us and stagnate. In this article we draw the consequences of a new study that has compared strength gains reaching muscle failure or staying far from it.

Training to muscle failure or leaving repetitions undone: which is better?

One of the variables of strength training is the degree of effort involved in a series. He muscle failure represents the degree of maximum effortsince it consists of doing all possible repetitions and failing when we are ready to do the next one.

Instead of reaching muscle failure, we can perform series with a lower degree of effort, leaving repetitions undone, that is, leaving us repetitions in chamber or repetitions in reserve (RIR). The higher the RIR, the less fatigue the series will cause us.

The doubt that always flies over the weight rooms It’s whether we have to reach muscle failure or leave some repetitions in reserve. The answer is simpler than it seems, although when it comes to training it seems that if we do not reach muscle failure and beyond we are not doing anything.

Muscle failure and hypertrophy

Muscle growth and strength have some similarities, but many more differences, including the degree of effort required to improve in each. The Muscular hypertrophy is guaranteed when we train close to muscle failureand we even reached it.

Although it is not necessary to reach muscle failure in each set, motivation comes into play, and many people do not want to train without pushing each set to the maximum. Although it is not necessary, It can be done and obtain the same results as leaving some repetitions in the bedroomwith RIR 2 being the most interesting range (leaving two repetitions undone before muscle failure).

Muscle failure and strength

In the case of muscular strength everything changes, since here quality matters more than quantity, unlike in muscular hypertrophy where quantity matters more than quality. A recent study published very recently adds more scientific evidence to what we already knew: training to muscle failure negatively influences strength gains.

To evaluate this, the researchers They divided the study subjects into four groups depending on how close or far they were from muscle failure, but they did exactly the same series and exercises:

• 4 – 6 reps in reserve (RIR 4-6)
• RIR 1-3
• RIR 1-3, but the last series was done to failure
• All series were led to muscle failure

At the end of the intervention, The worst results by far were for the group that trained to muscle failure in all series. The group that did a RIR 4 – 6 and the group that left between 1 – 3 repetitions in reserve (RIR 1-3) obtained significant strength gains compared to the other groups.

Message to take home

He Increased strength is achieved to a greater extent if we leave several repetitions without doing What if we go to muscle failure in all series or in some. If you are used to always going to muscle failure you may feel strange when you leave repetitions undone because it seems like you are not going to your maximum.

However, Why try harder if you’re going to achieve less? The reason you gain less strength if you go to muscle failure is because the quality of the sets is much worse due to fatigue, in addition to needing more time to recover between sessions.

By training leaving repetitions in reserve, the fatigue accumulated in the session is less, so each series can be performed without the previous series causing fatigue to prevent us from doing so. In turn, we will need less time to recover between sessions, so we will be able to train more frequently. Use ‘no brain, no gain’ instead of ‘no pain, no gain’ If you want to improve more, “trying less.”

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Images | Joe Mcferrin (Unsplash), Marvin Cors (Unsplash)