Do You Need to Train to Failure to Build Muscle?
🏋️♂️ Do You Need to Train to Failure to Build Muscle?
There’s a lot of conflicting information out there, and it’s no surprise many people are confused about whether you really need to train to failure to build muscle.
As a personal trainer in Brighton & Hove, I’ve seen this question come up time and time again from clients who want to make sure their effort in the gym is truly paying off.
🔹 What Is Training to Failure?
Training to failure means taking a set to the point where you physically can’t complete another rep with good form — not just when it starts to hurt.
For example, during a dumbbell curl, you keep lifting as the rep speed slows down, your arms shake, and finally, no matter how much you grit your teeth or shout, the dumbbells won’t move another millimetre. That’s true muscular failure.
🔹 Does Training to Failure Work?
Yes — and there’s no question that it can be an effective tool for muscle growth.
High-intensity training (HIT) or “heavy duty” methods, made famous by bodybuilders like Dorian Yates, use this exact approach: one all-out set to absolute failure after a warm-up. It works, but that doesn’t mean it’s essential for everyone.
🔹 What the Research Says
Recent studies show that training close to failure — within one or two reps of that point — also stimulates hypertrophy (muscle growth).
The benefit of not going all the way to failure is that it allows for more total volume, meaning more quality sets and reps before fatigue sets in.
Once you hit true failure, it’s almost impossible to perform effective subsequent sets. Anything after that becomes a “junk set” — work that adds fatigue but not progress.
If your goal is long-term progress, combining near-failure training with structured programming and progressive overload — like I outline in my strength and conditioning coaching — is often a better balance.
🔹 The Real-World Problem
Here’s the issue I’ve seen coaching clients for decades: most people don’t actually reach true failure. They think they’re there, but they’re not even close.
To reach genuine muscular failure, you need a level of intensity and aggression that takes years to develop. Beginners especially struggle with this, so I rarely recommend one-set-to-failure training for them.
Early progress comes from simply introducing the body to resistance. But long-term growth requires the ability to push through that final wall — something most people never quite reach.
🔹 On the Other Hand…
There’s also a problem with the opposite approach — “reps in reserve,” where you aim to stop one or two reps before failure.
Most people drastically underestimate how close they are to failure. They think they have one rep left, when in reality, they could probably do seven more. That means every set becomes, again, a junk set.
🔹 Finding the Sweet Spot
The best approach is to learn what true failure feels like.
Every so often — say, on a safe isolation exercise like dumbbell curls — I’ll take clients right to that edge. When they think they’re done, I’ll push them to keep going: to visualise protecting a loved one, winning a fight, or earning a reward.
That experience teaches them where the real limit is, so they can accurately gauge how many reps they have in reserve in future sets.
Knowing your limits isn’t about ego — it’s about awareness. Once you learn where failure truly is, you can train smart, recover better, and make faster gains.
If you’d like to understand how to apply this method to your own training, you can book a free consultation to see how I can help you optimise your workouts for strength, muscle growth and longevity.