Originally posted by: BennyC
Any exercise should never hurt. Yes you will get a lactate build up and a pump and maybe a little tightness after each set as the muscle fills with blood but I wouldn't describe it as actual proper pain, I think this is often gets confused.
Not necesarily. Training to failure is very taxing on the CNS and will also extend the period needed for the body to cover. Training to failure isn't always necessary and I've seen some of my greatest progression not training to failure lately. This doesn't mean lifting light it just means stop before you reach failure.
Suffice to say training to failure has it's place but personally for me training to failure will be a rarity from now on having done so for years previously.
Originally posted by: Freefaller
Training to failure regularly will most probably hamper progress, and lead to injury.
Just read what you guys put above. Well when I used the word pain, I meant that feeling that we all know of, when your doing an exercise, you get towards the end of your set, so say you aimed for 10 reps, you started, you do 1 rep, 2, 5, 8, and then you get to 9 and your mind is saying you've got nothing left and your muscle is like dying in everyway, most people that have never been to gym before would just stop there...but thats what I refer to as the pain barrier, and everything I've ever read and learnt from the great ones such as arnold, in pumping iron! and DY in blood & guts and ronnie coleman on his DVD's and many other great bb's they all say its going through this pain barrier and pushing yourself to complete filaure which makes the muscles grow. And since I've been listening to these guys and working out with pure intensity, they call it HIT dont they?
Coz years ago I was a complete newbie, I'd do 3 sets to 8 reps on everything, and stop even tho I knew I could do 5 more reps....and I had 5 minute breaks between sets and would talk to people and mess about lol, I was such a newbie, and now its like 45 mins of pure hell! haha just 110% intensity and for most of this past 12 months I've been doing 5 sets to failure on everything, and now recently I've changed my routine to 3x12 like DY says to do so on his training thing on youtube (blood & guts) coz he trains regular people now and he does two warm up sets with say 20% your max weight taken off to 12 reps and then last set your max weight to failure. So I just been doing that and am loving it because before when I was doing 5 sets to failure I wasnt really hurting the next day even though I was killing myself in the gym. I never felt sore the next day and I would do anything from 7-14 days in a row without a single day off doing a 5 day split and I felt fine and had good results. But since I've changed my routine to 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on and doing a 4 day split and also lowering the sets to 3 sets from 5 and increases the reps to 12 reps instead of 5 and really going to failure, I've seen even better results in last few months.
Some exercises like deadlifts or squats I'll count how many reps I do and do 12 but if am doing biceps for example I just go to failure, same with shoulders and triceps and chest, pretty much every exercise.
So yeah, I dont know really what is the best for everybody but for me now I just like to workout with maximum intensity and go to failure, I've had the best results I've ever had whilst doing this so it must be working for me.
These days as well the day off really helps coz like I did back tonight, when I wake up tomorrow I'll feel that my back is really sore. I did legs on sunday and they're still hurting even now. It's strange but I've noticed my muscles growing on my days off, like obviously not as it happens in slow motion lol but its like I look at my legs today and am like positive they're bigger then they were on sunday. Same with my chest too.
I really love working out, arnold was right what he said in pumping iron, its the best sport in the world!! lol
EDIT: I've heard a lot of people say this but if I could have any body it would be the one arnold has in pumping iron, coz in that hes a lot smaller then like ronnie coleman these days. I dont like how allot of todays bb's have big stomachs, think its really daft, doesnt look good at all, arnold was big and he didnt have a big stomach so not sure whats going on...
EDIT 2: Oh freefaller I never been injured really, appart from other day on leg press when I burst blood vessels and got my first EIH but oh well, head was only banging for 48 hours and then went away and skin is slowly turning back to normal, but I dont class this as a proper injury coz didnt stop me from working out, a proper injury is like RC or bicep tear where people are out of the game for 3-12 months.
EDIT 3: Oh and bennyC: what is CNS? (my guess, something network system? lol)
EDIT 4 LOL: So we got two videos one telling us to look up and one telling us to look down? which is it to be? I think I've always looked either straight forward or up, dont think I've ever looked down, just try to keep my back straight, I've never had any sharp pains or discomfort so always presumed I've done it ok.
the roll on, not the booze!
ie deadlift?