Contrary to the claims of a lot of trainers and coaches who really should know better, performing an exercise to the point of momentary muscular failure – the point at which you are unable to continue the exercise with proper form – does not increase your chances of being injured. If you are injured during an exercise it is because some part of your body was exposed to more force than it could withstand. This excessive force usually results from 1.) moving into or through positions where there is excessive compression and/or stretching of tissues because the path and/or range of movement is inconsistent with the function and range of one or more of the joints involved and/or 2.) from rapid acceleration during the turnarounds between the positive and negative phases of the repetition. Proper exercise form imposes a resistance on the muscle groups you are targeting while avoiding all of these problems.
Proper exercise form involves moving along a path and through a range of motion that is consistent with the function of the joints involved. Poor exercise form is the opposite, and is comparable to attempting to perform a joint lock or destruction on someone; if you wish to damage someone’s joint you apply a force to it which either causes it to move in a direction it is not meant to or to move further than it is meant to. You don’t want to do this to yourself during exercise.
Proper exercise form also involves moving slowly enough to reverse direction smoothly between lifting and lowering and minimize the variation in force encountered due to acceleration, and to maintain proper body positioning to avoid offloading resistance to muscle groups other than the ones targeted by the exercise. Poor exercise form is the opposite, involving quick, jerky turnarounds and lots of unwanted involvement from other muscle groups which can increase risk of injury by generating a high level of force which may be transferred to the load through many weaker structures. The difference between using a slow speed of movement and smooth turnarounds and using a fast speed of movement and fast, jerky turnarounds is like the difference between bungee jumping with a bungee cord and a metal chain. Unless you are stupid or suicidal you wouldn’t bungee jump with a chain, and you shouldn’t move quickly during exercise for the same reason.
Nothing about training to momentary muscular failure in and of itself increases the force your body is exposed to during an exercise. When momentary muscular failure occurs it just means you are unable to continue the exercise in the prescribed form. If your form is consistent the forces your body encounters during the first rep of an exercise, the last rep, and every rep in between will be the same. As long as you do not alter your form when you reach failure to reduce the difficulty of the exercise for the for the sake of completing more repetitions you will not be injured. If you do alter your form, the compromised form is the problem and not momentary muscular failure. How you perform each repetition is far more important than how many repetitions you perform.
When you reach momentary muscular failure it is because fatigue has momentarily reduced the positive (concentric) strength of the muscle groups involved to below the level necessary to continue lifting the weight or maintaining the proper body position. This does not, however, mean you will be unable to hold the weight and will drop it on the floor or yourself, or unable to lower it in a safe manner. This is because your muscles have different levels of strength when contracting concentrically (lifting a weight), eccentrically (lowering a weight), and isometrically (holding a weight). Your muscles can hold more weight than they can lift, and they can slowly lower more weight than they can hold, so even if you are unable to continue to lift a weight you will be strong enough to hold it and to lower it under control.
While it is possible for your grip to fail during an exercise you will tend to lose your grip gradually, because your negative strength is greater than your isometric strength; slowly enough that you will be aware of it when it starts to happen and have time to safely set the weight or yourself down and either end the exercise or re-set your grip. This is usually only an issue with pulling movements like deadlifts, chin-ups, pulldowns, and rows. During pressing exercises as long as you use a proper (full) grip and have normal, healthy hands and wrists there is no reason you should ever lose your grip and drop a weight on yourself. Any exercise performed with a barbell above you should be done inside a power rack or with good spotter stands with the safety bars adjusted to the proper height. A spotter helps, but I don’t recommend relying solely on a random person at the gym to spot you effectively.
You are not going to “burn out” your central nervous system by training to momentary muscular failure. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, “The negative effects on the CNS are not due to training to failure, but rather overtraining. The microtrauma caused by training leads to an inflammatory response. If the body is not allowed adequate recovery time between workouts, chronic inflammation results, and cytokines involved in inflammation start to act on the CNS causing the various symptoms associated with overtraining. These cytokines can also affect the hypothalamus, causing increased cortisol levels. I suspect the myth about training to failure and CNS “burnout” resulted from attempts at increasing the intensity of exercise without the necessary reduction in volume.”
Over a twenty year period I’ve personally instructed hundreds of clients through tens of thousands of high intensity workouts consisting of hundreds of thousands of exercises performed to momentary muscular failure, and not one has been injured as a result. Many of these trainees were over sixty, and a few of them were in their seventies and eighties when I trained them. I know a lot of other high intensity training instructors who have been doing this with the same zero injury rate. If training to momentary muscular failure really increased the risk of injury it would be reasonable to expect at least a few injuries over so many years and so many workouts, but this simply isn’t the case. I can say with absolute certainty that training to muscular failure does not cause or increase risk of injury, and that poor exercise form is the problem.
I suspect the real reason some trainers claim training to momentary muscular failure increases risk of injury is that most trainers’ idea of “proper” form – and that includes many trainers who claim to teach high intensity training – is actually very poor. Of course, these trainers believe they know what proper form is (they don’t), they believe they are good at teaching it (they’re not), and they believe their form and their clients’ form is not the problem (it is), so when they or one of their clients are injured they must blame something else. It is easy for them to blame training to failure for injuries when they don’t understand the real causes and it gives them a convenient excuse to not work as hard as they ought to. However, regardless of what they might believe poor form is what causes injuries and not training to momentary muscular failure.
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Great article Drew. I really like the bungee cord and chain comparison. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put like that before.
Something that I thought about awhile regarding the progressive, temporary weakening that occurs during an exercise / inroad / fatigue. When a set is started we are capable of contracting with force that exceeds the resistance / weight. As we go along our temporary level of strength goes down of course. What keeps that from being injurious? When reaching failure the muscle(s) are contracting with all they can AT THAT MOMENT. Is the chance of injury lowered because not as much of the muscle(s) are pulling on the tendons and bones etc.? I know this probably sounds like a weird thing to bring up, kinda like strength training 101.
Thanks Donnie,
A friend of mine who is an aerospace engineer (he’s literally a rocket scientist and designs rocket propulsion systems) likes to use the example of dropping a bowling ball on concrete versus on a mattress, and I considered using that one, but I think the imagery of bungee jumping with a chain has more impact.
The chance of injury doesn’t increase significantly with fatigue for a few reasons. First, fatigue reduces the force your muscles can exert, not the force required to cause an acute injury (the microtrauma from a single bout of exercise would have an insignificant effect on this). Second, as I explained in the article, your muscles are stronger when contracting isometrically and eccentrically, so even when fatigue has reduced your concentric strength to below the amount required to lift the weight you still have more than enough strength to hold it and lower it under control.
If you are using good form the amount of weight you can lift for a moderate number of repetitions is less than what you can lift one time. The amount of weight you can lift one time is less than what you can hold isometrically. The amount of weight you can hold isometrically is less than what you can lower slowly. The amount of weight you can lower slowly is less than the amount necessary to produce enough force to damage normal, healthy muscles and connective tissue. This is a huge margin of safety. As long as you do not alter your form in a way that causes a potentially dangerous increase in force when you reach momentary muscular failure you will not injure yourself.
That is awesome you have a friend that is an actual rocket scientist. Yea, I like the bowling ball thing too. But the chain vs. the bungee really gives a wicked visual.
I like you how you point out the huge margin of safety with concentric failure vs. the other levels of strength. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about it to that point before. This also makes me think about the sun tan analogy. Concentric failure might be like lying in the summer sun but avoiding a burn, maybe getting a bit of a tan? Kinda like a high level of effort/intensity is needed to set things in motion. But too much initial intensity could be bad and a desirable level of intensity can quickly be sustained too long?
Hey Donnie,
Yes. It is impossible to train too intensely, but easy to overtrain if your intensity is high.
Drew, thank you very much for another great article!
Let’s say one is doing bodyweight rows (Australian pull-ups) slow and controled, by the book HIT form, chest to the bar. When would you consider that the set is over? Is it the moment when one is unable to bring chest to the bar, even if short for an inch or two, or should one continue for several partial reps? Would that be considered as breaking the form?
What I’m doing lately in my exercises is that when I hit that last, barely manageable rep, and I’m sure I’m unable to do whole another, I do very slow negative. I wonder if that’s an overkill, since first few days after such training (especially if full body) I feel very drained, edgy, I sleep bad, sometimes even get heart palpitations. Should I space out my workouts more, or stop doing that last draining negative? Is there a point of to much intensity?
Thanks!
Hey James,
Assuming the only change is your range of motion and nothing else about your form (body position, path of movement, speed, etc.) it would be beneficial to attempt to continue for a few more reps if you are below or around the low end of your target repetition range, but I wouldn’t recommend continuing for more than three. Excessive post-failure reps can be counterproductive, and when I have clients perform set-extension techniques I usually only have them perform one or two additional repetitions. For charting purposes you should only count full-range repetitions if that is the way you intend to perform the repetitions (there are times when partial range repetitions should be the goal when training with bodyweight: see Project Kratos).
Hey Drew,
Should I not be training to MMF because of a chronic inflammatory condition and I need to be careful of too much intensity? I just love isometrics. Most of my workouts are only isometrics(TSC or Static Holds). Sometimes I’ll do isometric as a pre-exhaust, then do a few repetitions very slowly. Is this O.K. to be doing?
Love the articles. Keep e’m coming. You told me like a year or so ago, you were working on an article about proper shoes for training. And any updates on your attachments to your UXS?
Thanks
Hey John,
Isometric protocols and especially timed static contractions would be effective for strength and conditioning while minimizing microtrauma and the related inflammatory response. Using isometrics to pre-exhaust slow dynamic reps is fine if you don’t have flare ups afterwards. List most things, it depends on the individual and you need to pay close attention to how your body responds and adjust your training as necessary.
I have made a few slight modifications to the UXS including slight changes to the pike push-up handles and the addition of an optional second roller pad arm in a lower position which provides the ability to perform several additional exercises. The other attachments I planned will instead be incorporated into an all-in-one leg and trunk exercise station (leg curls, sissy squats, trunk extension, heel raise, etc.) which I hope to complete this year.
Hi Drew,
another excellent article.
It’s a shame that so many trainers/PTs still insist on having their clients perform far too many exercises, in poor form and usually at break-neck speeds.
I’ll be recommending all the PTs at my gym read your EoF book as soon as it’s out, as I’m convinced it’s going to be the ‘must have’ book on correct form for years to come and could seriously enhance how HIT is perceived amongst the mainstream BB fraternity.
I discussed form with a guy down my gym today, who asked why I used a 3/6 cadence with slow and controlled turnarounds. I mentioned I’d been following your routines/writings for 2-3 years and gave him a brief run through of some of your ideas and suggested he check out your site. Anyway, he then asked that If someone were to harbour ambitions to be a competitive BB, would you still have them train 2 x full body per week, or was that a protocol more suited to ‘recreational’ lifters who are just wanting to build a bit of size and, I hate the expression, but ‘tone up’ a bit?
I said I’d ask you but assumed the answer would be ‘Yes’?
Thanks Drew!!
Best,
Jamie.
Hey Jamie,
If someone has the genetics for competitive bodybuilding and they train intensely enough two full-body workouts per week is plenty, and some will get better results with a lower volume and frequency that that.
Hi Drew,
What are your thoughts of TUL vs rep counting. I have started TUL as it seems a bit more reliable using a timer. And under TUL, what would you recommend be the point where the clock stops … i.e., use the same approach as for reps as you described above? Thx.
Hey CF,
I covered this in Q&A: Counting Repetitions Or Timing Sets For Better Form?
Great article Drew and I agree with everything you say. I have been training for over 30 years and have never been injured lifting weights, probably thanks to reading articles by Ellington Darden early in my lifting career. I have been injured playing sport, moving furniture and slipping on ice however so everyday life is probably far more dangerous than intense exercise performed properly. As you say, exercise performed properly has a large, built in margin of safety and should not hurt you.
I was just checking out “time under tension” on youtube, and there seems to be lots of misconceptions about this subject. For example, it seems that some people advocate that more time under tension (without any talk about intensity etc.) is always better = more volume is better. Considering that most of these “fitness channels” are advocating multiple set approach, I get why some people are criticising this “time under tension myth”. Intensity is forgotten.
For me it makes sense, that doing too slow and/or too long is counterproductive, considering that intensity is key factor for hypertrophy, right?
By the way, if you have the time, please check some of those videos out.
Hey Chief,
Too much time under tension and volume can be counterproductive, and too little can be ineffective. The key is finding an effective middle ground based on individual response.
I wasn’t quite sure where to post this but this article probably is a good spot. I watched your, what I believe is your latest, “The 21 Convention” video. Great, great stuff Drew. Some things that are resonating for me is the information about metabolic work vs. mechanical work. I know you’ve written quite a bit about that before, but still great to hear more about. I like how you said “quiet the mind” vs. emptying your thoughts, before a workout. “Your margin for injury lessens the weaker you get during a set.” Which you of course talk about here as well. I think the message you and Bill DeSimone are putting out about exercise not being something that should harm you is golden! It is indeed an interesting thing that someone feels thye have to “earn their badge of injury honor” in the name of improving thier strength, health, and appearance. The comparison of lifting a weight vs. working the muscles. Which of course goes back to the metabolic work vs. mechanical work. Again, great stuff Drew!
Hey Donnie,
You’re welcome. I’m glad to know people are reading and getting something out of this and I’m not just sitting here writing for myself.
I’ve had a recurring pectoral injury since high school, which was about 25 years ago. The area seems to be in the muscle belly. It seems to recur at least once per year anymore, and I basically lose most of my gains each time it happens. It’s really frustrating. I have been training for many years, and am generally pretty muscular (when I’m not hurt!)
Most recently, I was using a 5 up, 5 down cadence with a 2 second hold for most lifts. I am sure the slower cadence and smoother turnarounds are safer than the “standard” rep execution that resulted in the injury long ago to begin with. I don’t exactly know what causes these “flair ups,” since it is generally a day or so before I feel symptoms from the time of the offending rep, etc. It could be that inattention and looser form somewhere in the workout are to blame.
I would like to do everything correctly this time in resting and rehabilitating the injury to reduce the number of setbacks and to minimize the chances of it happening again once I get back into a workout routine.
Any suggestions where to begin in a case like this? Do any of your publications address injuries- rehabbing them and working around them; finding the appropriate medical professional, etc?
Much appreciated.
Hey Matt,
While a slower speed helps there are other factors, including the path and range of movement, leverage factors, acceleration during the lower turnaround, etc. Without observing you perform the exercise it is difficult to say exactly what the problem might be. I have experience training people recovering from a wide variety of injuries but I have not written articles or books specifically dealing with rehabilitation.
Thanks, Drew. By the way, thanks for continuing to write such high quality stuff on a regular basis.
Hey Matt,
You’re welcome.
Hi Drew,
Can you tell me your thoughts on training the calf muscle. BBS and a Dr. Dardens website say to lock the knees because that the only way to fully engage the gastrocnemius muscle. You say to keep the knees slightly bent in Project Kratos. Which one is best? I’m also curious how you would reccomend training the soleus muscle. I have had several repetitive strains on my soleus from running and would like to strengthen it.
Warmly,
Will
Hey William,
You don’t need to lock your knees to effectively work the gastrocnemius and keeping them slightly bent is safer when they’re performed on a leg press or calf press machine so I teach using a slightly bent knee on all straight-legged calf exercises just to be consistent. If you’re performing straight-legged calf exercises you are already working your soleus. Bending the knee and putting the gastrocnemius in active insufficiency isn’t necessary.
If you’re frequently straining your soleus from running I recommend that you stop running, or at least cut back significantly. It is not necessary for improving or maintaining any general factor of functional ability or health. If you must run as part of your job or for a sport or if you are doing it for recreation, cut back as much as is possible or practical.
Hey Drew!
What is your advice on proper shoulder/scapula position during main push and pull movements? There’s a lot confusing info out there. For example some say that during push-ups one needs to protract shoulders and engage serratus anterior to prevent winging, other say that is just for gymnastic specific work and that shoulders need to stay back and down, that is protracted, which should be most safe position.
Thank you!
Hey Blaire,
If the scapula are able to move during the exercise they should be allowed to move provided the path and range of movement is correct for the exercise. In most cases it is not necessary to hold them in a protracted or retracted position. If you are performing a bench press or using a chest press machine and their movement is limited by the bench or seat they should be positioned correctly before loading and held there as best you can.