When it comes to resistance training, such as lifting weights, there’s a lot of interest in how close you push yourself to failure—the point where you can’t do another rep—and how that impacts your results.
While many studies have explored this concept, until now, no meta-analysis had examined whether the effect of training close to failure follows a linear or non-linear pattern in terms of muscle strength and size.
A study lead by researchers at the Florida Atlantic University sought to clarify this by analyzing how training to the brink of failure impacts muscle growth and strength. They focused particularly on the primary muscles used in specific exercises, such as the quadriceps during leg presses.
The study gathered data from 55 different studies, examining how the number of repetitions left in reserve—essentially how many more reps you could do before hitting failure—affected muscle strength and growth. The results revealed that the distance from failure doesn’t significantly impact strength gains. Whether you stop far from failure or push close to it, the improvement in strength seems to be similar. However, when it comes to muscle growth (aka hypertrophy), training closer to failure appears to be more beneficial. The closer you are to failure when you finish your sets, the more your muscles tend to grow.
The researchers recommend that if your goal is muscle growth, you should work within a range of 0-5 reps short of failure. This approach maximizes muscle development while minimizing injury risk. For those focused on building strength, they suggest lifting heavier loads and stopping about 3-5 reps short of failure, which reduces unnecessary strain on the body.
“Training closer to failure enhances the accuracy of self-reported repetitions in reserve,” said author Zac P. Robinson.
“When people estimate how many reps they have left, this perception influences the weights they choose. If the estimation is off, they might use lighter weights than needed, which could limit strength gains. On the flip side, our meta-analysis shows that training closer to failure also leads to greater muscle growth.
“So, for the average individual, training close to failure may be the best option—as it seems to improve the accuracy of our perception of effort as well as gains in muscle size.”
The study highlights that while training to failure can be tough and harder to recover from, it may better simulate the conditions of a maximal strength test, which is often used to assess an individual’s strength capabilities.
These findings, published in Sports Medicine, offer valuable insights for trainers and athletes on how the proximity to failure affects muscle growth and strength.
ZP Robinson et al. Exploring the Dose–Response Relationship Between Estimated Resistance Training Proximity to Failure, Strength Gain, and Muscle Hypertrophy: A Series of Meta-Regressions. Sports Medicine (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-024-02069-2
