momentary muscular failure for me is first hitting a sticking point, youre contracting but are no longer moving.the burn has usually just passed at this point, then contracting as hard as a can until your output drops to 69% but the resistance is at 70% you're contracting as hard as possible but the resistance is slowly pulling u down. That's true failure and a skill in itself.
This video literally is the focal point to every video you done since then. It’s the key of life to master everything you can do to each one’s abilities. 🙏🏾🙏🏾 amazing.
Sometimes the sound of your videos is not the best, there are no cinematic, epic pictures to watch but your content is brilliant. Telling yourself you can´t do something (or can do only a certain amount) is the best way to hinder yourself from doing it. So you better shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you´ll land amongst the stars.
Thanks Michael, yea figuring out audio has been a long puzzle for me. I've spent way too much on various mics and audio editing tools. Finally landed on something this year that seems to work.
Love the theme of the videos over the last week or so. I feel like we're really clarifying some hugely important points towards making the gains we all want to see! Thanks a lot, Matt!
A long time ago, when I was in a special program in the Navy, we hit true failure 5 days a week. I now have to force myself to not reach that level of fatigue on a regular basis because it is hard to recover from. Although I do like the mental toughness of digging that deep within myself, it affects my recovery and how I feel energywise throughout the day. Balancing it so I get stronger on a regular basis is challenging to say the least. Ideally, we would have electrical readouts like our cellphones that tell us how low our battery is so we would 'know" exactly how much to do for optimal hypertrophy and strength gains...
New to your videos, everything I've seen you talk about makes a lot of sense, so thank you for being a seemingly real person among a literal heap of misinformation and misguidance for the sake of profit. The question I have is this: have you built your health, and physique using only calisthenics? I apologize if you've answered this in another video. Thank you!
I don't think I get close enough to high fatigue. Need to up my game! Can you talk about spreading sets over the day versus doing them all together, what does the rest do in between if muscles recover during that rest. Why is one drop set not enough if we fatigue all the fibers in one drop set?
I progress better when I push myself to absolute muscular failure, my set ends when the muscle I'm working can not physically move me any more. I do this because in my mind I then know I gave my ALL to that set.
I believe this is where adding a certain amount of slow negative reps of given exercise on the end of the set, (once you think you can't do any more whole reps in that set) , is very useful..
I know it's an old video, but still. I've been looking into this whole "training to failure" thing and research on that and I have a little comment to make here. But first I'll just say that I agree with 100% of what was said in the video, it's more of a terminological mishap. There have been a lot of discussion on various "types" of muscle failure and whatnot (I've found like 6 already - myofibrillar, intermediate, mitochondrial, concentric, eccentric, isometric, yada-yada-yada) - but in scientific research there seem to be a consensus that: "...muscular failure does not mean that a muscle is incapable of performing further muscle actions and therefore we cannot say that muscular failure is equivalent to being maximally fatigued (Willardson, 2007). Muscular failure means that a muscle is incapable of expressing force at the same level as it was able to previously, such that it is no longer able to move an arbitrary weight that was set for the task at hand". (via "hypertophy" aricle at strengthandconditioningresearch(dot)com) Thanks for the great video.
Oh man, I just read C-mass and then watching this gave me the finishing touch! P.W says embrace the reps, to the point where your body is screaming at you to stop, and then keep going some more till you deplete your muscle from its chemical storage. After years of strength training approach, this is a new feeling I'm still trying to understand. Good that it's only 2 sets!! But as he says: if you're really working hard, you shouldn't be able to keep going for a third set. Great great stuff! Question: did you build your physique on a CC approach? How far did you reach (steps) by the time you shot the "after-pic" on your website? I'm interested just out of curiosity. P.W. already says enough to look at 2 years or more. Good approach too.
I did the classic weight lifting stuff for a while up until the before picture. After that, I did a mix of the CC routine and some accessory body weight work thrown in like strap curls and dips which is when that pic was taken. Now my routine is much more CC and things have never been so good!
RedDeltaProject would you recommend doing CC all exercises 3 days a week (I use the app) or do something like veterano which is 2 exercises plus neck or grip work for 6 days a week?
Great video Matt, this video got me thinking, i know some guys that workout at home like i do, but they do the same thing every day and got amazing muscularity while being lean, basically pullups and pushups everyday, and they go for higher reps and sets, but none of them knows or care about nutrition or bodybuilding methods, they contradict every muscle building principle and still get awesome results, how can this be?
+Martin Manzur Well, the honest answer is despite all of our science and history how and why the body builds muscle is something of a mystery. I've got a funny video coming out in the next couple days about this.
Matt, according to your high fatigue definition, do you consider concentric muscle failure the place to stop "most" of the time? Other question, if after a warmup, I plan to do 2 work sets, with the ultimate goal of 2 sets of 20 reps of pullups with 1 minute rest between, should I stop the exercise 'before' concentric muscle failure because on the 1st set so that I have something in the tank for the second set? Otherwise I would be able to do far more reps on set #1 and ultimately have set 1 reach maybe 30 reps before having enough power to reach 20 reps on my 2nd set? Would a 'better goal' be 25 reps set 1 and 20 reps set 2?
Yo Robert! I think you'll get about the same result either way as long as you progress your time under tension. Lately though, I've been a big fan of what I call the "fill in" technique. This is when you do what you can on your first set and then the second set. Then in the next workout, you keep the first set the same and aim to get more on the next set or two until they match the same number of the first set. Then I progress the first set and repeat. I'll make a video on it soon.
Thumbs up for interesting content, as always, but I must disagree with you a bit on this one, Matt. I'd be surprised if many people can recover from training on the nerve like that on a consistent basis. The trick is figuring out how to keep increasing the work load a little bit without overtaxing yourself. You should feel fresh when you finish a workout, like you could do it again. Not like you just smoked the shit out of yourself. If you're not getting stronger, I'd say it's not because you're not pushing yourself hard enough, it's because you're not recovering enough. Ruthlessly trim down your routine to just a few exercises a few times a week, doing half your routine one workout and the other half the next. Be happy with small increases. If you can only do 10 pull-ups, shoot for 5 sets of 7, then 5 sets of 8. If you can't get the reps, rest longer between sets. Remember also that form breaks down when you get close to failure, and bad form leads to injury, and believe me joint pain fucking sucks.
+Dale G. Actually I think we're on the same page here Dale. Definitely agree about stopping before technical failure before the form breaks down. As Laid Hamilton once mentioned it's a good idea to be able to still do something like surfing after a workout. I find I can push into high fatigue 1-2 sets on a move once a week and still be okay for training. All very good points and definitely something to keep in mind sir!
To give me an idea of your workload, would you mind telling me how many times a week you train, how many exercises in your routine as well as how many each session, and how long your work sets take per session?
+Dale G. Sure you can find my workouts under "Veterano plus" or the workouts category on my main channel page. Most of my workouts are about 20 minutes and are full body every day either one move emphasized each day.
I am confused. Greasing the grove (GTG) method tells you to keep low reps and avoid fatigue/working till failure. Most strength training methods insist on keeping law reps and avoiding high fatigue. On the other hand, James Grage uses high reps sets 20X10X10X15. Which way works best for strength development?
Strength work is just like most other forms of skill training where you want to keep the reps low and achieve only as much fatigue as necessary to practice each set.
You're right, fatigue will erode your technique sooner or later. In that case either a) do exercises that are still pretty safe when your technique gets sloppy, like push ups and rows or b) do more complex moves but stop before you get too tired, like 2-3 reps shy of having to stop.
+RedDeltaProject okey but that mean I don't commit to the progressions paul listed...he suggested that a beginner sould start at 1*10 then move up to 3*50 by just adding 2 or three rips every week ..but with training to fatigue I could eaisly bang 3*50 in just one week or two throwing the "banking strength"principle into the wall ?...do you see how iam left in the dark
+mohamed ibrahem I say go ahead and push and see what happens in the next few weeks all of the principles have a degree of flexibility to how you apply them
By all means still strive for your rep goals, especially if your goals are to do that to pass a PT test or something. But, yes don't get too hung up on the rep numbers and strive more for working the muscles effectively if your goals are to build muscle.
I'm quite curious as to how often you can train to high fatigue. I do this upper/lower split from C-mass, do three hard work sets, and on the third i usually drop down and do a dropset using some regressions. I have mainly done this one time on the upper day, and one time on the lower day. Could I do it on every workout without burning out?
+Mathias Smedberg Im doing a very similar thing now myself. I do a drop set on the last set of the primary move in the Veterano Plus routine. I think if you allow rest from the primary moves you shouldn't burn out. The body is a lot more resilient than we give it credit for.
I have a question on when you say be progressive. so right now my plan let's just say for upper body is 3 sets of 25 push ups,does that mean next week when I should do 3 sets for 26? or how so
Yup, that's one method of progression. Adding reps progresses the time your muscles are under tension for and that is part of it. The other part is placing more tension in your muscles by using more difficult exercises. So your 3 sets of 25 push ups could also be progressed by adding more range so you go all the way down to the floor instead of stopping a couple of inches above it. There are lots of ways you can progress as I'll detail in my next book coming out this summer.
Buff dudes (drug-free) are nothing but strong dudes who also EAT to increase their muscle mass. Going hard and systemic at the kitchen table. That's the only difference.
+Shaolin Schlag Of course. They are completely separate tissues in the body and are both built / lost for different reasons. More details in coming video.
+Shaolin Schlag I read for muscle gain all you need is positive nitrogen balance (ie protein) from Athlean-X video, not a caloric surplus. So many people bulk and cut and end up fat most of the time but think they are bigger.
I await your video on this. Scooby did a video on this and Cory McCarthy linked a study. However, credible TH-camrs, such as Sean Nalewanyj, claim you need a caloric surplus for muscle gains.
this is the best fitness channel on youtube, hands down.
One of your videos in which you say stop telling yourself you can only do a certain amount of reps, got my pullups from 20-25. Thanks!
momentary muscular failure for me is first hitting a sticking point, youre contracting but are no longer moving.the burn has usually just passed at this point, then contracting as hard as a can until your output drops to 69% but the resistance is at 70% you're contracting as hard as possible but the resistance is slowly pulling u down.
That's true failure and a skill in itself.
Andrew I totally agree and I have said this from the day he started.
Great motivational video! Thanks Matt!
This video literally is the focal point to every video you done since then. It’s the key of life to master everything you can do to each one’s abilities. 🙏🏾🙏🏾 amazing.
Thank you very much Bedford Umezulike for your support and for watching my stuff :)
A lot of stuff coming from you in recent days, I like it.
Sometimes the sound of your videos is not the best, there are no cinematic, epic pictures to watch but your content is brilliant. Telling yourself you can´t do something (or can do only a certain amount) is the best way to hinder yourself from doing it. So you better shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you´ll land amongst the stars.
Thanks Michael,
yea figuring out audio has been a long puzzle for me. I've spent way too much on various mics and audio editing tools. Finally landed on something this year that seems to work.
Love the theme of the videos over the last week or so. I feel like we're really clarifying some hugely important points towards making the gains we all want to see! Thanks a lot, Matt!
Totally agree, it's all in the mind.
A long time ago, when I was in a special program in the Navy, we hit true failure 5 days a week. I now have to force myself to not reach that level of fatigue on a regular basis because it is hard to recover from. Although I do like the mental toughness of digging that deep within myself, it affects my recovery and how I feel energywise throughout the day. Balancing it so I get stronger on a regular basis is challenging to say the least. Ideally, we would have electrical readouts like our cellphones that tell us how low our battery is so we would 'know" exactly how much to do for optimal hypertrophy and strength gains...
Pushing until I can't perform the movement with correct technique is another good rule of thumb.
lot of good stuff in less than 4 minutes, nice one
New to your videos, everything I've seen you talk about makes a lot of sense, so thank you for being a seemingly real person among a literal heap of misinformation and misguidance for the sake of profit. The question I have is this: have you built your health, and physique using only calisthenics? I apologize if you've answered this in another video. Thank you!
I don't think I get close enough to high fatigue. Need to up my game! Can you talk about spreading sets over the day versus doing them all together, what does the rest do in between if muscles recover during that rest. Why is one drop set not enough if we fatigue all the fibers in one drop set?
ME TOO IVE DONE ONCE IN MY LIFE WORKING IN THE CONSTRUCTION FIELD BUT THAT DAY WAS INSANE I HADNT EXPERIENCED SUCH PUMP UNTILL NOW
I progress better when I push myself to absolute muscular failure, my set ends when the muscle I'm working can not physically move me any more. I do this because in my mind I then know I gave my ALL to that set.
I believe this is where adding a certain amount of slow negative reps of given exercise on the end of the set, (once you think you can't do any more whole reps in that set) , is very useful..
For sure, control is the name of the game especially if you're looking to shore up weaknesses in the ROM
I know it's an old video, but still. I've been looking into this whole "training to failure" thing and research on that and I have a little comment to make here. But first I'll just say that I agree with 100% of what was said in the video, it's more of a terminological mishap.
There have been a lot of discussion on various "types" of muscle failure and whatnot (I've found like 6 already - myofibrillar, intermediate, mitochondrial, concentric, eccentric, isometric, yada-yada-yada) - but in scientific research there seem to be a consensus that:
"...muscular failure does not mean that a muscle is incapable of performing further muscle actions and therefore we cannot say that muscular failure is equivalent to being maximally fatigued (Willardson, 2007). Muscular failure means that a muscle is incapable of expressing force at the same level as it was able to previously, such that it is no longer able to move an arbitrary weight that was set for the task at hand". (via "hypertophy" aricle at strengthandconditioningresearch(dot)com)
Thanks for the great video.
amazing. Great insight and wisdom.
make a motivational video with cool music!!! :D
That's not a bad idea! I'll start collecting ideas pronto. Maybe put it to a cool polka or something. :)
Oh man, I just read C-mass and then watching this gave me the finishing touch! P.W says embrace the reps, to the point where your body is screaming at you to stop, and then keep going some more till you deplete your muscle from its chemical storage.
After years of strength training approach, this is a new feeling I'm still trying to understand. Good that it's only 2 sets!! But as he says: if you're really working hard, you shouldn't be able to keep going for a third set.
Great great stuff!
Question: did you build your physique on a CC approach? How far did you reach (steps) by the time you shot the "after-pic" on your website? I'm interested just out of curiosity. P.W. already says enough to look at 2 years or more. Good approach too.
I did the classic weight lifting stuff for a while up until the before picture. After that, I did a mix of the CC routine and some accessory body weight work thrown in like strap curls and dips which is when that pic was taken. Now my routine is much more CC and things have never been so good!
RedDeltaProject would you recommend doing CC all exercises 3 days a week (I use the app) or do something like veterano which is 2 exercises plus neck or grip work for 6 days a week?
Great video Matt, this video got me thinking, i know some guys that workout at home like i do, but they do the same thing every day and got amazing muscularity while being lean, basically pullups and pushups everyday, and they go for higher reps and sets, but none of them knows or care about nutrition or bodybuilding methods, they contradict every muscle building principle and still get awesome results, how can this be?
+Martin Manzur Well, the honest answer is despite all of our science and history how and why the body builds muscle is something of a mystery. I've got a funny video coming out in the next couple days about this.
nice question.I'll be waiting for a video response
tom platz...."hold my beer"
In CC failure is defined as not being able to do a rep with correct technique.
Matt, according to your high fatigue definition, do you consider concentric muscle failure the place to stop "most" of the time? Other question, if after a warmup, I plan to do 2 work sets, with the ultimate goal of 2 sets of 20 reps of pullups with 1 minute rest between, should I stop the exercise 'before' concentric muscle failure because on the 1st set so that I have something in the tank for the second set? Otherwise I would be able to do far more reps on set #1 and ultimately have set 1 reach maybe 30 reps before having enough power to reach 20 reps on my 2nd set? Would a 'better goal' be 25 reps set 1 and 20 reps set 2?
Yo Robert!
I think you'll get about the same result either way as long as you progress your time under tension. Lately though, I've been a big fan of what I call the "fill in" technique. This is when you do what you can on your first set and then the second set. Then in the next workout, you keep the first set the same and aim to get more on the next set or two until they match the same number of the first set. Then I progress the first set and repeat.
I'll make a video on it soon.
So I am guessing you feel the same way about the HIT style of training ala Arthur Jones, Mike Mentzer etc.
Close, I have some reservations about the two though.
Another good book to read is body by science by Doug Mcguff HIT intensity training
Ali once said, he counts his reps when he nears failure
Thumbs up for interesting content, as always, but I must disagree with you a bit on this one, Matt. I'd be surprised if many people can recover from training on the nerve like that on a consistent basis. The trick is figuring out how to keep increasing the work load a little bit without overtaxing yourself. You should feel fresh when you finish a workout, like you could do it again. Not like you just smoked the shit out of yourself. If you're not getting stronger, I'd say it's not because you're not pushing yourself hard enough, it's because you're not recovering enough. Ruthlessly trim down your routine to just a few exercises a few times a week, doing half your routine one workout and the other half the next. Be happy with small increases. If you can only do 10 pull-ups, shoot for 5 sets of 7, then 5 sets of 8. If you can't get the reps, rest longer between sets. Remember also that form breaks down when you get close to failure, and bad form leads to injury, and believe me joint pain fucking sucks.
+Dale G. Actually I think we're on the same page here Dale. Definitely agree about stopping before technical failure before the form breaks down. As Laid Hamilton once mentioned it's a good idea to be able to still do something like surfing after a workout.
I find I can push into high fatigue 1-2 sets on a move once a week and still be okay for training.
All very good points and definitely something to keep in mind sir!
To give me an idea of your workload, would you mind telling me how many times a week you train, how many exercises in your routine as well as how many each session, and how long your work sets take per session?
+Dale G. Sure you can find my workouts under "Veterano plus" or the workouts category on my main channel page. Most of my workouts are about 20 minutes and are full body every day either one move emphasized each day.
thank you
Dude, what an important video that is ! You summed it up. I'm so sick of bro science.
I am confused. Greasing the grove (GTG) method tells you to keep low reps and avoid fatigue/working till failure. Most strength training methods insist on keeping law reps and avoiding high fatigue. On the other hand, James Grage uses high reps sets 20X10X10X15. Which way works best for strength development?
Strength work is just like most other forms of skill training where you want to keep the reps low and achieve only as much fatigue as necessary to practice each set.
awsome vid!!!
The thing about high fatigue is it can lead to injury and bad form, at least in my case.
any thoughts?
You're right, fatigue will erode your technique sooner or later. In that case either a) do exercises that are still pretty safe when your technique gets sloppy, like push ups and rows or b) do more complex moves but stop before you get too tired, like 2-3 reps shy of having to stop.
Hardstyle Otaku (Kissislove17) Super slow tempo Focus on the eccentric
ok matt..you got it all covered..but for ones like me starting with cc how to apply "train to fatigue " principle on wall push ups for example ?
Push until you're struggling to get one more rep with good technique. That should do ya.
+RedDeltaProject okey but that mean I don't commit to the progressions paul listed...he suggested that a beginner sould start at 1*10 then move up to 3*50 by just adding 2 or three rips every week ..but with training to fatigue I could eaisly bang 3*50 in just one week or two throwing the "banking strength"principle into the wall ?...do you see how iam left in the dark
+mohamed ibrahem or iam just getting the wrong end of it ?
+mohamed ibrahem I say go ahead and push and see what happens in the next few weeks all of the principles have a degree of flexibility to how you apply them
RedDeltaProject .
So a goal of reaching 15 Chin/Pull-Ups and maybe 15-30 Push-Ups & Diamond Push-ups, should that no longer be the goal and more till I reach fatigue?
By all means still strive for your rep goals, especially if your goals are to do that to pass a PT test or something. But, yes don't get too hung up on the rep numbers and strive more for working the muscles effectively if your goals are to build muscle.
I'm quite curious as to how often you can train to high fatigue. I do this upper/lower split from C-mass, do three hard work sets, and on the third i usually drop down and do a dropset using some regressions. I have mainly done this one time on the upper day, and one time on the lower day. Could I do it on every workout without burning out?
+Mathias Smedberg Im doing a very similar thing now myself. I do a drop set on the last set of the primary move in the Veterano Plus routine. I think if you allow rest from the primary moves you shouldn't burn out. The body is a lot more resilient than we give it credit for.
Other peoples head tells them THAT'S ENOUGH! My head says PUSH PUSH UNTIL YOU DROP!
I have a question on when you say be progressive. so right now my plan let's just say for upper body is 3 sets of 25 push ups,does that mean next week when I should do 3 sets for 26? or how so
Yup, that's one method of progression. Adding reps progresses the time your muscles are under tension for and that is part of it.
The other part is placing more tension in your muscles by using more difficult exercises. So your 3 sets of 25 push ups could also be progressed by adding more range so you go all the way down to the floor instead of stopping a couple of inches above it. There are lots of ways you can progress as I'll detail in my next book coming out this summer.
RedDeltaProject sounds great, so far I've enjoyed your videos so I just might buy the book when it's out thank you.
how do you archieve high fatigue?
Do as many reps as you can.
Then do one more ;)
some people have big strength but look skinny,some people lool buff but actually slow,is this the difference btwin building muscle and strenght?
To some degree, there are also other physical factors in involved like lever length, training history ect.
Buff dudes (drug-free) are nothing but strong dudes who also EAT to increase their muscle mass. Going hard and systemic at the kitchen table. That's the only difference.
Well why are you redefining failure. Failure usually means momentary muscle failure. Not your version of absolute fatigue
Is it possible to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously?
+Shaolin Schlag Of course. They are completely separate tissues in the body and are both built / lost for different reasons. More details in coming video.
+Shaolin Schlag I read for muscle gain all you need is positive nitrogen balance (ie protein) from Athlean-X video, not a caloric surplus. So many people bulk and cut and end up fat most of the time but think they are bigger.
I've heard that, too. But most people preach caloric surplus for gaining muscle.
+Shaolin Schlag yea is right along with don't swim for 20 minutes after eating and going out with your hair wet will make you catch cold.
I await your video on this. Scooby did a video on this and Cory McCarthy linked a study. However, credible TH-camrs, such as Sean Nalewanyj, claim you need a caloric surplus for muscle gains.
I like the video and then i watch it :)
lot of good stuff in less than 4 minutes, nice one