Most Faqs:

What about going to failure during a set? Is it good or bad? Should I do it or not?

Failure is a term used to describe what happens when you absolutely can NOT complete a rep. Meaning, if you were attempting to lift a weight 10 times but were

unable to actually do the 10th rep, that’s failure. You attempted a rep and failed to
complete it.

A question that is often debated is whether you should purposely set out to reach failure
during a set (or during all of your sets), or if you should purposely try to avoid it.

And it appears that for most people, most of the time, purposely trying to reach failure is
a bad idea that does more harm than good. Really, the only thing good about going to
failure is that it means you are working hard and striving to make progress happen. This
is super important, and I’ll explain why later.

But, going to failure is also extremely taxing on your body (not just the target muscle,
but the entire central nervous system), and this means it will impact both your short term
and long term recovery capabilities. Meaning, going to failure on a set will impact your
performance on later sets, and going to failure often will impact your overall
performance and ability to recover in time for the next workout.

Like I said, more harm than good. Which is why most experts tend to agree that
purposely setting out to reach failure on a set (or every set) is the wrong idea. In most
cases, you should try to stop about 1-2 reps short of failure.

So, if you are trying for 10 reps but felt your 9th rep was definitely going to be the last
one you were going to be able to do, stop there and don’t purposely go and fail on the
10th. Leave that rep in the tank and try for it next time.

On the other hand, if you thought you COULD do the 10th rep and tried it but failed to
complete it… then so be it. Occasionally reaching failure is fine, and in order to continue
making progress, it’s pretty much bound to happen from time to time. But, as long as it’s
not your goal and you’re not purposely trying to reach failure all the time (and you do it
safely of course), then it’s fine if it happens every once in a while unintentionally.

How do I figure out how much weight I should lift for each exercise
in order to be in the optimal rep range for my goal?

This one is actually really simple to answer since you just learned what “failure” is.

The goal is to use a weight that is light enough for you to do the number of reps you are
trying to do per set for that exercise (without reaching failure), but still heavy enough so
that you couldn’t do additional reps beyond that point.

For example, let’s pretend that you’re trying to do 3 sets of 8 reps for an exercise. The
weight you use needs to be light enough so you can actually get to about 8 reps in all 3
of your sets, but still heavy enough so that you couldn’t lift that weight many more times
than the 8 reps you are setting out to do.

Meaning, if you couldn’t reach 8 reps or at least get to within 1 or 2 reps of 8 in all 3 of
your sets in this example, the weight is probably too heavy. However, if you did 8 reps
in all of your sets but could have kept going and probably done more than 10, then the
weight is probably too light.

As for how to figure out what this amount of weight is for you on each exercise, just start
off using a weight that you know is a little too light for you. Then just gradually add
weight in small increments every time you do this exercise until you reach a weight that
is just right (not too heavy, not too light) for you for the rep range you are aiming to do.

And then when you become stronger/build muscle and that weight eventually becomes
too easy, you then need to increase it again by some small increment so that you are
again using a weight that’s right for you for this exercise and the number of reps you are
doing. (Don’t worry, I’ll explain this part in much more detail a bit later).

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