The Pros and Cons of Training to Failure—Plus How to Do It Properly

The term “training to failure” can sound more than a little intimidating, especially if you’re relatively new to strength training. But it can have real benefits, like helping advanced lifters push themselves enough to continue to see gains from their muscle-building routines.

But if you’re a little less familiar with the concept, you’ve probably got plenty of questions about the pros and cons of training to failure, who it might be right for, and how to do it. We spoke to two fitness experts to help decode what it really means to train to failure.

What Is Training to Failure?

Training to failure refers to completing a number of reps of a specific exercise you’re doing until you can’t go on. After doing several reps, you reach “failure” when you simply can’t do another rep—or you can’t complete the rep with proper form, explains Peloton instructor Andy Speer. 

When you can’t perform that last rep with good form, it’s called “technical failure,” according to the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). When you can’t perform that last rep, regardless of form, it’s called “muscular failure” or “absolute failure.”

For most people, training to failure looks something like starting with a goal to do eight to 15 reps of an exercise with a relatively challenging weight. “By the time eight, 10, or 12 reps come around, it’s going to feel like you can’t do it anymore,” Andy says. “That’s the sweet spot for most people to safely and effectively train to failure for building muscle.”

At that point of failure, you’ll feel like you need to drop your weights or have a spotter help guide you into a safer position, Andy says. You’ll likely feel a bit of a burning sensation in your muscles. It’ll also be challenging mentally to motivate yourself to keep working. 

“You are reaching a kind of maximum threshold of your physiological function,” adds RJ Williams, a physical therapist with Fyzical Therapy and Balance Centers.

Is Training to Failure Necessary for Muscle Growth?

Many serious weightlifters swear by training to failure, but it’s not the only way to experience strength or muscle gains. 

In fact, the closer lifters get to failure, the more likely they are to build muscle size, according to a 2024 Sports Medicine review. But the research found a more convoluted relationship between training to failure and strength gains: Reaching failure wasn’t necessary to simply build strength, regardless of muscle size. It’s also worth noting that earlier research found no notable difference in muscle strength or size improvements with training to failure versus not training to failure, according to a 2021 Journal of Sport and Health Science review.

The average person looking to build muscle strength and size can see major improvements focusing instead on what’s called progressive overload training. This concept refers to gradually increasing the stress on your body so it continues to adapt to the work and grow stronger in the process. That typically looks like picking up heavier weights over time, cycling a little faster, or running farther distances as you get more comfortable.

To make sure you’re progressively overloading your muscles, you can try training to fatigue rather than training to failure, Andy says. Aim to feel like you could still do two or three more reps of a given exercise rather than being unable to complete one more. “That’s a pretty safe place to stay, and it’s still going to get you progressing,” he says. 

This is sometimes referred to as “reps in reserve,” Williams says. That’s essentially a name for how much energy is left in your tank. You might go into a set not knowing how many reps you’ll be able to do, planning to finish when you think you have just two reps left in reserve—meaning you could only do two more reps if you had to. 

“It gives you a different way to approach near-failure without taking yourself to a place where your muscles are nearly shutting down over and over again,” Williams says. And training to near-failure may be just as effective and carry fewer risks than training to failure, according to a 2019 review in Strength and Conditioning Journal.

Pros and Cons of Training to Failure

There definitely can be benefits of training to failure, but it’s not for everyone. Consider these possible perks and potential downsides before you give this lifting technique a try.

Benefits of Training to Failure

When you’re working hard enough to reach your own personal point of failure, you’re definitely pushing yourself. And this can pay off: “You’re stressing your muscles enough to have to adapt and grow a little bit stronger,” Andy says. Over time, a smart workout plan that includes training to failure sometimes (more on timing below!) can help you build visible muscle, he says.

But there’s also a psychological benefit, Andy adds. The more you push yourself toward failure, the more the experience forces you to be in the present moment, noticing the sensation and cultivating awareness of how you need to move your body to push through that final rep. “Your mind-muscle connection and your awareness of what’s happening in your body increase as you get closer to failure because you’re feeling everything more,” he says.

Drawbacks of Training to Failure

If you’re not careful, training to failure could get a little dangerous. For example, you don’t want to have a heavy squat bar on your back and no spotter and reach a point of failure where you can’t get the bar back on the rack, Andy says. “Put yourself in a position where training to failure is relatively safe,” he says. (Bicep curls are one possible example.) Otherwise, you could seriously injure yourself.

Training to failure is also, as the name suggests, supposed to be hard. And hard workouts generally require more recovery time. You’ll likely be pretty sore, and your individual muscles and your overall muscular and cardiovascular systems can get fatigued, Andy says. You’ll probably want to make sure you’re not training to failure in the couple days before any big event on your schedule where you can’t really afford to be shuffling around sore and exhausted, he warns.

Plus, if you consistently work out really intensely without proper recovery time, you may put yourself at risk for overtraining syndrome, Andy says. That’s a period of prolonged fatigue and stress on the body that takes much longer to recover from than a couple of rest days. “If I continue to train to failure every day, and I’m not being intelligent about how I’m programming [my workouts], the body doesn’t have time to actually recover and grow and use the stimulus you’re putting on it,” he says.

Over time, that could lead to injury if you’re consistently overloading your connective tissues and joints, Williams adds. It also might be harder to stick to a routine of training to failure if you’re constantly overly exhausted by your workouts. And if you have to take a longer break from exercise because of how often you train to failure, you risk losing out on the gains you were going for, according to NASM.

Plus, without enough recovery time, you might see higher-than-normal levels of stress-related hormones, Williams says. This imbalance is associated with an increased risk of a host of health concerns, including heart disease, digestion issues, depression, trouble sleeping, and a weaker immune system, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Who Is Lifting to Failure Right For?

No one has to train to failure. It’s a style of strength training that many serious lifters employ, but it’s absolutely not necessary if you’re not interested or if it’s not safe for you to exercise that intensely currently. 

If your goal is to build muscle and get seriously strong, and you’re generally healthy and injury-free, you can experiment with training to failure. You’ll need to program your workouts carefully, include plenty of recovery time, and monitor how often you train to failure (more on that below), Andy says.

If you have some other goal, like running a faster 5K, and you’re in the middle of racing season, you should probably hold off for now. “Training to failure in the gym is just going to put you in a bad position when you focus on what your priority is, which is running,” Andy says. In other words, whether or not you decide to train to failure is really based on your fitness goals, he says.

When During a Workout Should You Train to Failure?

If you decide training to failure makes sense for you, you’ll probably want to make it one small part of a larger strength training workout, typically at the end of a work block, Andy says. That means you’d go to failure for the last set of a certain exercise or the last several exercises in your training day. Specifically, Andy recommends training to failure on the last set of your last one to three exercises. (This also ensures your body is properly warmed up before pushing yourself that hard, he adds.)

But why should you reserve training to failure for the end of a workout? “Because there’s not much to come back to after that,” Andy says. Remember: You shouldn’t be able to do another set if you’re truly training to failure, so it’s going to be time to call it quits on your workout shortly after. 

Should You Train to Failure Every Set?

You shouldn’t train to failure every set—and you probably won’t be able to, anyway. “If you try to go to failure on your first set, there’s not much room to do much else after that,” Andy reiterates.

How Often Should You Train to Failure?

How often you train to failure will depend on your fitness goals and workout programming. You likely won’t be able to go to failure every day or every single workout, though—and nor should you.

Serious weightlifters who typically focus on one muscle group per day can do this three to five times a week because they have plenty of time to recover before working that same muscle group again, Andy says. But others may be following, say, 12-week training plans to get competition-ready and only train to failure on a few workouts every four weeks or so to check in with their progress, Williams says.

If you’re someone who likes to do full body workouts several times a week, you might not have enough time to recover if you train to failure Monday and want to do a similar workout on Wednesday. Instead, consider a two-week period where you train to failure three days a week to bust a plateau, for example, Andy says. “Use it strategically and cyclically throughout your training based on your overall training scheme and goals.”

If You Haven’t Trained for Months, Should You Go to Failure?

It’s generally OK to train to failure (within reason) even if you haven’t trained in a while, Williams says—as long as you’re generally healthy and injury-free. No matter when you last exercised, make sure you’re properly warmed up and not just jumping onto a bench and banging out as many bench press reps as you can, he says.

If you do decide to train to failure for the first time in a while, you can use the practice to get a baseline measure of your strength. Then, train regularly for some time and test yourself again later on to measure your progress, Williams suggests. Just keep in mind “failure” might happen sooner than if you’d been training regularly up to now. And of course, don’t push yourself so hard that you risk injuring yourself.

The Takeaway

Training to failure means lifting weights during a specific exercise until you literally cannot perform another rep. Advanced athletes and competitive weightlifters use this technique to build muscle strength and size, although research has been mixed on both. Average exercisers don’t need to train to failure but can instead focus on training to fatigue, or until they have two or three reps left in them. This can be safer and easier to maintain for people looking to build more modest strength and mass. If you are going to train to failure, reserve it for a handful of workouts a week during the last set of a few of your last exercises. Always make sure you’re properly warmed up before attempting to train to failure or you might be more likely to hurt yourself.