By Doug Joachim
To fail during an exercise is a good thing. However, true exercise failure is very rarely achieved. Exercise failure occurs when you cannot complete a movement due to total neuromuscular and psychological fatigue. Picture yourself petering out on a set of push-ups and barely moving to complete the last rep. If offered a large financial incentive or threatened by physical harm, could you do 1 more rep? How about 2 more if I had a gun to your head? The mind controls the body. If the carrot or the stick is big enough you'd be surprised what you could do (not fly like Superman, but maybe lift a car off a child).
A major goal of resistance training is to engage and tire as many muscle fibers as possible. After one light warm-up set of bicep curls you will be lucky to engage 50% of the muscle within your arm. Increasing the load, rep range, intensity and such will magnify the amount of fatigued muscle but not come close to 100% recruitment. Perhaps the most proficient way to fatigue the great number of muscle fibers is to work to 'failure'. This is where your level of commitment is leveraged against yourself. Are you willing or do you want to endure great muscular pain to achieve this goal? How important is this exercise goal? Do you have the proper amount of concentration and willingness to work super hard? This brings me to a more important question, is it even advisable to workout to 100% volitional and physical effort? I can say, without hesitation, no. Ever see those news stories where some octogenarian lifts a 1 ton tractor off her son? It's been done, but after effects on the body are astoundingly widespread; joint dislocation, burst blood vessels, torn ligaments and tendons, heart attack and more. Moreover, the stress to your body's systems would be too high and likely decrease or reverse training effects.
Learning to push your own limits can be very helpful when breaking through plateaus and stagnation. In order to achieve the greatest benefit from one's workout it is critical to combine the psyche and the soma. Far too many people workout with their mind somewhere else. Yes, it is better than nothing, so long you don't get injured due to inattention. If watching TV or talking on your phone while exercising helps you maintain a consistent workout regimen, so be it. Workouts like these will never produce a great athlete or lithe body. Establishing and creating greatness takes a magnitude of physical perseverance and physiological grit. With a little more focus on one's workouts you can produce greater results in less time and optimize mindfulness skills.
Tips to help you fail:
Visualize the exercise before you do it
Have a friend or trainer spot you
Use music for motivation
Write your exercise goals down and why you want them
Build your resistance to fatigue by practicing it often
Eccentric training and forced eccentrics
Drop Sets
Research has shown that regular exercise increases cognitive functions and brain power. Einstein was fond of saying "if you can imagine it, you can create it". I'm pretty sure he wasn't talking about squeaking in an extra rep at the gym but it still applies.
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