Strength training is easy to exhaustion

Strength training is prone to exhaustion. It is essentially the result of the superposition of "overdraft of the energy supply system, failure of movement patterns, and fluctuations in physical state." It is neither evidence of your training strokes nor a sign of adequate training. It is a normal physiological phenomenon that all strength trainers will encounter repeatedly from novices to advanced.

Last Wednesday, I met Akai, who has been practicing powerlifting for three years, at the gym. We originally planned to go for a deadlift PR together. We had been very stable during the 160kg set before. That day, we warmed up to 170kg. When I was holding the bar, I was wondering how delicious the roasted lamb kidneys I had eaten last night were. As soon as the bar was above my knees, my arms suddenly went weak. I fell half a step forward, threw the bar, sat on the ground and panted for almost two minutes before recovering, and even said, "Today is weird, I just lost strength as soon as I tried hard."

After this incident, I specifically talked to coaches from different training systems in the gym, and also looked through a lot of sports physiology information. Only then did I realize that people have a lot of misunderstandings about "failure", and the reasons are more complicated than I thought. When you press heavy weights, your body relies on phosphates stored in your muscles for energy. This thing is like the backup battery of your electric car. It is only enough for 6-10 seconds when fully charged. After it is used up, you have to rest for at least 3 minutes to replenish it to more than 80%. If you only rest for 1 minute between sets, the second set will definitely be soft. There is nothing surprising. I used to practice bench pressing in a hurry to increase my capacity, and only rested for 1 and a half minutes between sets. As a result, in the third set, I couldn't even press 4 of the weight that I could do 8 before. Later, I extended the rest time to 3 minutes, and I was able to press 6 in no time. To put it bluntly, the energy supply has not kept up, and it has nothing to do with whether you have enough muscle mass.

When it comes to this, I have to mention the differences between different training schools. Guys I know who practice classical bodybuilding like to say, "Short inter-set intervals can give you a full pump, and you can reach failure at the end." They train a single muscle group with small weights and multiple reps, relying on glycolysis for energy. There is no need for long inter-set intervals. The final failure is also a deliberate pursuit of muscle fiber tearing effect, which is completely different from the failure of power lifting with heavy weights. The guy practiced the last two sets of biceps curls. When he couldn't lift anymore, he asked the coach to help him break his arms and do two more exercises. He said that the stimulation of the last two curls was the only thing missing. He practiced this for two years and his arm circumference increased from 32 to 38. It really worked.

But Coach Chen, who practices powerlifting, doesn’t recognize this approach at all. He has led seven or eight athletes from the provincial competition and told us that training for the main event must not reach failure. At most, stop when the movement starts to shake. Otherwise, the deformation of the movement will reduce the training effect at best, or cause a waist injury and shoulder injury, which will not be cured even after half a year of training. Last year, there was a novice in the gym who was practicing deadlifts. Originally, he could only do 3 lifts of 120kg, but he insisted on doing the 4th one. When he reached failure, his waist bent directly. It took him more than three months to dare to touch the barbell. The gain outweighed the loss.

In addition to differences in energy supply and training concepts, wrong movement patterns will also make you more likely to fail than others. Many people suffer from exhaustion not at all because the target muscles are weak, but because the compensating muscles cannot bear it first. I used to be stuck on the 80kg bench press, and started to shake at the 4th push. I always felt that my chest was weak. Later, Coach Chen looked at my movements and said that my waist was arched too high and my core was not tight. Every time I pushed, my waist could not bear it and the force could not be transmitted. After the adjustment, my core tightened, leaving only the normal physiological curvature of my waist. I pushed 6 times in the first time, and I did not feel that exhaustion came so quickly. To put it bluntly, the order of exerting force is wrong. The muscles that should not be exerted are exhausted first, and naturally it is easy to lose strength.

In addition, your physical condition that day directly determines how quickly you reach failure. Staying up until two o'clock the day before, or just eating a salad at noon before going to practice, or being scolded by your boss in a bad mood at work, may cause your training status to drop by 20% today. You might be able to pull 160, but even pull 140 feels strenuous. Last month I went to do squats without breakfast one morning. I squatted in the second set of 100kg. As soon as I stood up, my eyes were black and I almost fell to the ground. The coach quickly stuffed me with half a banana and sat for five minutes before I recovered. After that, I never dared to do heavy weights on an empty stomach again.

In fact, after practicing for four years, I feel that there is nothing good or bad about failure. It is just a signal sent by your body. You don’t have to listen to the online saying that "not to failure means training in vain" and just carry on, and you don’t have to think that failure means you are weak. If you want to strive for muscle hypertrophy this week, it’s perfectly fine to occasionally sprint to failure for two sets of auxiliary exercises. If you are preparing for a competition this week and want to strive for a PR, then try to avoid walking to failure. Slow and steady is better than anything else. After all, training is a long-term thing. If you get injured and lie down for a few months, your training will really be in vain.