Training to failure is often a topic of contention on the gym floor, with many lifters advocating maxing out at the end of every set. On the other side of the coin, plenty of people don’t push themselves hard enough, often for fear of compromising recovery – and, in doing so, leave gains on the table.

Now, new research has shed light on just how much of an impact training to failure can have on recovery in the days after a session.

The study, published in the Journal of Human Kinetics, examined how variables such as training to failure, volume and exercise selection affected recovery between sessions. It also sought to identify which programming strategies best optimise performance.

The researchers included 24 studies in their review, all of which investigated recovery between resistance training sessions.

The review found that training to failure increases recovery time. Consistently taking sets to failure produced the greatest increases in post-workout fatigue and muscle damage.

Compared with stopping a few reps short of failure, sets taken to failure required an additional 24-48 hours for strength and performance to recover. They also increased perceived effort and discomfort while reducing performance in subsequent workouts.

The researchers don’t conclude that training to failure is ineffective. Instead, they suggest it should be programmed strategically to maximise performance over the course of a training block. That might mean using it for isolation exercises or when you’ve allowed enough recovery time for a particular muscle group.

One of the biggest takeaways is that how you organise your training across the week has a significant impact on recovery, how quickly you’re able to train hard again, and the total amount of training volume you can accumulate. The researchers recommend:

• Including lighter sessions between heavy strength days
• Training different muscle groups on consecutive days
• Reducing volume before key sessions

For most of us, it’s fine to train to failure occasionally, but other evidence suggests it may not be necessary for optimal strength gains. Instead, stopping one or two reps short of failure is often enough.

Training to failure, high-volume sessions and heavy compound lifts all have a place, but they should be programmed intelligently so they don’t compromise the workouts that follow.

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