What does research say about the effectiveness of training to failure versus training short of failure?
Research, including a review by Schoenfeld et al. (2022), shows that training to failure and training with 1-3 reps in reserve yield statistically equivalent hypertrophy when total training volume is controlled. This suggests that while proximity to failure is important for motor unit recruitment, reaching full concentric failure does not provide additional benefits beyond training close to failure.
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