Beyond Failure Training

Beyond Failure Training

Beyond failure training, was made popular by Trevor Smith. His beliefs
were that the body is capable of a lot more stress than we give it
credit for and that when the body fails, the set just begins. Beyond
failure training is very simple in concept, but very hard to do and
few people will ever do it because it hurts so much.

Training past failure demands that when you are doing a set, as you
begin to go to failure, where you cannot complete a full range of
motion on your own and you are at momentary failure, your training
partner assists you in completing a few more repetitions with the
same weight before you are allowed to stop. At this point you are
pumped beyond belief, but it is not over yet! Your partner
immediately drops the weight down around 40% and you continue with
the set until you cannot get any more reps. Your partner again
assists you to get and additional number of reps until you are fried.
Then once again your partner drops the weight so you can continue
your journey into no-mans land and once you begin to fail he again
assists you in getting additional reps. Then and only then is your
set complete. You do only 1 or 2 "sets" as above for each exercise.

Here is the Beyond Failure Training suggest workout routine:

Day 1: Chest and Calves
Pec Deck
Incline Barbell Press on Smith Machine
Donkey Calf Machine
Seated Calf Raises

Day 2: Shoulders and Triceps
Single Arm Cable or Machine Laterals
Front Presses on Smith Machine
Tricep Pushdowns

Day 3: Off

Day 4: Back and Biceps
Pullover Machine
Machine Rows
Lat Pulldown
Machine Curls

Day 5: Legs
Leg Extensions
Leg Press
Leg Curls

Day 6: Off

Day 7: Off


Here are some important rules to remember when following Beyond
Failure Training:

You will tend to need an hour or so to recover from the workout
so that you can perform daily functions.

You will find that after 6 (8 weeks max) that you will start to
get burned out training this way, reduce the intensity for a
few weeks until you feel ready again to give it your all.

You can only train once a day for a maximum of 4 times a week.

You can only spend a maximum of 45 minutes in the gym per
session.

It is very painful and you will tend to have anxiety before
your workouts.

You must keep all other physical activities to a bare minimum
during your 6-week training cycle to insure maximum recovery
and energy available for the workouts

It is imperative that you have adequate nutrients in the
system at all times. You need to make sure you are getting
2-2.5 grams of protein / pound each day along with 2 - 3
grams of carbs depending on your metabolism (if you are
carb sensitive cut it back to 1.5-2 grams and compensate
the calories with extra protein.

Make sure you are getting at least 7 hours of straight sleep
a night along with a good hour nap at some point in the day
or evening. If this is not feasible, Try and get 8-9 hours
of sleep per night.

Train harder then the next guy, and one day nobody will
touch you!