Any time I go to the gym and lift less than I did the previous time, I consider that training to failure :(

Being 40 and technically starting late; I’m all about longevity. To me, 2-3 RIR is basically failure. Once I feel the fade or drop in rep volume and control, I lower the weight. Never ego lift. Focus on MM Connection. Pump is only one indicator I hit the intended muscle group; feeling the soreness and recovery days later is a better indicator that more effective hypertrophy was achieved. Compound movements are ideal, stabilizer muscles are just as important as isolations; both are essential. Ideal rep range is 7-11 for me.

Big bro, great post !

This is one of those topics where I think people make it too black and white.

For hypertrophy, I don’t think you need to take every set to absolute failure, but I do think you need to live pretty damn close to it if the goal is growth. Mechanical tension is the big driver, and proximity to failure is what makes sure the set is actually hard enough to recruit and challenge the fibers you’re trying to grow.

My own style is more Jordan Peters / Fortitude-ish: low to medium volume, high intensity, progressive overload, and manage fatigue like your life depends on it lol. (I’m pretty open-minded, so I’m always up for listening, learning and trying new things. We evolve/change/adapt over time, and what works great for me now at 36 might not work when I’m 56, and so on.)

I’d rather do fewer sets and make those sets really count than pile up a bunch of volume just because the spreadsheet says I need 20 sets for a muscle.

Most of my straight working sets live around 5–9 reps, sometimes 8–12 depending on the movement. That’s just where I personally get the best combination of load, execution, mechanical tension and progression.

Can you grow in the 15–25 rep range? Absolutely. Science is pretty clear that hypertrophy can happen across a broad rep range if the set is taken close enough to failure.

But for me, once you get too high in reps, sometimes the limiting factor starts becoming burn, breathing, cardiovascular fatigue, pain tolerance, etc., before the target muscle is truly the limiting factor. That’s why I personally prefer getting to those hard reps faster instead of spending half the set just trying to arrive there.

And this is where volume and failure have to be looked at together.

If you’re a high-volume guy, staying 2–3 RIR on a lot of sets can make perfect sense because you’re accumulating more total work.

If you’re a lower-volume guy, then IMO those few working sets better be damn productive. That’s where 0–1 RIR and selective failure make much more sense.

I also wouldn’t treat every exercise the same.

Taking a machine press, curl, extension, lateral raise, etc. to true failure? Much easier to justify.

Taking heavy squats, RDLs, rows or presses to ugly technical breakdown every single set? That can create a ton of fatigue for very little extra hypertrophy benefit.

So when I say failure, I mean technical/concentric failure with execution still under control, not turning the last rep into some CrossFit exorcism lol.

And I agree with your point about individuality. Fiber type, recovery, exercise selection, nutrition, sleep, PED use, training age… all of that changes how much volume and intensity somebody can handle.

Look at two completely different examples:

Jay Cutler was much more of a high-volume guy and often talked about stopping shy of absolute failure.

Dorian Yates built his whole system around very low volume and brutally hard sets taken to failure.

Both obviously built ridiculous physiques.

Different roads, same destination.

One thing I’d add though: I wouldn’t call time under tension itself “the key.” Like some people think… ( Super slow by Ken Hutchins )Controlled execution matters because it keeps tension where you want it, but artificially slowing every rep isn’t automatically more hypertrophic. Mechanical tension, sufficient proximity to failure, progression over time and recovery are the bigger pieces.

Same with the pump.

I like a pump. It can tell you the muscle is getting blood, you’re probably targeting it reasonably well, and it’s useful feedback.

But pump does not equal hypertrophy.

I can get the craziest pump of my life doing 100 band curls. Doesn’t mean that stimulus is better than progressively overloading hard curls in a productive rep range.

So my take is basically:

Don’t chase failure just for the sake of saying you failed. Don’t avoid failure because somebody told you it’s automatically “too much.” Use proximity to failure according to your volume, exercise selection and recovery

For my style, low-medium volume with most real working sets very close to failure and some taken all the way there gives me the best return without drowning myself in fatigue.

There are a lot of ways to get to Rome, BIG brother. The best one IMHO is the one you can recover from, progressively overload, and repeat long enough to actually grow.

In my opinion it’s not the only way to grow. But it’s what I love to do. Makes the gym a lot more fun for me. Which is very important