Goosey
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Perform each exercise until you are physically unable to continue in good form. When you think you are not able to continue positive movement continue to try for an additional five to ten seconds, but do not alter your body position, do not bounce, heave, jerk or loosen your form in any other way to complete the repetition. Remember that how you perform each repetition of is far more important than how many you do.
During exercise you are trying to send the message to your body that your current level of functional ability is inadequate to cope with some demand your environment is placing on you, and that it needs to improve that ability so you are able to better handle similar demands in the future. If you do not work much harder than you are accustomed to you are not giving your body a reason to improve your existing level of functional ability. While training to MMF is not absolutely necessary to stimulate increases in muscular strength and size and other factors of functional ability, doing so ensures you are training intensely enough to do so.
Training to MMF also helps you more objectively compare exercise performance between workouts. If you do not perform an exercise to the point of MMF you don’t know how many repetitions you might have been capable of performing or, in the case of static holds, how long you might have been capable of holding a position, and can’t be as certain whether an increase in repetitions or time on an exercise was due to a strength increase or whether you just pushed yourself a little further than you did previously.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, training to MMF is neither dangerous nor will it “burn out” your central nervous system. Both of these beliefs stem from improper exercise performance and programming.
MMF occurs when fatigue has reduced the strength of the muscles you are working to just below the level necessary to continue positive movement in good form. This fatigue reduces rather than increases the risk of injury, however, since by reducing the force they are capable of producing you increase the difference between the force that can be produced and the force that must be produced to cause an injury, as long as proper form is maintained.
You do not risk falling or dropping yourself when you reach MMF. Your muscles are significantly stronger when holding or lowering your body or a weight than when lifting due to differences in how your muscle fibers function when shortening versus lengthening. When you fatigue your muscles to the point where you are unable to continue positive movement in good form you will still be able to hold and lower yourself under strict control.
Training to MMF will not cause your central nervous system to “burn out”. While very intense training does place a demand on the peripheral and central nervous systems, the effects (neurotransmitter depletion, effects on calcium, sodium, potassium, etc.) are transient and the body recovers from them relatively quickly provided you are not overtraining.
Overtraining – consistently performing a volume and frequency of exercise which exceeds what your body can recover from and adapt to – causes an immune system response involving an increase in circulating cytokines which negatively affect the central nervous system and overall physical performance. The problem is not caused by training to failure, however, but by attempting to perform too much exercise, too often.*
During exercise you are trying to send the message to your body that your current level of functional ability is inadequate to cope with some demand your environment is placing on you, and that it needs to improve that ability so you are able to better handle similar demands in the future. If you do not work much harder than you are accustomed to you are not giving your body a reason to improve your existing level of functional ability. While training to MMF is not absolutely necessary to stimulate increases in muscular strength and size and other factors of functional ability, doing so ensures you are training intensely enough to do so.
Training to MMF also helps you more objectively compare exercise performance between workouts. If you do not perform an exercise to the point of MMF you don’t know how many repetitions you might have been capable of performing or, in the case of static holds, how long you might have been capable of holding a position, and can’t be as certain whether an increase in repetitions or time on an exercise was due to a strength increase or whether you just pushed yourself a little further than you did previously.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, training to MMF is neither dangerous nor will it “burn out” your central nervous system. Both of these beliefs stem from improper exercise performance and programming.
MMF occurs when fatigue has reduced the strength of the muscles you are working to just below the level necessary to continue positive movement in good form. This fatigue reduces rather than increases the risk of injury, however, since by reducing the force they are capable of producing you increase the difference between the force that can be produced and the force that must be produced to cause an injury, as long as proper form is maintained.
You do not risk falling or dropping yourself when you reach MMF. Your muscles are significantly stronger when holding or lowering your body or a weight than when lifting due to differences in how your muscle fibers function when shortening versus lengthening. When you fatigue your muscles to the point where you are unable to continue positive movement in good form you will still be able to hold and lower yourself under strict control.
Training to MMF will not cause your central nervous system to “burn out”. While very intense training does place a demand on the peripheral and central nervous systems, the effects (neurotransmitter depletion, effects on calcium, sodium, potassium, etc.) are transient and the body recovers from them relatively quickly provided you are not overtraining.
Overtraining – consistently performing a volume and frequency of exercise which exceeds what your body can recover from and adapt to – causes an immune system response involving an increase in circulating cytokines which negatively affect the central nervous system and overall physical performance. The problem is not caused by training to failure, however, but by attempting to perform too much exercise, too often.*