Does going super hard in workouts help older men get stronger?
Repetitions to failure versus not to failure during concurrent training in healthy elderly men: A randomized clinical trial
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Older men did two types of exercise: strength and endurance. Some did all their strength reps until they couldn’t do any more, others stopped earlier. Scientists checked their strength and muscle size before and after.
Surprising Findings
Going to muscle failure provided no extra benefit for strength or power gains in older men.
Conventional fitness wisdom says training to failure is essential for maximizing gains, especially in older populations fighting sarcopenia. This directly challenges that idea.
Practical Takeaways
Older adults can safely skip training to failure and still gain strength and power, as long as they do enough total reps.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Older men did two types of exercise: strength and endurance. Some did all their strength reps until they couldn’t do any more, others stopped earlier. Scientists checked their strength and muscle size before and after.
Surprising Findings
Going to muscle failure provided no extra benefit for strength or power gains in older men.
Conventional fitness wisdom says training to failure is essential for maximizing gains, especially in older populations fighting sarcopenia. This directly challenges that idea.
Practical Takeaways
Older adults can safely skip training to failure and still gain strength and power, as long as they do enough total reps.
Publication
Journal
Experimental Gerontology
Year
2018
Authors
L. X. N. da Silva, J. Teodoro, Erik Menger, Pedro Lopez, R. Grazioli, J. Farinha, K. Moraes, M. Bottaro, R. Pinto, M. Izquierdo, E. Cadore
Related Content
Claims (4)
For older guys who are healthy, doing about half as many reps as they possibly can during strength workouts is enough to get the best results for muscle and nerve performance—especially if they also do cardio.
For older guys who do both strength and cardio workouts, pushing their muscles to the max on every set doesn’t help them get stronger or faster than stopping just short of exhaustion.
For older guys doing strength and cardio workouts, their leg muscles only get bigger if they do enough total exercise—how close they push themselves to failure during each set doesn't matter, as long as the overall amount of work is high enough.
If you lift weights until your muscles can't do another rep, it helps scientists measure muscle growth in a consistent way over time.