The Study
Repetitions to failure versus not to failure during concurrent training in healthy elderly men: A randomized clinical trial
This study is like a test with different groups doing different workouts, and it shows some links between how hard you train and what changes happen in strength and muscle size. But because we can’t see all the details of how the test was done, we can’t say for sure that one method caused the results.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
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.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 547 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1It means older men don’t need to push to exhaustion to gain strength—just doing half the possible reps is enough.
- 2Everyone got stronger and faster in jumps.
- 3Only the groups doing enough total reps got bigger leg muscles.
- 4Going all the way to failure didn’t help more.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
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.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.