Should we continue strength training after exhaustion?

There is really no unified standard answer. It all depends on your current training goals, type of movements, your own training level, and even your physical condition that day.

Lao Wang, who was working with me at the gym last week, has been practicing for three years and focused on improving his circumference. He pushed the last set of ropes between the chest and chest. By the 12th exercise, his arms were shaking like a sieve. He gritted his teeth and slowed down and pulled two more exercises by centrifugal force. He came down and rubbed his chest muscles and said that these two exercises are the most useful today. What the muscle fibers need is the saturated stimulation of this last step. Turning around, he saw Coach Li, who was retreating from the weightlifting team, holding down the deadlift bar of the novice Xiao Zhou. Xiao Zhou had already completed the extreme set with his face flushed from holding back. He wanted to pull one more, but his back was arched. The coach scolded him for his life: "You still deadlift after you have exhausted the strength of the heavy compound movements. Your waist will be squeezed and you will never touch the iron for the rest of your life."

These are actually the two core directions of debate on this issue in the current fitness circle. On the one hand, they recognize the gain of muscle hypertrophy caused by excessive stimulation after muscle failure, and on the other hand, they put the risk of injury after deformed movements first. Both sides are right, but the applicable scenarios are different.

I also stepped on the pit when I was training legs two years ago. In the last set of leg presses, I increased 180 kilograms. I was already pushing to exhaustion, but I still held on for half a step more. At that time, my knee made a clicking sound. It took almost two weeks to recover from the pain. After that, I I set a rule for myself: Always have 1-2 repetitions of heavy compound movements such as squats and deadlifts, and never reach complete failure. After all, joint damage is irreversible, and you can't afford to rest for half a month just to do one more movement.

But if you are practicing small-weight isolation movements such as lateral raises and rope push-downs, it is difficult to use large muscle groups to compensate. Even if the movement is slightly out of shape, it will not hurt the joints. In the last group, I will learn from Lao Wang and do two and a half more steps after failure, or just slow down and do eccentric descents. The soreness and swelling of the arms after the exercise is indeed better than stopping after failure, and the muscle stimulation is indeed better.

Beginners don’t need to worry about this problem. No matter what the movement is, just stop when you reach exhaustion. You haven’t even engraved the movement pattern into your muscle memory. After exhaustion, your movements will be crooked. Not only will you not be able to train the target muscles, but you will also be particularly vulnerable to injury. After you practice for a year or two, you will have good control over your body, and you will know when you are really unable to exert your strength at all, and when you can squeeze out some extra strength. Then you will naturally know when to stop and when to push a few more times.

To put it bluntly, it’s like drinking milk tea. Usually, you’ll be 70% full. If you have a good appetite today, you’ll be fine if you drink until you’re full and still take a few sips. Fitness is all about comfort, don't compete with your body, it's better than anything else.