How Hard Should You Train + Create Your Goggins

Happy Monday!

Hey friend. Hope you’re ready to dominate this week.

Today at a glance:

• Providing more nuance to the “train to failure” bro science that you see a lot of online

• Insight from David Goggin’s book “Never Finished”

Quick thing before we get into it:

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Fitness Hack: How Hard Should You Train to Build Muscle?

Fitness bros online love talking about training to failure.

It has its time and place, and I’ve advocated for it before, but the truth is that you don’t have to and shouldn’t train to complete failure on every set.

There are two types of failure we need to understand to appreciate this:

• Absolute Failure

• Technical Failure

Absolute failure is when you absolutely cannot do one more rep for a lift, even if you’d win $1000 cash if you did.

Technical failure is when you can’t do another rep with perfect form.

We’re going to be talking about technical failure since you should never have to contort your body and risk injury in order to grind out one more set.

Here are a few key takeaways for understanding failure and how it applies to your muscle-building goals:

Frequency

True failure training is exhausting and takes a lot to recover from.

Performing every set to failure is something you’d recommend for someone who was only spending 1-2 days per week in the gym.

If you’re limited by time and only have 1 or 2 days to go to the gym, you’ll want most sets to go to failure because you’ll have the time to recover and will need an intense stimulus to make up for the lack of volume.

However, if you’re spending 3-5 days per week in the gym, going to failure this much is exhausting, and studies indicate it is not shown to have a beneficial effect.

This meta-analysis of 15 studies found that training to extreme failure doesn’t appear to be more effective for muscle growth. To add to this, extreme failure has been shown to decrease performance for strength in subsequent workouts.

For most people, training to all-out failure, even though it is sexy and makes you feel like an animal, isn’t the optimal way to build muscle.

RIR

RIR stands for reps in reserve: how many reps you could still perform on an exercise. Training with 1-3 RIR is the sweet spot for most people.

It’s important to note that 2 RIR does not mean it is an easy set, but it won’t fatigue you past the point that you can recover from and continue to make gains.

The reason that training to failure is such common advice is that most people underestimate how close they are to failure, and are leaving a lot more in the tank than they believe.

This study took 160 trained athletes and asked them to perform a set of Bench Press they would take to 10 reps. They evaluated how much further the subjects could take the lift.

The median was 15 reps: on average, people could perform five more reps at absolute failure than they thought.

This indicates that many people struggle to estimate true technical failure accurately and RIR as a result.

How to Estimate RIR

The risk with some people who are new to the gym is that they don’t accurately estimate their RIR, and what they think is two reps left in the tank is actually 7-8. There are a couple of ways to estimate your RIR accurately:

1. Rep Speed

As you approach failure, the reps will slow down substantially. There is a lot of nuance on timing rep speed that I won’t go into fully, but here’s the takeaway:

1. Anchor Sets

I heard this term from Jeff Nippard - an anchor set is when you perform what you think is a set to you’re calculated RIR, and then push to a complete technical failure to see if you were correct.

Let’s say you’re performing a set of shoulder presses for 8-12 reps, and you want to take it to an RIR of 2.

You feel like you’re there at 11, but then you continue grinding out to see if you were accurate.

If you’re going to the gym once per week, it’s probably okay to train to all-out failure. But if you’re going more frequently, you’ll want most of your training to be in the 1-3 RIR range.

These sets should not be easy, but they shouldn’t kill you either.

Takeaway: How hard should you train?

For most people, the answer is probably closer to within 1-3 RIR than complete failure.

Taking every set to failure will exhaust you and diminish the effectiveness of subsequent workouts. If you’re training more than once or twice per week, 1-3 RIR is a good spot most of the time.

Just make sure you’re being honest about RIR, and that 1-3 isn’t actually 10 more reps in the tank. If you’ve never truly taken a set to failure, you should try it to know what it feels like.

Resources:

• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29112055/

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343885215_Effects_of_resistance_training_intensity_on_the_sleep_quality_and_strength_recovery_in_trained_men_a_randomized_cross-over_study

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254621000077

An Idea: Create Your Goggins

I just read Never Finished by David Goggins.

It was an awesome read packed full of insights.

If you’re not familiar with David Goggins, the man is one of the most hard-driving people on the planet.

He’s run numerous ultra-marathons, completed Navy Seal’s Hell week twice, and fights wildfires in his downtime.

In Never Finished, he emphasizes the difference between “David Goggins,” an average guy who likes to shy away from challenges, and Goggins, one the hardest men ever to live.

Goggins is a character he created in his mind — a standard to live up to.

David Goggins doesn’t want to run hundreds of miles; he’d rather be watching TV with a milkshake.

But Goggins will sign up for the race and finish it, even if it means putting his body through Hell.

Goggins hopes that the weather outside is brutal when there is a run on the calendar.

Goggins doesn’t want it to be easy.

It’s hard to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves and own our shortcomings because we take them personally.

It’s not comfortable to look ourselves in the mirror and say, “I’ve been slacking — I haven’t been showing up and putting in the work like I should be.”

When you personify your weakness, you can dissociate from it and can have an easier time facing it honestly.

It’s not you who has been slacking, but the weak part of your mind that has been calling the shots.

Don’t shy away from it, don’t deny it. But you also don’t have to define yourself by these actions.

Counter it with your hero — the ideal version of yourself that you visualize and act through.

This is your Goggins.

Everyone has a part of their mind that wants to seek comfort and shy away from hard things — even David Goggins has it.

Don’t deny its existence, but don’t identify with it.

Identify with your Goggins — the best version of yourself that finishes what you started and doesn’t shy away from hard things.

Personify your bad habits through an identifiable character, and personify the best aspects of yourself into your hero.

The more your hero can call the shots and make the decisions that build you up instead of pursuing short-term gratification, the better your life will be.

Who is your “Goggins?”

How do they behave in the face of challenging situations?

In the face of struggle?

Create a clear image of your Goggins. Call it whatever you want.

And in your difficult moments, you can ask yourself:

What would Goggins do?

When you’re ready, here’s how you can work with me.

I want to help you build sustainable habits to optimize your health, fitness, & mindset so you can finally get your dream body and thrive in all aspects of life.

If you’re tired of spinning your tires, failing to get results, and wondering what you’re doing wrong, apply for 1-1 coaching now.

Results are guaranteed.

You’ll hit your goals, or I’ll work with you for free until you do.

Book a free consultation call below to see if we’re a good fit.