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How to Build More Muscle Without Spending More Time in the Gym · Beyond Fat Loss

• Katie & Sean Darlow: Welcome to the Beyond Fat Loss podcast. Where we don't just stop at fat loss, you learn all about the good stuff that follows. How to build muscle, how to enjoy more food and how to stay lean without going to extremes. We are your host Katie and Sean. And today we've got an episode for the hardcore muscle building crowd. Or maybe not. We're going to talk about training to failure or close to failure. We'll be breaking down why this is important, where most people make mistakes with it, how to implement it safely for the best muscle gains you can get. I can see you practically versed in with excitement to get this one in, Sean. Oh, I do love a bit of muscle building content, don't I? A bit of building content? Yeah, just a little bit. I think you were deliberate. But before we dive in, just a quick reminder that you can show your love of the podcast by dropping us a like, follow or subscribe, or help us reach more people looking to experience fitness beyond fat loss, share the pod with a friend or share. You missed a couple of words which are important. Go again. Or to help us reach more people looking to experience fitness beyond fat loss. Share the podcast with a friend or share it on your social media and tag one of us or both of us in it. That's Katie ⁓ at KatieSKDcoaching or at SeanSKDcoaching. So Sean, tell us why are we talking about training to failure? Trained failure has kind of risen back to the surface in recent years as being one of, if not the most important thing that you should focus on in order to build muscle in an effective timeframe. think most people just imagine the 70s or 80s style bodybuilding montages of enormous blokes all crowding around bench presses, pushing each other to get the last few reps out of their sets, screaming in agony, screaming the house down. And that's what they imagine training to failure is. And to be honest, it is intensive, it is hard, and sometimes you do feel like you want to scream the house down and your muscles are burning like crazy, but... It's not just reserved for the most hardcore muscle building crowd. In fact, it's something that I believe anybody that wants to build muscle should aim to do at some point and learn how to do it in a way that works around the rest of their training sessions and the rest of their activities in the week, because it really is the kind of golden nugget for getting decent progress from what you do in the gym. when it comes to muscle building specifically. I think I have to agree and it's not to scare anyone off from taking things to the extreme level, the hard level or the grueling level. It's just to give people an understanding and confidence that there is an effective way to build muscle out there. It might sound a bit terrifying, but it's really not as bad as you may think it is, right? Taking your sets close to failure and the return that you can get back. from doing that, you're already doing a lot of the legwork, you're already doing a lot of the reps within a particular set, you're already doing a lot of the work, so why not get a little bit more out of it by just taking things a little bit further? Yeah, the research is just so clear, the research that is coming out over the last, I would say five to 10 years probably, but specifically over the last five years, it's really positive in favor of. If you can train closer to failure more consistently, you are going to get fairly substantial gains in muscle compared to not training close to failure. I can't say this with absolute certainty, but I actually believe that the more experience you get, the more important it is for you to be super consistent with training close to failure. Your muscles just have such a high ceiling for their stimulus threshold that you need to really try and provide as much stimulus as possible. So basically think of this as something which needs a substantial amount of work done in order for it to then continually improve. That's the way that your body operates when you're more experienced. And you taking sets close to failure is giving your muscles a real strong reason to build more tissue to improve. Think of your muscles as a really competitive individual that will not accept staying the same if you give them a reason to want to be better. And that's how your muscles should be responding to your training in the gym. You push them to their max. You push them to ⁓ try and progress in terms of the amount of work you do in the gym, the amount of weight you lift, the amount of reps you perform, how close to failure you go. And you're telling that muscle that there is a reason for you to get better so you can do more than what you're doing today. yeah, just imagine your muscles have a conscious brain of their own where that is a they're really competitive and they respond to that signal by growing and trying to adapt so that they can do more in the future. I like that way of looking at it. Yeah, my brain's ticking over. Yeah, no, I like that way of looking at it, Sean. I it's a question mark of why do I need to, isn't it? What benefit am I going to get from pushing things a little bit harder? But to put it in that context is helpful, I think. And I think a lot of people can resonate with that. I don't want to get too... I could get really granular and really nerdy about this topic because I love the science of building muscle and ⁓ the training to failure has a real strong connection with me in terms of how I train, how I like to train, what I have achieved over the last couple of years myself by adding this in. So I think I want to try and make this episode. I want try and describe training to failure and talk about it in a way that benefits everyone because it's not just for the hardcore crowds. It's not just for the hardcore muscle building community. There is definitely something to be taken away from this for everyone. One of the key elements of this is the amount of time potentially that it saves. We've discussed this many times. Muscle building is a slow journey, right? It takes a long time to develop muscle. It gets You get your best gains earlier on in your journey, but then it progressively gets slower and slower each year. The more advanced you get, the more muscle you build. In order to maximize your muscle building results in any given period of time, you need to be spending more time doing the muscle building training. You need to be lifting weights more often. You need to be doing more sets per week, potentially more sessions in order to fit all those sets in. So it eats up more and more of your time. If you're time strapped, then it becomes a case of how can I get the best per set stimulus possible? It's a really key term, per set stimulus. So how much work can you get done through your muscles? in each set that you do. If you are trading close to the failure, your per set stimulus is really, really high. So even if you only do three sets per muscle group, per exercise per week, so one exercise, you do three sets of that one exercise, that's your only exercise that you do for that session. Then going close to failure allows you to get maximum per set stimulus for that. So it's a really smart move, especially if you're a bit time strapped and you can't spend loads of time training in the gym, being able to push as many of your sets as possible to near maximum intensity will really help you to get the most out of it. You're making your limited time in the gym count for something, right? And it's not just a tick box, should go and do this, I know it's good for me. It's, I can actually get some real decent progress here. if I can learn how to train effectively to failure. I think it's a really handy. I'm call it a skill because you get better, right? The more you do it, the more you get used to performing close to failure, the easier it becomes and the more likely you are to get better at muscle building returns. Yeah, for sure. There are loads of levers that you can pull in order to try and get the machinery of muscle building going. And it's about selecting the right ones to get the best outcomes in the time that you have available or for your experience level. Training close to failure is one of the first levers that you should pull. Once you get settled in, once you understand how to perform the exercises, once you have got a basic understanding of training with decent quality technique and there's consistency from rep to rep. Like then learning how to take those sets close to failure. I'd probably argue looking for progressive overload as well, like so either trying to increase the amount of reps you do with a given weight or increasing the amount of weight that you lift in general. That is also something which should occur quite early on, but I think that happens quite naturally with individuals. From my experience anyway, it happens naturally. think it happens naturally if you are a little bit more in tuned with following a... program over a given period and not just rocking up and doing what you fancy every session. Yeah, you still might see weights go up, of course, but naturally, if you're following a program, it does have to be amazingly structured. If it's got some structure and you continually go through that through a few weeks, then yes, I think progressive overload naturally happens as a result of either just getting more reps done if you don't even change the weight or you naturally add a little bit more weight because it's feeling easier, right? think that is one that naturally can happen and does happen. Like you said, that's what we see when people start training or even just start a new training program. Like Katie said, train close to failure as a practice and the sooner you can embed this into your journey and start this regular practice, the more you're going to get out of it. So I do stand by the fact that even for beginners, this is something which within your first few weeks, maybe first few months, depending on the context, you should try and make an effort to get your head around and start practicing this. That doesn't mean you have to do that with every exercise you start learning if you are new to the gym. know, can, again, it's the progression to this. Firstly, like Sean said, you want to try and ensure that your technique, your form, how you're moving is at a decent standard. Now it can be perfect, but a decent standard. So then you can move on to training close to failure with that technique that you've learnt and mastered. But when you first start, you can pick a couple of exercises here and there to try that you know you're comfortable with and confident with on a machine that is easy to fail on. You can start doing that and exposing yourself to it if this is new to you. And if it's not new to you, then get comfortable doing that with more sets and more exercises in your current training program. Because like you said, Sean, it's been a game changer for you with your journey over the last three, four years now. Same for me, same for me for sure. think, and you know, we're individuals that have been training for a very long time. And even this tweak with our own ⁓ physique changes has been quite dramatic, I would say. Yeah, I couldn't believe the difference it made. Going from training hard as I thought I was training hard, but realizing that I probably wasn't taking things close enough to failure. I was probably stopping short of failure. So then actually finding where my point of failure was and then training very close to that on repeat for, well, I would say years. I would say years. I've been really consistent with it for the best part of two to three years now. That's been a complete game changer for me. It's it's probably accelerated my results more than what I thought I would have got in that time frame, which is awesome. It hasn't held back my strength progression. Like my strength has pretty much consistently gone up because there is always a bit of a worry by training too close to failure. Are you going to be too fatigued? Are you going to be under recovered? Is that going to harm performance? That's something which we will discuss later on, but it certainly hasn't had that impact on me. If you look at all my exercises over the last couple of years. They've all progressed. Everything is stronger. I'm more muscular. I'm similar body weights to what I've been at many stages in my life. I've never held this much muscle with this little body fat at this weight before. So something's working and I do put a large part of that down to the intensity to which I train. 100%. There's no diet on the world. There's no... recovery protocol in the world that's going to allow you to build muscle right, that stimulus has got to come from your training. And if you can get a better stimulus from your training and training close to failure is allowing to optimize that a bit more than not doing it, then I think it's fair to say that that's been a really important cog in the wheel. Just to share my own mindset, it's... If I'm going to invest a significant chunk of my time and life to doing a task, then when I'm doing that task, I want to make sure that I'm getting the most out of that task that I can be getting out of that task. It does not make sense to me for me to go in and say, it's just good enough. I'm just going to do a bit. It's just good enough. When I commit to something, I want to commit really hard to that thing because I'm going to get my best possible returns and you don't have to be permanently on times four mode or go in 100 % all the time. But if you don't go to your limits, then you never really know what your limits are. You've got no benchmark. You've got no no gauge of what the right amount for you is. So you could always choose to pull back a little bit. You could always choose to step off a little bit, but. I recognized when I started going back to the public gym and set my targets on muscle building specifically, I recognized that. I was only going to have X amount of hours, a certain amount of hours, a finite amount of time every week to put into this training. And I hadn't been doing that training to that intensity or in that style for a number of years before. So in my mind, I had to make up for lost time. I had to make up for lost time with my, with my physique development and my progression for me to feel like I was improving and getting somewhere. So yeah, I went all in for it and I wanted to test my limits. I wanted to challenge myself mentally and physically to see what I was capable of. I wasn't prepared to accept the notion that training to figure is going to be really hard, therefore we should avoid doing it. I wasn't prepared to accept that for myself. There were certain exercises that I was worried about taking close to failure or there were certain exercises that I was thinking, or perhaps I had preconceived ideas that I wasn't going to be able to recover or I wasn't going to. be able to progress if I push myself to that limit? Am I going to feel tired all the time? Am I going to feel sore all the time? Am I going to get injured? All this stuff goes through my head. All this stuff went through my head. And a lot of that just didn't happen. And I was looking at it from a perspective of it's going to be one or the other rather than understanding that. You have got the option to pull things back and dial things back a little bit if it gets too much, but you also don't have to go from. nothing to everything in one go either. can gradually build yourself up to being able to manage things like training to failure more consistently. We don't expect anyone to just go from never doing this to doing it for every single set of every single session every week. repeat for five years? There's levels to it, there's levels to it for sure and I think it's just exposed, it's firstly knowing it's there and it's very beneficial for muscle growth and then it's okay where are you at right now and how can you start working towards that or building upon that skill if you've already started doing it. What's your experience with training to failure like Katie? I for me, I used to think I was training hard enough, but then when I actually focused on how many more reps I could physically perform, that's when I realized there was still more left in the tank. Because let's be real, your muscles burn and they hurt usually way before you actually have nothing left to give. And it's easy. ⁓ to stop doing reps when it starts burning. I think for a number of reasons. One, because it hurts, hard, so it must be doing something right. And I think feeling the burn in the fitness world has just been thrown around too loosely, which makes you think, ⁓ I'm doing enough. And you might be doing enough to get a bit of muscle, of course, but there comes a point, especially if you've been training for a long time, where that's no longer going to be enough. for you to see more muscle growth. And when I actually pushed past the point of just it hurting to, actually I physically cannot move anymore. In most exercises I say there was a good couple of reps left in that, which was like, ⁓ okay, ⁓ wow. So now I know actually to take it a close, true failure, I can do three, four more. I also know then if I need it, wanna keep a little in the... in the tank in terms of two reps for example, I know where that truly lies. And I think that's just, it's just really changed my physique over the last couple of years more than I could imagine really. Yeah. And obviously I've joined in on your journey and started coaching you since September last year, but you'd already started implementing some of this training with intensity before that stage. You were already training, training pretty hard, but even just having me looking over your program and physically watching you in the gym at times and saying, you've got another rep in there. got another effort there. can be hard to judge this even when you're experienced, but you do get better at judging it as time goes on. having that second pair of eyes does make a huge difference. It might not be in the form of a coach, but it might be somebody that you're training with. It might be a training partner. It might be a friend. If you can get them on board and ask them to keep an eye on you and to tell you when you've got an actual one. Because sometimes when you're doing the exercise, you don't realize that you've got one in the tank. You think that you're going to fail the next rep and you think that something's moving really slowly or your form's breaking down. It's not very good. And that's just something that's going on in your head when you've got all that stuff going on in that exercise. Like from the outside looking in, your form might be absolutely fine and the weight's still moving pretty quickly. So you've just got to suck it up and get through those next couple of reps because there's way more to give. Sometimes it's It's easy to miss that if you haven't had that extra pair of eyes and support. It's really easy to miss it because in your mind, you think your performance and reps really slowly. And I know I've done that in the past. I'm like, crisis isn't going anywhere. but actually if one, I've had you going, they've still moving quite fast. And two, if the camera was on and I was videoing it and look back, oh my gosh, that's moving way quicker than I thought it was moving. Sometimes it just feels like it's going slower because it's hard and the last part of the set does get harder. So yeah, I think you're right there, Sean. Either buddy up with someone in the gym and push each other, get a coach for another pair of eyes and film yourself because you'll see what the last couple of reps are. And if you listen to any of previous podcasts, you'll know that a little bit of form break down towards the end isn't the end of the world at all. But if you're focusing on that, you could actually be missing out on some of the work that's going to drive your muscle growth. Yeah, absolutely. So what are the need to know bits of information when it comes to training to failure? What are the must knows? Is that for us? Possibly. It's a DBT. I can't see. First and foremost, what is the target when it comes to training to failure? What are we looking for in terms of a benchmark or a metric? Ideally, we want to get our sets to a point where we're either going to complete failure or two reps from failure. So it's two reps in reserve or less. So when we talk about reps in reserve, that's what we discussed earlier, what Katie discussed earlier, which is asking yourself the question. How many reps do I have in the tank before I physically cannot perform anymore? That's not how many reps until it starts burning. That's not when does it start to feel uncomfortable, when it starts to feel heavy, when I start to strain a little bit more to lift it. None of that stuff is important here. What we're asking is how many reps do I have left in the tank before I physically cannot perform another rep? That's the true definition of failure. So you physically cannot move that weight. That means it doesn't budge. It's not going anywhere. No matter how hard you push or you pull, it ain't going nowhere. That is true failure. ⁓ We can argue over the point of whether true failure needs to be judged by completely failing the rep you're on or whether you... Complete a rep, maybe to within an inch of your life and you just know for a fact you're not getting another one. Like true failure is taking that set all the way to failure and actually failing on that rep. But the more experience you get, the more you are able to judge when there's absolutely no way I'm getting another one. Like for beginners that haven't gone all the way to true failure, this will be misjudged from time to time, you'll think there's no way I'm doing another one. It's like, you absolutely can do another one. And I think all of us are guilty, even advanced philosophers can be guilty of not really fully always knowing how many reps you've got left. Your mind can trick you and deceive you quite a bit, can't it? Yeah, it certainly can. But as we said, you'll get more experience with knowing. Like if you barely manage to scrape it through the last rep of a set. and it's moving as slowly as possible, there's a very good chance that you're gonna fail the next rep. Or you need a bit of assistance to complete it. So it's up to you whether you want to attempt that other half rep kind of thing that you know you're gonna fail. But if you're in doubt, you should just attempt it and try it anyway. But yeah, we're looking for... zero to two reps in reserve. That's the benchmark. That's the target. and you should get really comfortable with knowing where that is with practice over time. What else do need to know about training to failure? or close to failure. It's Yeah, sounds bloody obvious, but it is hard. It's fatiguing. Yup. I'm just gonna take a lot of effort. But it's worth it, right? It absolutely is worth it. And you get used to it. You really do get used to it. Like you become conditioned to it. I actually find it harder nowadays not to take a set to failure. I actually find it harder to hold myself back. I think at most I'm probably getting one rep in reserve for most of the exercise I do. I find it way harder to hold two reps in the tank than I do to take it to failure nowadays because I feel like I'm leaving too much undone. I feel like I'm leaving work unfinished if I don't take it to failure or at least one rep from failure. So you do get used to it. I think you get used to the challenge as well, wanting to push yourself because sometimes when it comes to building muscle, like you mentioned earlier, it's a long journey, right? It takes time. It's a long old process. And having that focus point when you're in the gym can give you that, don't know if excitement is the right word, but a challenge to work on, right? Rather than just... going through the motions, oh, let's do 10 reps, let's do 10 reps, let's do 10 reps. It's okay. What am I gonna beat last week? Can I beat last week? You're not gonna do that all the time. Of course you're not. That's unrealistic. And if you are training close to failure, that's not realistic. You keep pushing and getting progress every week, especially the more advanced you get. But it gives you something to work towards when a process is already quite lengthy anyway. It sounds a bit masochist, doesn't it? But it's almost satisfying to know that you've done something that's really, really difficult, really challenging, really hard. think that a lot of that mentality, unfortunately, has been lost nowadays. And I'm fully behind the getting the best bang for your buck and... making sure you're consistent with the minimum amount possible to progress. I'm fully behind that. I'm a really big supporter over the new science that's coming out about minimum effective dosage for training. What is the minimum amount you need to do to build muscle, the minimum amount to gain strength? Because I think that that allows a really easy and low entry point for people that are getting into it and also for people that are very time strapped or people that perhaps aren't naturally big fans and big enjoyers of the gym. Like I'm all for that because I think there's so much value to just doing the blooming training that we should make it accessible and facilitate those that really don't want to be in there to do it. agree. Not everyone's going to love the gym. Not everyone's going to get that same buzz from it. But if you can get in there and do what you need to do and still get massive benefits from it in a short amount of time, then why the heck not try it. But on the flip side to that, for individuals that have muscle building goals, for individuals that do have aspirations to improve their physique. In my opinion, you should not be part of the crowd just looking to do the minimum amount of work possible. There might be times and certain contexts where you should, you should be closer to that end of the scale. But that should not be the goal. That should not be the target. I like to look at it as in what is the maximum amount that I can do in my time available that I can fit in to get the best possible results I can do. because I'm going to be far more engaged with that process. I'm going to be far more focused. I'm going to feel like the work is so much more rewarding than just trying to do the bare minimum. So yes, training to failure is hard, but I'm not sure when the flip happened that achieving really good results was I'm not sure where. I'm seeing much, much more of it nowadays where people are trying to achieve the really impressive results, but with the minimum amount of effort possible. And there's just constant resistance, excuses, pushback for why the work is too hard for them to complete. If you set yourself a target and a goal of achieving a far above average physique, for example, by your own standards. just to be clear, by your own standards, then don't complain about the work being hard to get there. That's part of the process. You don't sign up for a marathon and expect it not to be hard. It's going to be bloody hard. You don't do an Ironman, triathlon, whatever. You don't start your own business and expect it not to be hard. You don't take on a PhD and expect it not to be hard. These are big accomplishments that are outside of the ordinary and they're going to be hard and challenging. Sometimes you just got to accept that what you want in terms of an outcome requires hard work to be done. And in my opinion, it's better to learn to embrace that and learn to enjoy the hard work from what it is. And the masochism, the pleasure and the satisfaction that comes from knowing you've just done a really, really, really hard set that you barely made it through. Learn to value that, learn to enjoy that, learn to... soak that up because you've pushed yourself further than where most people would be prepared to go. This comes back to that sense of achievement, isn't it? When you go on to a journey with your health and fitness, the accomplishments that you achieve throughout that are what allow you to feel proud of yourself, allow you to feel like, yeah, I've done that hard thing, I achieved that. That was me, that was all me. Training course of failure, training hard, that's part of that process. And that's part of the process that you can reward yourself for every session if you wanted to, like tune into that. Like it's not something just go, ⁓ yeah, well I've gone to gym, I take it off. Like, no, that is a part of the process, it's challenging, it's difficult and give yourself a big bloody pat on the back for doing it, for getting the hard stuff done. That is the equivalent to getting a PB in your... 10k run if you're training for a marathon, for example, or it's you completing the wall balls for high rocks in a shorter timeframe, whatever it may be. when it comes to muscle building, if you can dial in to your sets in the gym and taking them to failure, you're doing such a... You're taking a real big box in... taking your physique to the next level. Yeah, it's almost like a deposit every single time you take a set close to failure. It's an investment and it's a deposit in that bank account of the best physique you're ever going to have. Exactly, exactly. And if you're doing that three, four, five times a week on most, there's nothing old, zero RIR here, by the way, in every set, but more sets, then think how much. Three, four times. three, four, five sessions a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Three to four, five sessions a week. Yeah, sorry. Make clear that. Three to five sessions per week. Every week, give or take, right? May not be quite every week, but for a whole year, then two years, then three years. Imagine the accumulation effect of that investment and what that's going to do on your physique over time. Because you don't change your physique in a couple of weeks. You don't change your physique in a couple of months. that doesn't happen in terms of, you know, becoming a muscular, defined, torn individual, you need to keep investing in that bank. This is a mindset shift that I think anybody that goes to the gym should have. If you're going three to five times a week, you're already investing a significant amount of time into your training. And if you're... doing a number of exercises and number of sets within those sessions, you're already investing a lot of time into each session that you do when you're in the gym. Every time you pick up that weight, say you're going to lift it for 12 reps. Most of your time is spent in that set getting towards the end of the set. The last couple of reps, if you get close to failure, those last few reps will slow down significantly. You won't be able to lift them as quickly as when you start your set. That's a really good sign that you're getting close to failure, isn't it? No matter how quickly you try and lift the weight, you can't lift it any... any faster. The weight is significantly slowed down. Your muscles just cannot produce enough force to move that weight as quickly as when it first started the set because they're fatigued. You've spent most of your time in that set, however long it is, getting towards the end of your set. And then you stop a little bit short of failure. So ⁓ let's say you're doing a set of 10 reps. You do seven or eight reps and you stop there. Two reps from failure isn't too bad. But would it really kill you to do an actual one or two reps just to make sure that you are taking yourself a little bit closer to failure? It doesn't take much more time. Very, very little amounts. It's going to take a little bit more effort. You get a lot more stimulus back from it. And as a result, because your per set stimulus is higher, you might not need to perform as many sets in total throughout the rest of your training week or throughout the rest of your training year to make up for that. If you're keeping more sets away from failure, then you're getting a little bit less muscle growth per session. So what does that mean? It means that to achieve the result you want, over time you're going to have to do more sets, you're to have to do more sessions to get the same outcome anyway. So you're just delaying the result for much longer. It's like having a 1 % interest on your savings or investment or having a 5 % interest on your investment or savings, right? You go into a better return quicker with a higher percentage. So if you can take more close success, close to failure, you're going to get a better return with your muscle growth. I always think when I'm in the gym, I like it. you know, I'm on that seventh or eighth rep. And it's usually when I got pendulum squats in my program, right? Cause I, man, I just, I just hate that movement, but sometimes you just got to get it done. And I always think I'm like, I'm on like the eighth rep and I know, I know I could probably take it to 10 or 11, but I'm on eighth rep and thinking, oh, I just, I'm hating this. I hate it. And then I just go, but you've just done a lot of work for nothing. If you stop now, you've done a lot of work for nothing. And I just, that one sentence alone, just go in, if you stop now, you've literally just done a lot of work for absolutely nothing, Katie. It makes me do that extra couple of reps. Just to be 100 % clear, right? It doesn't mean that all your reps before that count for nothing. It doesn't mean that you're not going to experience any muscle growth at all from the reps that come before that. That's not what Katie is saying there. The mentality is that her best reps, her most stimulating reps for muscle growth are going to be the ones that are very, very close to the point where she physically cannot do anymore. And if she stops before she gets into that range, then it makes those last few reps redundant. She's spending all the time getting close because here's the thing, you can't get zero to two reps from failure without going through all the reps it takes to get there. So for me, if I'm doing a set of 10 reps, the eight reps that get me into that range where I'm mostly stimulating muscle growth, those eight reps are the gateway reps. They're the stepping stone reps. They're just the work that needs to be done in accumulation to get to the reps that I really want, the real... juicy meaty part of the set. Yeah, I want that 5 % return, not the 1 % return. So that's the mentality. It's like, you have to go through that shit part and then push yourself through the even shitter part to get the reward at the end. Yeah, just want to make that clear because I don't want to polarize things that are scientifically incorrect. But you're spot on with the mentality, Katie, and I have that exact same mentality. I'm not stopping short of the range that is going to be most diminutive of muscle growth. Otherwise, what was the point to be spending my time doing the seven to eight boring reps before the last two, which really drive the muscle growth? Absolutely. think it's spot on there, Sean. I don't want to mislead anyone to think they're not going to get any muscle growth. by stopping that, they'll celebrate reps in that example, because that's not the truth, that is not the truth. But speaking to the crowd that do want to change their physique, then those extra reps are gonna count for something, right? They really, are. I think it's also important to note here, you on mind, you think you might only have one or two reps left in the tank, but sometimes you actually have more. Right, especially, and I'll be honest, especially if it's an exercise that you don't like. For me, like being on the pendulum squats, I'm thinking, well, maybe I only have one or two left. But if I honestly asked myself, I'd probably knock out, I'd probably go three or four. So that sentence alone, especially in the exercises that are really hard or challenging for you, can allow you to get better returns from them. Absolutely. So go on. There might be better centres that are arising it for you, but that is the one for me because I don't like doing a lot of work for nothing. I just don't like that mentality, so I'd rather just get out a little bit more if I can. Yeah, I'm all for it. When we're having this conversation, my brain is just pinging off with so many different ideas. This is how much I love this topic and how much I get into this topic. Talking about the pendulum squat, Katie, this is a really good example of context and nuance when it comes to training to fade. Yeah, that I really want to mention. So that exercise and exercise that you really dislike, not many people would actually like a pendulum squat. You're a bit sick if you really like a pendulum squat. It's one of the hardest movements in the gym. You know how to convince yourself and turn on that switch that you're going to push through that part of your brain that's telling you not to do another rep to get those last few reps to the set in an exercise that you hate. Now that to me is an excellent example of disciplining yourself and conditioning yourself to do the work regardless of whether you want to do it or not. Like that is a fantastic example and somebody of your level of experience. I'm just going to say it as is, I would expect you to do that. I would expect you to do that. I would be disappointed as your coach if you weren't prepared to do that now at this stage. And I will be walking across the gym and I will be making you do an extra rep or two if I catch you jibbing out on those last few reps on the pen gym squat. I've got to tell you, I've just signed up to a new gym. I don't get it, I'm swallowing. I quit JD gyms and now signed up to a gym in Cuffilly. I'm getting in your gym bag. I'll be in your gym bag. You'll get to the gym, you'll open up your gym bag and be like, hello, pen gym squats today. But genuinely though, there are some exercises where I can easily take things to failure because I just enjoy that exercise more. And there's some where my brain's going, this is really hard. Like, what are you doing? Do you really want to keep going? And it's like, nah, you got the deep stopping for a seat, get on with it. My point is I expect that from you and I would expect it from myself. If I was training somebody that's quite new to the gym, quite new to training, haven't had much experience training to failure, I'm not going to send them to hell with a set. failure on pendulum squats. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to condition them to start getting used to training closer to failure, and then condition them to training to failure on some of the leg exercises, which are probably a little bit easier for them to do that on. again, this goes back to there being levels to it, right? And it's levels to this because when you first start out, you first start training and you even start directing all your training towards a specific goal. You're already really engaged, you're excited by it, you're learning something new, you're learning new movements, you're exposing yourself to new weights, new rep ranges, new feedback from your coach if you've got a coach. And that's exciting enough for you in that moment because it's already something new to focus on. When you've been training a long ass time, you need someone else to light you up because it can get a bit mundane otherwise. Being real, it can. Absolutely, I feel like... We've gone into a lot of different discussions. So let's just swing this back to some sort of structure before we both get too excited and too carried away. Who'd thought that of all the podcasts, well, I know that I get excited over it, but this has been a big shift for you over the last couple of years to get so passionate and excited about talking about something which previously you probably would have sacked me over if I was your coach. No comment. Let's move on. Yeah, maybe we wouldn't have been made to get married if you told me a time we working hard enough five years ago. Well, we've sealed the deal now, so... Sealed the deal now, so pendulum squats it is. See, with my programme that is a divorce! Just making that clear! You miss the terms and conditions. So, as we discussed, the biggest issue we're trained to figure out are the... As we've discussed, there are some very common mistakes which come up when people attempt to train to failure or try and incorporate this into their training schedules, into their training routine. Biggest error, as we discussed, is misjudging what failure is. And this often comes from a misunderstanding about what true failure is. It's not when it starts to burn, it's not when your heart rate quickens, it's not when the weight starts to feel heavy, it's not when you feel like you're getting tired. It's none of that stuff. It's literally when you can't move the weight anymore. It's when no matter what you try and do, your muscles are fully fatigued. They're going, uh-uh, I've got nothing left to give. A really good sign of this is when the movement slows down significantly. think about voluntary rep speed. You're going to attempt to... move that weight with good technique as quickly as you can and it's just not going to go. If you tried that at the start of your set the weight would fly up, it'd be really quick but as the set goes on and as you get closer to failure, it matter how quickly you try and move that weight, it just won't go as quickly as the start of your set and that's a decent sign that you're getting closer to failure. But again there are certain movements where the rep speed can be really really really really slow and grindy. If you watch any of our training videos on Instagram of us in the gym where we're training close to failure. you will see the last reps of those sets, you will see how much slower they are and how much we continue to push them to finish those reps. So that's the biggest error for me is not really understanding where failure is and misjudging it. Yeah, I got to agree. It's no other science to look out for. And for me, the biggest one, I forget about all those things you mentioned, like you said, it's not only burns, not only tired. all of that jazz, not how you feel, forget about how you're feeling and just focus on the performance of that particular movement. And when it's really slowing down, that is a really helpful cue, I think, to focus on when it comes to training close to failure. It's simple to think about when things are hard. And if you're inexperienced, expect this to take some time to get used to. You're probably going to misjudge this. You might not be instructed to take every single set completely to failure. You'll probably be encouraged to do this more over time. And if you're not training with a coach, then this is something that I would encourage you to try and get used to over time. But you're not going to take every single set of every single exercise on every single session to failure. You'll probably choose maybe one set for each exercise. And then you're going to look to do the rest a little bit further away from failure. You might misjudge some of those sets that are further away from failure. You'll get better with experience at judging how close you are to the point where you fail. Even experienced individuals like Katie mentioned will misjudge this from time to time, but they're just less likely to misjudge it by such wide margins. So you're normally only out by a rep or so. And once you've conditioned yourself to train to failure a lot of the time, training close to failure becomes much easier because even if you misjudge it, you're probably still very, very close to that point where you're getting a really good stimulus for muscle growth. follow on from that then, Sean, assuming we follow the present research, which does suggest that you can get equal gains from training all the way to failure compared to reps and reserve. Sorry, let me read this. I don't know what this says. It's too long. Bye bye. And assuming we follow our present research, which suggests that you can get equal gains from training all the way to failure compared to reps and reserve. This does mean that we don't need to take every set to failure to the point where you physically cannot move that weight anymore. No, and again, this is something which it depends on what side of the fence you fall because I know a lot of coaches, a lot of bodybuilders, for example, have different opinions on this. The research is there for a reason. It's there for us to interpret ourselves and apply ourselves. The research that we have probably doesn't look at multiple years of training to failure or training just close to failure. we haven't monitored individuals that are more experienced over say five years of lifting. Imagine how difficult it would be to create that study, by the way, where you compare somebody that trains two reps in reserve for five years compared to somebody that was training all the way to failure for every set for five years. It's unlikely to happen, isn't it? It really is. The research is for shorter timeframes than this. It's a number of months at a time. We can make some fairly strong assumptions from this and from the data that we have, two reps in reserve builds the same muscle as training all the way to failure. or that's what the research suggests. Now... think this is about applying some of your Well for us it's about applying some of our coaching nausea and some of our experience. First stop when it comes to the research itself when individuals are instructed for the purpose of research to go two reps to two reps from failure. There's a very good chance that the researcher already knows what this person's likely failure point is because they would have been tested on it so that then they can be instructed to lift two reps from that failure point. So they would give them a set of failure. They would have a record of that. So they know whenever they get them to to two reps from failure, they've got much more of a clear idea of where that should be. They're encouraged to keep going. They've got somebody in the gym or the lab with them instructing them to keep going until they get to that range where they do reps from failure. They're pushed hard, and it's exactly the same in the group that trains to failure, right? That's part of the experimental design. When you got into the real world and you go into the gym, you don't have a PhD student that's incredibly enthusiastic about building metal, that's extremely highly caffeinated, shouting at you, telling you to push those extra reps. You don't have that. You have... You have different environmental considerations like, ⁓ shit, I forgot to put the dishwasher on before I went to the gym today. I've only got an hour to train. Maybe I shouldn't do these last few reps because then I can maybe jump on that machine over there that's free, that I've spotted that's free. So if I just cut this rep short, then I can go and jump on the leg extension. All my friends in the gym today, I don't want to look like a tit if I fail this lift and they're going to be watching me. All of that stuff, all that noise and all that nonsense stuff. is real stuff that puts people off, their focus, puts people off and it takes their focus away from the set that they're doing. they're basically not judging how close to failure they are as effectively as what they would do without the distractions and with the encouragement of being in a laboratory type experiment. So I don't mean lab is in test tubes and white coats. like that kind of thing. Like when it comes to training labs for training science, the lab is essentially a gym where everything is hooked up to computers and stuff. It's really high tech stuff. You can Google it to have a look if you want. But yeah, my point is I don't think that we should... Disregard the research? But I do think that from time to time, you need to be going all the way to failure because that's the only way to ensure that you know exactly what going to failure is. And it's the only way you're ever going to know whether you are to reps from failure or not. If you've had that example to follow of what true failure should be and you can work back from there. You can't work back from something you don't know. Right. And I think without taking it to the point of true failure, it's very hard to judge it. I still find it hard to judge if I haven't taken to true failure now, because you actually can sometimes get more than you realize. So I do think it is important to not always just do two RIR because you're likely, and I'm going to say this from experience, my own experience and working with clients, that you're likely going to be leaving some gains in the tank. When muscle building is already slow process, it doesn't really make sense to me to to leave those gains on the table. You need to go there to find out. That's what you got to do. You've got to go to failure to find out what your close proximity to failure should be like. not smart, is it Katie, to go from never training to failure to taking every step to failure? ⁓ no, you might be in a little bit of pain for a couple of days after if you do that straight away, right? To say the least. you may experience the worst doms you've ever had if you do that the first time you take everything to failure. ⁓ It's more about kind of building into it. So, you know, if you've never done it before, maybe take one set of couple of exercises in your workout plan for that day, or every exercise, one set of every exercise in your workout plan for that day. From that set, you'll be able to work out your two RAR then for the other set. So build into it, build up to it, like anything in life, don't go from zero to 100 % in move one. Another mistake we're training to failure or close to failure is. not listening to your body when you need to be more adaptable around your current state of recovery and fatigue. This is probably advice that I should follow a little bit more myself at times, but I feel like I've got to a level of experience now where I probably do this naturally a little bit without noticing anyway. But what I mean by this, by listening to your body, it doesn't mean don't go to the gym. It doesn't mean have a day off. It means if you're feeling a little bit more beat up, if your muscles are a bit under recovered, if your tendons are a little bit irritated, your joints are a little bit more achy, if you're feeling a bit unstable, if you're feeling like... When you start doing your warmup sets, everything feels 10 times heavier than it should do. If you've not been progressing for the last couple of sessions and you feel like you're absolutely wiped all the time, these are all signs that perhaps you're not recovering as well as you should be. That's where you'd be adaptable with your reps and reserve and you decide, I'm not going to take things to failure this week. I'm going to hold back a little bit more. And this can sometimes be a case of you needing to go. outside of the optimal muscle building range for stimulating muscle growth, like the optimal muscle building range of zero to two reps in reserve, you decide, well, I'm not going to push that this week because my body needs to get some extra recovery. So I'm still going to go to gym. I'm still going to train, but I'm going to do a set or I'm going to do a session where I limit myself to go in three reps in reserve. It's about learning to be adaptable and listen to your body's cues and signals. This is better with experience and it's much better when it's guidance. It doesn't, when you've got guidance, it doesn't mean that every single time you're a bit more sore, you should take an easier session. Soreness, niggles, feeling tired, that's all part of the journey. You won't speak to anybody that's built a lot of muscle that doesn't experience those things on a pretty regular basis to be honest. But you should know. You should know when a combination of those factors is in play or your training is suffering and pull it back a little bit in accordance with that. I think when you're first trying to figure that out, because it can be quite hard to judge it sometimes, whether you just kind of jibbing out, not working hard enough, should I be doing more? Like am I making the right call by doing a bit less, hold it back a little? I think rather than focusing on how you're feeling per se. because you can still feel tired and have a cracking session. I would just suggest focusing on how you're actually performing in that session. I think particularly for women, know, cycle syncing around your menstrual cycle is an absolute load of nonsense. But I think listening to how your body is performing at certain points of your menstrual cycle can be helpful because then you may never notice it. You may not have a training day on a day where you're actually feeling weak and your performance suffers. But there could be some cycles where you do end a training on the day that you just don't perform very well and your strength suffers and it feels harder than normal. You can't predict when that's gonna happen. You really can't. It's only when you're actually performing in the gym that you go, ⁓ okay, this is bloody hard. The weight's not moving like it was last week. So focus on how you're actually performing and... don't be afraid to in that moment. That's where you can go, okay, this is the day where I need to just keep two RIR in the tank. You're spot on Katie. mean, how many times have you gone to the gym and felt like you're really tired and your performance has been completely the opposite of what you expected? So many times, so many times. me too. amount of times actually. I absolutely smash PB sometimes where I think I'm going to have my worst session. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's easy to fall into the trap of going, I'm really tired now. going to be crap session. I probably shouldn't go again. just don't allow your brain to let you think that and decide for you whether you're going to go do that session because sometimes those sessions actually turn out to be one the most enjoyable sessions, two of the most progressive sessions, and three, you come out with that feeling way better than you did before you went into that session. Yeah, those are sessions which really count and they're big wins. I want to just go back to something which you mentioned there about judging performance when you're training in the gym. And I'm to give you an example, like a practical example of how you can do this. This is way easier if you've got a plan or training log where you can see what you did the last week. If you don't have this, then absolutely get on that because it's super simple to do. You just need a notepad or you just need notes in your phone or download an app or whatever. Like there is virtually no excuse in the 21st century to not have a training plan or training log. But if you look back your numbers where you did last week and you try and perform them again, you go in this week and you start lifting. So let's say, for example, on your plan, your first set of dumbbell press is 20 kilo dumbbells for 10 reps. And last week, you know you did 20 kilos for 10 reps for your first set. You go in this week, you warm up as normal, you don't plan to knock anything back, but you start lifting those weights for that week. And you get to about rep six or rep seven and it's ridiculously hard on rep six or rep seven, you might decide in that one moment there that you're not going to try and push for rep eight and take it to failure because performance is already way worse than it was the week before. And if you take that extra rep to failure, the value of taking that rep to failure might not be worth how fatiguing it's going to be and how much it's going to take away from the rest of session. So you make the decision on the spot there and then to go right. I'm way weaker than I was last week today. I'm gonna take this set to this point and I'm gonna stop here. And then this now becomes a two reps in reserve day. because chances are some of the other movements will follow that same pattern. get really, so again, this is more nuance than it. I don't want to confuse people too much, but I'll just give an example quickly. I was training the other week and I started off my session with a dumbbell shoulder press and the shoulder press felt ridiculously hard, ridiculously heavy. I was thinking my rest of my session was going to be rubbish. Every other movement except shoulder press went really well that day. dumbbell shoulder press was just rubbish for whatever reason. It was just one muscle group that under recovered. So you can also go by the exercise that you're on and not right off the whole session. But if you start your first set, it's way harder than expected. You might take the rest of the sets for that exercise. to a few reps further away from failure than what you had planned. because maybe that muscle group is under recovered for that session and there's not much value to pushing it to its absolute limits if it's already under recovered. I think it's not going in with too many perceived ideas or expectations of how you're going to perform because how you think you're going to perform and how you actually perform are sometimes very different and just going in and going, right, I'm just going to crack on with my warm-ups, let's get my first set done and see how my form is, make a decision from that. As you get more experienced, you don't stress about this stuff as much. I gotta be honest, I don't really care if I'm performing that much worse than last week. If I go in, I've lost a rep or two from last week nowadays, I still just take it to failure. I still just go for it. That's how I train now because I know that my session performance is going to be variable. I'm not seeing progression every single week now at this stage. I'm probably holding the same, for some exercises, I've been on the same weight for months. I might have added a couple of reps every fortnight or so, every three weeks or so, but I might still be lifting the same weight for those three sets for quite a long time. Naturally so, right? You were an advanced lifter now that to be able to get stronger, you're going to need to build more muscle mass to get stronger, and that's going to take some time. That's not going to happen week to week. And performance is going to be variable. You're going to get variable performance from one week to the next. you're not going to, if my average is, is say lifting 42 kgs for eight reps, then with time, hopefully over time, I'm going to progress and I'm going to be able to lift 42 for 10 reps or 42 for 12 reps. But there will be some sessions where my average might be eight to nine reps for performance. And there's the occasional session where I dip below that average. I'm a little bit less recovered. Like I'm a little bit more tired that day. So I might only get six or seven reps on the odd few weeks. And it doesn't mean that I'm getting worse. It just means that I have, you have variable performance in sessions. If you did 10 different 10 K runs, you'd get a different 10 K time each time. There's variability to results with this stuff. Sometimes it'll be above and sometimes it'll be below the average. If you stack up more above average, then you will eventually see more progress. in that trend over time. That's what you're aiming for is more above average than not, than below average, right? But there will be some that do fall below average because... That's how life works. That's how training works, that's recovery works. Even on those sessions that are below average, I will often still take myself very close to failure because, yes, I might be performing a little bit worse, but I'm still going to try and max out the stimulus that I can get from those days where I'm a little bit less recovered and a little bit more fatigued because I know that my nutrition, sleep, stress management... and diet outside of the gym will support my recovery from pushing harder in the gym when I'm going in already a little bit under recovered, if that makes sense. It makes sense for you absolutely, Sian. And I'm probably very similar to that. And I think it's about understanding your situation, what you've got going on. you, at the moment, we can optimize sleep really well, because there's only us to think about. There's going to be people out there with families, for example, who might not have so much control over their sleep, which will impact their recovery. And they may not be able to do that on a day where they can't perform to their limits. It's understanding what's right for you. It's like everything, it? Yeah, it is. Because there'll be people listening to this podcast in a completely different situation to us with different living circumstances. I'm just making sure that. I'm just making sure that I'm a full scope because for those that are a little bit more free to dedicate more time, more effort, whatever to their fitness and their muscle building goals right now, it's important to help provide information to that part of the audience as well. ⁓ absolutely. There's a scale to it, isn't there? And knowing where you sit in that scale and there will be some weeks where you can go to more close to optimal, some months where you might be able to go more close to optimal. And knowing that actually if you just take it back a little bit, because you can't give optimal right now, you can still make progress. You're just going to know how to, I guess, push and pull to allow that to happen. Let's help the newbies out so those that are new to training to failure and haven't had much experience to it. Let's provide some helpful guidance and frameworks. to those individuals because it can be a bit daunting when you first start and you're not as familiar with how your body should feel when you're performing these exercises and when you're getting close to failure. So. kick us off with what the first thing to focus on should be when you start training and you're looking to build muscle and let's go from there. We touched upon this a little bit earlier on actually and it's establishing adequate and consistent exercise technique. That should be your first point of call because if you can build the foundations well, then everything else you can push on with afterwards. Yeah, it's got to start with targeting the muscle correctly. and then when you can target the muscle correctly, then you can fatigue that muscle as much as you want and you're still getting a really good stimulus to that muscle. If you're listening to this and you're not entirely sure what really good technique should look like and you want to make sure that you're maximizing all of the work that you do in the gym to try and build your muscles, then you're definitely going to want to get your hands on our free lifting habits quiz. It's brilliant. I wish I bloody had it years ago. We will give you the top five lifting habits or lifting techniques that you should be focusing on to make sure that you're all, make sure you're getting the most amount of work done. to make sure you get in as much work done as possible in the muscles that you want to target in each exercise. Once you've got this lockdown, it makes training far more progressive. It removes a lot of confusion about how to perform correctly in the gym. You'll feel much more confident in your training and being able to do it on repeat. When you combine this then with training close to failure, you have the perfect recipe to get the best possible muscle gains you can get. But it starts, like Katie said, with the adequate technique and knowing if you're ticking the right boxes when it comes to your performance and execution. There's no program on the planet that can make up for really poor technique. That's part and parcel of this. There's no point having an absolutely fantastic program if it's not executed to a good standard. So head over to the description. There is a link to our quiz. The quiz will ask you some questions to help you. The quiz will help you identify the areas that you're strong at or the areas that perhaps you could do with a little bit of education support around. And we also follow that up with a video series to support you with the areas that you could get a little bit more out of so that you can build more muscle in the time you're spending in the gym. It's a fantastic resource. So we've had some really positive feedback from those that have completed the quiz so far. They found it really helpful. And with the video series to follow up so you can actually see this and put it into practice in your sessions pretty much straight away. is the techniques that we give out as a gift in the series, the techniques that we work with, with our clients on a one-to-one basis. It's absolute gold. Head down to the description. and complete that quiz. Once you've done that, the next thing you're then going to do when it comes to implementing training to failure is start paying attention to your difficulty or intensity within your sets. So intensity, we're using intensity to describe how close to failure we're training here. So the thing we want you to start tracking is how many reps in reserve you have at the end of each set. So on a session log, you'll be reporting next to the exercise you performed. what weight you lifted, how many reps you completed, and how many reps you had in reserve when you got to the end of that set. So if you go all the way to failure, obviously it's zero reps in reserve. If you didn't go all the way to failure, think about where you stopped in that set and how close to failure you were, and write down how many reps you were away from failure. Once you start tracking this, it will become much more consistent over time and you'll start to see patterns emerging in your lifting. If you are doing the same weight, the same reps and the same reps in reserve across all of the sets for an exercise. So, for example, if you do three sets of shoulder press and all those three sets are 10 reps with two reps in reserve, you're not judging it correctly because as you go through each set, your muscles should get more fatigued. If you're training close to failure, there is virtually zero possibility of you doing the same reps with the same weight and the same reps in reserve each set. It's just not possible. You're stimulating the muscles too much. They're going to fatigue and you're going to have less. you're going to have diminishing performance throughout each set. So pay attention to that as well. You'd more likely follow a rep pattern where, let's say you were doing two reps in reserve with each set. Set one, 10 reps, two reps in reserve. Set two, eight reps, two reps in reserve. Set three, six reps, two reps in reserve. That is much more realistic. Yes, I agree. If you complete 10 reps, set one, 10 reps, set two, 10 reps, set three, and they've all got two RIR, you're misjudging somewhere. Don't just write down on your program what you think you should write down. And if any of my clients are listening to this, then I'm going to give you a slap wrist. Do not just write down on your program what you think I want to see because you're cheating the system. That's completely and utterly pointless. You're just cheating yourself out of results. It doesn't matter what I see. you're cheating yourself our results. Report this correctly or as accurately as you can. I'm not saying to my clients, any of out there listening, I know that's you, it out. Stop writing, stop writing two reps in reserve for literally everything. Cause I can tell. I can imagine a few of having a little giggle right now listening to this. like, show me the evidence of that set. I want to see that set. And the other thing as well is where they keep reporting that there's no reps in reserve because they don't want to go up in weight for the next set. it's like, yeah, we see you. We see you out there. Naughty, naughty. But look, like I said, you're only cheating yourself out of progress, right? You're only cheating yourself out of gain. So if you want to keep lifting the same weight forever, then by all means be my guest, but it's going to get really boring when you're not getting any results. It absolutely is. So back to beginner's end, don't just add more sets. Add more intensity to your sets first. So before you start giving yourself, because adding another set is a significantly greater time investment than doing one or two more reps close to failure at the end of a set that you're already doing. agree more. And don't forget, training to failure is going to be one of the most important levers for you to pull. It should be one of first levers that you pull. So before you add more sets, otherwise known as volume, volume per muscle group per week, before you start to add more sets, make sure that all of the sets you're currently doing are done to a really high degree of intensity. Set this baseline. Then you can assess your recovery and your performance to know whether you're training close to failure enough or whether perhaps you're training too failure too often and you're struggling to recover and you might need to hold a few more reps back in reserve. It's just making the right adjustments for that. if you change too many things at once, it's hard to do that. So don't start adding sets until you've got the habit of training with intensity close to failure. Yeah, you're spot on there, Sean. Spot on. There is no point to keep adding more more more volume without addressing training to close to failure first. You can start them by getting closer to failure each week or take one set to failure. So like we talked about earlier, don't go from zero to 100 all in one go. Think about taking one set to failure, give it a go, test it out before going helpful either on all your sets. Your first set is probably the best set to do that on. It's best ⁓ I'd probably say your first set is the best set to do that arm, would you agree, Sean? Yeah, absolutely. So do your warm-up sets first. I had a message on Instagram about this. So I made a reel about taking your first set to failure, and I said how your first set is your best per set stimulus that you're going to get because you're fully fresh from... Unless you've done that muscle group before in the session, unless you've already fatigued that muscle group. But even so, your first set on an exercise is going to be your best set of that exercise. So taking your first set to failure on that exercise makes complete sense. I had a message about this on Instagram because somebody was like, ⁓ I'll never be able to just go straight in on the first. Well, it's like, use a bit of common sense. I'm not encouraging you to just walk straight up to the bar on a bench press, slap on 120K, drop it down to your chest and start bench pressing it. Still do your warm-up sets. I'm saying that when you get to your first working set, that's the one that you should take to maximum intensity. That's an important point to note actually, and that's probably an important point for us to raise for. Newbies is warm-up sets versus working sets. When we're referring to taking your first set of failure, it's your first working set, not those warm-up sets that get you to that working set. Yeah. If you get more experience, you might not even need warm-up sets. If you've already been in the gym and you've been training, you've worked some muscle groups, you don't necessarily need to warm up for every single exercise either, but there are certain exercises, especially for beginners, where you might feel like you want to just practice the technique or you want to get a bit of coordination with the exercise first. I find that For me, it's psychological. Like I don't, I don't want to go up to the leg press and start loading 300 odd K on the leg press. I want to do a couple of sets first, just so I can get used to that increasing load. So I don't just take the weights off the rack and go, ⁓ boy, this is going to kill me. So yeah, it's sometimes a case of just bridging that gap. But when you get to your first working set, which is the one which you're going to record and track your progress on. I'm not tracking my progress on my warmup sets. couldn't care less. I'm just doing them to get warmed up. mentally or physically. But when it comes to the working sets, that's when it's go time and you should take your first working set to failure or close to failure if you're going to choose any of your sets to do that with at all. You can do it with other sets. You can do it with other sets, but the best per set stimulus is going to be the first set before you get fatigue from performing that exercise. Good tip. think a good place to start as well is choosing to go to failure on safer, easier to manage exercises. You know, not doing it on a barbell squat, for example. Doing it on something like a shoulder press machine or leg curl or leg extension. Yeah, you mix from one you went from barbell squat to a completely different muscle group. okay. Sorry. Sorry. Okay, Sorry. So again, let me stop that a little bit again. For example, you're not gonna wanna take a barbell back squat to failure, but perhaps start on a leg extension, for example. Yeah, like Casey said, there could be an exercise that's such a brutal and difficult exercise like a pendulum squat. You might not choose to take that exercise to failure for your first experience of training to failure. You might choose some of this a little bit more accessible. So maybe one of those more horizontal leg presses that are quite safe to fail on. You've got safety mechanisms for pretty much every exercise that you do. Even the pendulum squat has a safety bar at the back in most gyms that stops you from getting stuck at the bottom. If you aren't sure, just take the lowest hanging fruit. Take something like a leg extension, take leg curls, take shoulder press. Machines are great for this because they have limitations on how deep you can go or how far you can go. They're much easier to test this with. So getting the habit to doing those with machines and with cables. Some of the free weight exercises require a bit more skill, like it takes a bit of skill to learn how to fail a back squat. And there may even be some movements that you pretty much never take entirely to failure. I have to be honest with myself here. I don't take things like stiff leg deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts all the way to failure on a very often basis. I really don't. I really don't. No, I don't either. Because? Not a true failure where I'm... cannot move that bar anymore? No, because for me, I feel like those movements and the back position of those movements and the potential compromising of my bracing and stuff could potentially lead me to an injury or it could mean that I'm shifting the weight to a different muscle group. Like, for example, rather than working my hamstrings and my glutes, I tend to work my back a lot more. The fatigue value of taking those types of movements. to failure might then compromise the rest of session where I've got exercise that I know I really want to have the energy to take to their absolute limits. So there's some nuances like that at times. I'll still go close to failure with those movements. I'm still shaking, considerably lifting them up and it takes a long time to finish the reps, but I'm not going all out to failure. So they made me some movements where particularly the really heavy movements, the strength movements, you might decide I'm not going all the way to failure on this one. And that's part of the plan. You don't need to necessarily take everything all the way to failure either. Yeah, choose the exercise which are most appropriate for you to feel safe with. And then when you want to try and go onto the ones which don't seem of safe or they're exercises that are just much harder to perform anyway, like a Bulgarian split squat or a pendulum squat or a hack squat. You've had that conditioning so that you're a little bit... You know what to expect a little bit more and you're probably going to give it a better attempt. Another tip is to get a spotter, so somebody to help you. So, Pendulum Squat is another great example of this one. You can get somebody to stand behind the loading pin so that when you get towards the end of your set and you feel like you're gonna get stuck, if you do get stuck, they can just apply a little bit of help to the machine to help to... to assist you to finish the lift. So they're taking a couple of kilos off essentially by giving you a little bit help, or they can literally just slide the plate off while you're performing it so you can finish the lift. But in most cases, you'd be amazed actually by how close you are to completing a rep sometimes if you've just had a little bit of assistance. Like sometimes I'll assist Katie. I'm probably applying less than five kilograms of force. to help her complete that last rep. It's such a small amount. She's still doing 98 % of the work, but I'm just helping her enough in a part of that lift where she gets stuck to get her through that lift and that's all it takes sometimes. So having a spotter can be really helpful and it also just gives you that little bit of reassurance knowing somebody's there to make it a bit safer. I think it can help you understand your failure with the safety blanket kind of thing because you know that. you're not going to feel a bit of a tit against that at the bottom or something, or you don't quite know how ⁓ the machine fails because you don't know how it's set up, you don't know where the safeties end up, et cetera, et cetera. So having that spotter, one, can give you a bit of moral support while you're doing it, and to stack a bit of a safety blanket for the first time you're taking things to failure. I think it's a wise move. And most people in the gym, if you ask them to give you a spot, would do it. You might need to give them bit of instructions of what you want from them but most people will be more than happy to help out with that. Yeah, I would say if you're new to the gym, ask somebody that knows what they look like. Ask somebody who looks like they know what they're doing to give you a spot. Don't just go and choose another newbie. I know it's intimidating sometimes going up to somebody that is a little bit more well-trained and a bit more experienced, but... You feel much more comfortable doing so when you perform in that movement, I think, because they've had the experience, they know how to spot you, they know... Yeah, honestly, most experienced people... that I know that go to the gym, I'm more than happy to help any beginner. In fact, it's like a rite of passage for anybody's experience for somebody to come up to them and ask for help. It's one of the most lovely experiences you'll ever have when you're an experienced lifter. I'm more than grateful to help anybody that's new or inexperienced in the gym. I'll actually go out my way to help those individuals if they ask for it. So yeah, go and choose somebody that looks like they know what they're doing and say to them, ⁓ I'm going to take this to failure. I haven't done this before. Can you just help me if it looks like it's about to go wrong? And they'll know what to do most of the time. Yeah, most of the time. A little disclaimer there. You can put your full trust in someone else, but talking from our experience, people will know for sure. Or ask a PT on the floor to give you a hand. Or one of the staff at the gym. If you can find one. So yeah, that's another handy tip. And you are going to see a bit of form breakdown. It's really not the end of the world. You're going to get, unless your form is breaking down by rep one, then you got a bit of work to do, right? But when you're getting towards the end of your set and you're getting working closer to failure, then there's going to be a little form breakdown. You can't expect to move a weight under that much fatigue with absolutely perfect form. It's just not going to happen. I know it might seem like a big deal right now if you're a newbie that, ⁓ God, what if I fall breaks down? What's going to happen? Am I going to get injured? It's unlikely you're going to get into the gym because you're in such an intentional state of what you're doing and how you're performing. It's not usually when freak accidents happen. You're very much in control of what you're doing. So don't be afraid if you... you know, if your form breaks down a little towards the end of your set, still focus on how your body's moving. Of course, you don't want to let that totally slip. But if it's not looking as swift or as streamlined as rep one, two, three and four, then it's nothing really to worry about. Things that upholding some standards with your lifting and maybe trying to set a little bit of a guideline for yourself. Like I often use 10%. So I say if my form is 10 % different to the technique I want to have. So my form is broken down more than 10 % then perhaps it's a little bit too heavy. That's the benchmark I set myself as a more experienced lifter. But anywhere up to like a 10 % change, a 10 % deviation from what I would class as. my perfect technical model. I'm fine with if it gets really, if I'm getting close to failure, if it allows me to get through a little bit more work in those last few reps. Again, it comes down to experience. I have found my best gains have come from taking my sets close to failure with very, very, very consistent technique in those last few reps close to failure. Would it make much of a difference if I started adding a little bit of momentum to those last few reps or if I shifted my position slightly or I twisted a little bit more? It probably wouldn't make that much of a difference, it, to muscle growth? It really wouldn't. It's not like it's going to... dramatically change how my physique is shaping. But I have practiced with maintaining that technique and I know where I'm at with maintaining my technique. I can be really consistent with my reps and that has provided me with good progress. So I'm going to stick to that model because I know it works for me. Don't get I guess the point that Katie's making is don't get too rigid with thinking your form has to look completely perfect every set. It's actually highly unlikely when you first start, but just don't leave it go to shit or resemble a completely different exercise than the one you're trying to perform. Remember, the whole point of this training to failure business is to try and target your muscles as effectively as possible. The whole point of choosing certain exercises is to target your muscles as well as possible. The whole point of maintaining good technique. is to target the muscles in the exercise you're doing as well as possible. So keep that in mind when it comes to performing exercises and you should be fine. But small shifts in technique, unlikely to be any problems for muscle growth. agree. I agree. think how I like to think about when I'm performing any movement is just thinking about how my limbs or body is moving when it gets... That's through every rep, right? That's through the whole set, particularly when fatigue is really hitting towards the end of it. Am I still moving my body in that way? Is the rep speed slowing down? And I just focus on those two things to know if I'm doing what I need to in those most difficult reps then. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people will say, well, how do I know that I'm performing the reps as I should be performing them? I'm not a big fan of using mirrors because for a start mirrors in the gym can be quite distorted and that can throw you off. I'm not saying mirrors are a bad thing entirely because they're not and you can use mirrors in certain exercises but I think sometimes people are so hyper-focused on watching themselves in the mirror they actually forget about how they perform in the exercise. The best way to see how you're performing in an exercise is to get your phone out, get a tripod or get a stand or just prop your phone against your water bottle and record your sets. Like, don't make a big fuss of this. People do not care in the slightest about you recording yourself in the gym, as long as you're not obviously recording somebody's face like one centimeter away from your shot. There's got to be some respect with it, as long as you're respectful of where you set it up. Yeah, if anybody's got a really big problem with it, then just don't record when they're around and just be a human being and communicate about it. But yeah, record yourself. Like, watch the video back, check your form. Ask somebody that's experienced, ask somebody that looks like they've got really good lifting technique about how you can improve this particular lift. Like reach out to myself and Katie, if you're in contact with us on this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast, you can have contact with us because we're inviting you to come and contact us on social media. Send us your training videos. Ask us for some tips and for some recommendations on how you can improve. You've got that resource available to you. It's up to you whether you use it or not. If you want to make the most of your muscle building training, you use the resources available to you from those that have been there, it and experience of doing it. Like we correct our clients form on a week to week basis. Like this is our day to day norm. We're giving you an opportunity to have access to that for free. So you can be really wise to take that. If you've got any lifting technique videos you want us to check, send them over to us and we'll give you a bit of free advice on that. Yeah, I encourage you to do that. Really encourage you to do that because sometimes you just don't know what you've done. And reaching out to someone who has got the not just the personal experience, but the experience of courting others through movement pattern is really, really helpful. ⁓ and make sure you get the quiz as well, because that will help you a massive amount when it comes to improving your lifting technique too. Yeah, and empower you, rep to rep, set to set, to know exactly what you need to do to get the most out of your muscle building journey. So just to summarize this section for the newbies. The new B-student training course of 8 year. is when they add more volume. Can you summarize it please? I don't know where, I don't know how to summarize this last part. I don't know if we need to summarize it, I don't know. Over time, it makes sense to want to do more. And there's a very good chance you're going to need to do more because more sets per week does lead to more muscle growth. If you've established a good foundation of. You're all your sets being taken close to failure. You've got really good technique. You've got really good rep to rep consistency. You're progressing regularly and you're recovering well. Now is your opportunity to add some more sets. But apply exactly the same logic to add in more sets as you did to train the failure. Don't do it all at once. Don't go from zero to a hundred. Don't start whacking on 10 or 15 more sets. to your training week in the first week. Literally just tip toe up, maybe just work out which muscle groups you wanna progress a little bit more with, add two to three sets per week to that muscle group, maintain that for a few weeks, have the same review process and add more again if you need to. But like we mentioned, don't just go doing more work for the sake of doing more work if the work could be of a better quality to begin with. Yeah, quality over quantity for sure. Let's have a chat about how to adapt things if it just gets a little bit too much when you're this close to failure with this much intensity quite frequently. Because that can happen too, right? And it's knowing how to adapt, when to adapt it to suit you. Yeah, this is what puts a lot of people off. It's like, but what if, what if, what if, what if it all goes wrong? What if it goes bad? So let's give you some frameworks on what to do if it does go wrong. Scale it back. It's so much easier to scale back. You just knock a bit off. So scale back to two reps in reserve for a week or so. Avoid going to failure. See how your body adapts. Yeah, you might take a few less sets to failure if you've been hitting every set to failure for a few weeks, you might decide, OK, this week I'm only going to take one set to failure. You're still. deloading to some extent and doing less work than what you've been doing previously. It's important to note that this doesn't need to be pre-planned. In fact, we would highly encourage it not to be. Scheduling in D-load weeks or D-volume weeks or weeks of pre-planned lower intensity, for us that just doesn't make any sense. There's actually some research to suggest that people tend to take more of those weeks that they knock back than they actually need to. when you compare those to people that just do it more intuitively. So they do it in response to those weeks where they've really struggled and really suffered. The people that have pre-planned weeks of lower intensity grow less muscle than those that just do it more reactively. So I think that you should be adaptive around this and I think that you should do it reactively. never, we never pre-plan lower intensity weeks, something that we... gauge based on how a client is feeling, how they've been recovering, how they've been performing the last few weeks. Normally it's something like a check-in message that we'll get from them. And it's not just one week either. Sometimes it's often on a number of weeks back to back. And we say, right, this week we're going to look to reduce the intensity a little bit, or we're going to get used to less sets. Yeah, be adaptive with this. I think so. I couldn't agree more with that because you could have a planned deload week. But you could be feeling absolutely right as writing, ready to go. And then you're like, ⁓ I've just got to... Why are you holding yourself back? Yeah, I agree. It's definitely... It just makes no sense. It makes no sense. The argument for that just makes no sense. It's like, ⁓ yeah, but I'll perform better next week. Well, you could have performed better this week as well. Makes zero sense. No, it definitely should be a adapt as you go approach. And think naturally in life this happens as well, like when you go on holiday or if you have, know, I know some people were still training on holiday for sure, but sometimes it's not as frequently or as much or some people don't. It makes life a little bit busier, stressful. I think naturally for most people there are some already force-fitted in dealers and you've had some time away from training. So again, not essential to scheduling. but listen to your body and adapt as you go. Because you don't always know if it's training that's causing issues with recovery, right? It could be, and this is why I'd say zoom out, maybe not zoom in and look at your overall lifestyle. How's your diet looking? What are your stress levels like? Have you had enough rest days to even allow your body to adapt and recover? Is there any cardio interference? Are you doing too much of it? Are you just not giving your body chance to recover? Do you necessarily need a whole deal a week? Do you need a fully lower volume for the whole week? Or do you just need to have two days recovery? Sometimes it could be as simple as that because as you go through life, your stress has changed, your responsibilities change, every week is different. And sometimes your diet may slip off. Sometimes your sleep routine may slip off. Some, no, I disagree, Katie. I think some people have those changes, but I think the people that have those changes on a more frequent basis are generally the people that struggle to find routine and consistency with their results anyway. Like I think- I disagree that. I don't disagree that. I think- I think that this is massively devalued. And I think that from my experience, the training gets the brunt of the blame for why people are fatigued and it's not the fucking training. In most cases, I just think that there's so many lifestyle factors, controllable lifestyle factors that are contributing towards this perception of fatigue and perception of tiredness and this perception of poor recovery. And then people don't work hard enough in the gym to get the results they want from the gym because they blame the training. But it's not the training. It's the fact that they're getting caught up in Netflix because they haven't had much time off and they're watching that extra couple of hours of Netflix at night and then they're not getting to bed. until half 11 when they got to be up at five o'clock the following morning. It's because instead of eating healthily on the weekends, they're going out and they're eating numerous meals out and their meal structures go into pieces. They're consuming much less protein on the days where their body is actually allowed to have some rest from the gym and they're not getting the recovery they need adequately for the next couple of sessions. They're habitually drinking just because they got the option to on the weekends. I think there's so many factors, which are lifestyle factors that are that are taken away from the recovery process, but yet it's, oh, it's because I'm pushing myself too hard in the gym. It's because I went to gym last week. So I'm not gonna go to the gym this week, because that's the reason why I'm tired, despite the fact that the rest of the lifestyle is an absolute car crash. And it's just high-necked in the gym because you're performing crap. So you think your training is just too much and you need to take a step back. But the impact that your diet, your sleep and your recovery has on your fatigue levels and how you're feeling is huge. And I do think it's neglected more often than not by a lot of people. If you are chasing physicals, you should definitely zoom out and not just focus on what your training is doing to you. I gotta give a shout out to one of my clients, Ian, at the moment with this because... He's been playing the second half of rugby season with a tear in his... in his PCL, so his posterior cruciate ligament. Had a scan on it a couple of weeks ago, scan results didn't come back. He's been having physio on this for months and months months and months after a knee injury early on in the rugby season, He's changed jobs. He's got a young baby at home who frequently has poor sleep. His partner works away, so he's solo parenting. quite often. He's had all this stuff to deal with week in, week out. He's consistently showing up at these sessions. He's trained to the best of his ability. He's been doing tons and tons and tons of rehab on top to keep himself going. I am absolutely in no doubt that all of that extra rehab work he's been doing has allowed him to get through the rest of his rugby season. He does 80 minutes most weeks on the rugby pitch. His team have got to multiple cup finals this year, so he way more fixtures this year than what he would normally have if it was just the league fixtures. And he just keeps plugging away and keeps going. He does his cardio. He keeps his steps up. Like he's an absolute machine to get all this stuff done. He's constantly reporting tiredness and fatigue. We don't know what's going to happen from one week to the next. There are many weeks where I'm advising him to keep a few reps in reserve. Maybe you can push a bit more this week. Maybe you should pull back this week. We don't know how he's going to be from one week to the next. He's just been adaptive to it the whole way through. But his standards have not dropped. His consistency has not dropped. His recovery has not been perfect, but he has managed so many of his lifestyle factors as well as he could. There's always a few things to be improved on, right? always a few things to be improved on. There's always a few things that could be better. He knows that, but he's managing a lot of stuff really well to allow him to keep doing what he's been doing. So. Please don't just blame the training for the fatigue and the poor recovery. And certainly don't just make out that it's because you're doing those extra couple of sets to failure for the reason why you're feeling so tired, for the reason why you're feeling so fatigued. when there's so much other stuff that... are within your control that you can manage or at least improve. When you get all that stuff locked down, then when you're consistently ticking all those lifestyle boxes, when your diet's good, when you imagine you sleep effectively, when you imagine your stress levels as well as possible, when you're not drinking heavily on the weekends, when you're fueling yourself appropriately on the weekends and not letting your diet completely go to trash on the days where your body needs those nutrients to recover. And then you still rock up for your sessions and you're really tired and really under recovered. Then you can have a look at adapting and scaling back the training and saying, well, maybe I've been doing this for a few weeks now and I know my lifestyle factors are in the right place. Maybe it is a little bit too much for me from a training perspective, but get the other ducks in line first before you start blaming the one thing that's going to improve your physique and improve your muscle. I actually give you some energy back. Let's be honest, when it comes to exercising, you don't necessarily get instantly more tired and fatigued from exercising. It has the opposite effect on the body. So it's definitely a case of zoom out and look at the overall picture, not try and blame something that may not even be the reason for it. completely get why people do it though. I completely get it. I really do. Because when you're in the gym and you're exerting yourself for those sets that go close to failure, they are really fatiguing. They are really intensive. But it's not that thing. Do not blow that out of proportion and stretch it across a couple of days. That's not the reason why you're still tired this afternoon. That's not the reason why two days later you're feeling shattered and you're feeling under recovered. Maybe have a look at how many meals you've skipped over this last 48 hours. Maybe have a look at how much alcohol you've drank over the weekend. Maybe have a look at what your sleep pattern has been like over the last three or four nights. Like our sleep has been appalling the last few nights because of the heat. It's been absolutely terrible. My sleep has been really, really, really hampered the last few nights. I've still gone to gym and given it my best effort. But I know that it's not going to be as good as it normally is. It's unlikely for it to be as good because my sleep has not been where it needs to be. point is just because something is hard when you do it in the moment does not mean that that's the thing to blame for why everything why why you're feeling tired or why you're feeling like you're you're too fatigued or why you're feeling like you're tired all the time or you're really burned out. Probably not having the impact that you think it's having. It's probably all the other stuff. I agree fully. our lifestyle, habits and routines have a huge impact on. on how we feel day to day. It's about controlling what you can control. Might not be perfect, but the things you can control, just put a bit more focus onto those. And if you're in the process of changing those lifestyle habits, which many people are, many of the clients we work with are in the process of changing those lifestyle habits, we're not expecting you to get them all right straight away from the off. They take time, they take practice, just like improving your training to failure. Then make your training fit around that for the time being as well. Don't expect to go maximum effort, maximum intensity all the time with your training when your lifestyle habits are still a four out of 10. You need to start to build those up as well alongside your training and there needs to be some compromise between what you put in in terms of effort in the gym and where your lifestyle is currently at. I think that's a really important point to make, but don't just assume that it's the training that's causing the problem when there's a very good chance it could be your lifestyle that's holding back how you feel on a day to day. Absolutely. Are on a summary now or? If you want to mention that last point, can if not move on to summary. I think we've covered it. Just make a choice, Beb. You're really drifting mentally. Come on, please. Get switched on. Let's summarise today's episode then, Summarise training course for failure and why it's important. I can never do this part. Come on, babe. So that's the listeners with a summary of today's episodes so they can hopefully start to implement some of this. So hopefully they can start implementing training close to failure in their up and coming sessions. So by now you know that training close to failure is extremely important for muscle growth. If you want to get the most bang out of your back, bang for your back out of your training sessions, this is something that you should explore and get good at doing. You need to go to failure at some point to set a benchmark for what true failure is. Don't expect to be able to judge this correctly and get it right if you've never gone there in the first place. You want to aim for zero to two reps in reserve, but go all the way to failure from time to time. The technique should maintain its consistency regardless of training to failure. Doesn't need to be completely perfect. Maybe 10 % variance in terms of your standard of technique, but it should still look very consistent to the technique you start the set with. And if you can recover well and continually progress. There's no need to change it. No. If you're taking every set to failure week after week and you're recovering well and your weight's going up and you're not too tired and you're not too fatigued because your lifestyle habits are all in a really good place, your diet's in really good place, then keep going. You don't need to change it. If that's not working out so well for you, then be adaptable. It's not just what you do in training, it's how you do it. Most of our members are more than capable of following or even writing themselves a training plan. They don't have a problem with going to the gym and working hard. What they did used to have a problem with was putting a lot of time and effort into fatiguing tasks, which were producing very little returns in terms of strength progress, muscle growth and changing their shape. This makes training feel less exciting and to be honest, a bit of a waste of time. If you feel like that about your training right now, or you want to avoid feeling like that in the future, you should take our free lifting habits quiz to make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck in your sessions. You'll be able to tick off what you're already doing well with your lifting techniques, providing you with some reassurance that you're on the right path, and you'll be able to spot which areas you can improve on to get better results from your efforts in the gym. As a bonus to the quiz, you'll also get some free videos to show you how to put your focus points into action, providing even more clarity and having a model to follow. Head to the description and click the link to access the free quiz. That's all for this episode. Next week we will be back with less of technical episode. We're going to share some powerful frameworks which help to stop negative thoughts from spiraling. We're going to discuss how to apply context to feelings of guilt and how to push for self-improvement and higher standards without feeling like you're never good enough. If you ever struggle to meet your own high expectations, you want to tune in next week. Thanks for listening. We'll see you on the next one.