If you are chasing muscle growth and we all are there is one principle above all others that you just can't ignore if you wanna see gains and it's not progressive overload Tune in to uncover the non-negotiable secret of getting stronger. On today's quick wits, welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, phillip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Welcome back to another quick wits, where we dive deep into what truly works in fitness in these very short mini episodes.

Today's topic is critical for anyone looking to build muscle, as I hope is 100% of the people listening to this show. And it's not progressive overload. I talk about that all the time and that is an important principle. But I think there's a principle that I'll say is even more foundational. That is required to even get to progressive overload, and that is simply proximity to failure. All right, you might have heard the terms training to failure. Whatever you wanna call it, here's the deal Muscle growth and thus the progressive overload we get from pushing our limits over session by session by session requires that we guess what? Push our limits, so that piece of it, that training close to failure and pushing those limits, getting right to the very edge of our capability so that we can progressively overload, means you need to reach almost that point where you just can't complete another rep with good form. That's what's called technical failure and this is the powerful stimulus that gives us muscle adaptation, right Strength recovery or, I'm sorry, stress recovery, adaptation. This is what tells your body hey, we need to get stronger here, we need to pack on more muscle mass based on what you're doing. And then, once you do that, of course you can go into the gym next time and lift just a little bit more and put in place the principle of progressive overload. But here's the thing it's not about going to failure every single time.

This is a strategic approach, like everything else, so that you avoid getting injured, so that you are healthy and recovered and that you are getting the most out of your workout for the appropriate movement, for that movement in the appropriate way. So this is knowing when to push, knowing when to pull back, while minimizing the risk of injury and overtraining. And the way I would think of it is very simple. If it's a big, taxing, multi-joint compound lift like a squat or deadlift, or even a somewhat stressful compound lift like a Romania deadlift, go around one to two reps shy of failure. Now, many times you're not even training with failure in mind. You're training with a you know IRR scheme, or you're training with a rep range, or you're training with a sets across modality where you just increase the weight each time in the gym. But either way it's got to get you close to failure, but not quite. And then for the more direct or isolation work, like barbell curls, you could go all the way to failure. Literally go to the point where you cannot do another rep and you'll be just fine.

So if you are serious about building muscle, respecting this principle, first and foremost, of proximity to failure is non-negotiable. This is the fine line between doing enough to grow and pushing too hard or pushing not enough. It's right in the middle. So that's what you got to do. All right until next time. Remember it's not just the work you put in, it's not just showing up at the gym, it's not just putting in volume, but how intelligently you put in that volume and push your limits so that you actually grow that muscle. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights. If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up there Wits or Weights please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.