In the world of fitness, there’s perpetual debate over which exercises and training approaches are most “optimal” for building muscular size and strength. One of those long-standing debates is whether you need to train to muscular failure to maximize your gains. Training to failure, or pushing a set until you can no longer complete another rep with proper form, has long been used by lifters looking to maximize muscle fiber recruitment and get the most out of their working sets. It’s partly explained by Henneman’s Law, which states that the body recruits motor units in order of their size, starting with smaller units and progressing to larger units as the demand for force increases.
Jeff Nippard, a natural bodybuilder, powerlifter, and fitness educator, has long incorporated training to failure into his own workouts, but he’s recently changed how he approaches it. Rather than saving his failure set for the end of an exercise, he’s started taking his very first set to failure. Traditionally, Nippard’s recommendation was to leave one or two reps in reserve (RIR) during your first two sets before pushing the final set to failure. For example, if you’re performing three sets of an exercise, you’d stop just short of failure on the first and second sets, then go all out on the third.
However, he began reconsidering that approach and has since become more convinced that taking the first set to failure offers distinct advantages, especially after experiencing the benefits himself. While filming a video in which he attempted to set personal records on 25 different exercises, Nippard managed to set PRs on 17 of them, crediting taking the first set to failure as the key.
Related: Exercise Scientist Says These Are the Only 4 Exercises You Need to Build an Impressive Physique With Minimal Gym Time
“Normally I’d do my failure set last, but when I do my failure set first I would get
like two or three extra reps,” Nippard shared in an interview with Martin Refalo, PhD, on the Jeff Nippard Podcast. “With the subsequent sets, then, the other upside is now you know what your zero reps in reserve (RIR) feels like, so you can actually gauge it better because you just took a set to failure. So you remember very freshly what that feels like.”
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For beginner and intermediate lifters, taking the first set to failure helps give an immediate reference point for what muscular failure actually feels like. Ultimately, this makes it easier to judge how close you are to failure during the subsequent sets, including when you’re intentionally leaving one or two reps in reserve.
One eight-week study of 42 resistance-trained individuals compared single-set training performed to muscular failure with training that stopped at two RIR. Researchers found that performing a single set of each exercise to failure modestly favored certain measures of muscle growth and power compared with stopping at two RIR. So while you probably don’t need to take every set to failure to maximize gains, pushing to that point on particular exercises may help you get more out of your training, especially if you’re following a lower-volume routine.
Related: An Exercise Scientist Says These 3 Calisthenics Exercises Are the Key to Functional Strength and Longevity After 40
Sources
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Jeff Nippard via YouTube: Why I Take My First Set To Failure Now
This story was originally published by Men’s Journal on Nov 10, 2026, where it first appeared in the Fitness section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
