The importance of failure in your fat loss program

If you're not failing during your fat burning workouts then you need to be. Those in the know about optimal and fast fat burning know that muscle increase is the most powerful and effective way to quickly lose body fat.

The more muscle you have the more calories you burn at rest, and while the muscles are growing... well fat loss doesn't get much more dynamic than that. So where does the word 'failure' fit in to the scheme of things?

When I do my muscle gain workouts I aim to fail as much as I can - that way I'm making real progress. You see failure in this context means doing as many repetitions of an exercise as you possibly can until you can physically do no more - or (as they say down at the gym) "until failure".

Let's say for example I am doing a chest workout on a bench with some dumbbells. I have a superset of push-ups that I go straight into after a set of flies. I will select the appropriate weight of dumbbells so that I can only manage between 8 and 12 repetitions of the exercise, then when I have 'failed' (can do no more reps at this weight) I'll put down the weights, get off the bench, get down on to the floor and go straight into a superset (another set of exercises that immediately follows the previous one) of push ups which I will do...... until failure.

If I don't do the exercise until failure then I haven't pushed myself as far as I can go, I won't increase as much muscle as I can which will not burn as much fat as rest and .. well - you can see where this is going.

This is why in the gym you can often see the really big muscled guys doing very few repetitions of an exercise with very heavy weights and sounding like they are giving birth to a bowling ball. They are pushing themselves until failure.

So in this context the word failure is a sure fire way to success. Be careful not to overdo it and injure yourself, know your limits. Aim to 3-6 sets of repetitions of a weight until failure. A good threshold is between 8 and 12 reps, if you are not failing after 12 reps then it's time to move up a weight.

Super sets are good as well, mix them up and you'll be failing all over the place and making huge progress.

So there you have the importance of failure as a part of your fat burning program. You want great results - get out there and get failing!

About the Author

Peter Webber is the webmaster of http://www.lose-the-beer-belly.com. A site dedicated to showing you how to get optimal results quickly using proven, tried and tested methods that work.