Failure training question

[Scott Stevenson]

Question.
 Failure training means straight reps and no pausing within the set to regain some air/ energy? I believe I’ve heard Scott state not pausing helps to minimize cns fatigue. Unsure if via podcast or book.
Big concern of mine, just got out of a gi flare of 2 years (colitis flare via cns fatigue. Hard labor job  plus training) and dont want to have it return. But i really enjoy the program and honestly, if progressive failure training isnt there, i have zero desire to lift. Rir sucks. Used to train failure almost like a widowmaker (regardless of rep range) and im unsure if my idea of failure training was incorrect?

When performing reps (this doesn't hold during the intentional rest periods between sets of a Muscle Round), the reps are continuous in FT.  If you just have to reposition, that's cool but grinding out a set to get energy / prolong the set is now how I suggest the sets be executed: Continous tension is the goal.  I've explained a TON of time - probably here - but the idea is to:

Standard rep execution for the purposes of progressive overload (where applicable / when logging set performance).  

Pump sets are NOT done like widow makers - the tension should be continuous during pump sets.    

The general overarching idea is to avoid the negative impact of grinding away with 0-1 RIR reps (ala a widow maker), as there is a diminished return on investment (as fun as they are!). 

After a Truly grind it out WM set there is substantial impact on your ability to do more sets to failure, so the failure points are limited (as described in the book for each set type), to all accruing more volume - there is a dose-adaptation  relation ship here - per your recovery.

The book describes explicitly how / when failure is reached in the different set types, so you might want to go back and read that. 

I've not seen this studied directly, but my strong sense is that more "effective reps" will be possible per workout and over the long haul, for some individuals at least, by limiting true failure points in this fashion (many working sets with 1-2 RIR , but some sets are truly taken to failure.

The true failure point sets are also VERY helpful for logging progression:  IF you, per you ability to do so, truly reach failure, then there is a distinct performance measurement, minus the guessing of how may reps you might have done.

-S