04: Pushing Until Failure
FORMALITIES: Long time, no chat. August 4th, 2025 marks a year of having this blog. I was pretty inconsistent (it’s okay, life happens), so the hope for year two is, consistency. Anyways, moving on.
Let’s get straight to it: I’m happy to report that this past June I made it to the age of 24! It is not lost on me that this happened only by the grace of God so shoutout to Him.
TOPIC OF DISCUSSION: I’ve recently been getting into the whole “fitness as a lifestyle” thing and “health is wealth” propaganda. I was researching how to gain muscle on TikTok (lol— tiktok is like the new google), and I kept hearing people say I needed to do multiple repetitions of various exercise until failure. Now, in my head I’m thinking “why the h*ll would I put myself through that?” I mean obviously I want to tone my body and burn some fat, but why would I make myself keep going until my muscles literally fail to complete a motion? Seemed insane to me.
Turns out, people recommend training until failure in resistance training because it leads to increased muscle fiber recruitment, which aids in maximal muscle growth. Apparently, pushing muscles to their limit stimulates greater muscle damage which is crucial in promoting muscle growth.
Ironic, right? In order to gain more muscles, you’re encouraged to essentially break it first. This got me thinking about life in general.
INQUIRY: Should we push ourselves to failure when it comes to goals and aspirations? Does this same concept apply to our development as (hopefully) pleasant and successful human beings?
I guess it might just be a very straightforward thought— the way we push our bodies is just a reflection of the way we should approach any other goal. But what does that look like in application?
When I work out and I’m doing a rep until failure, I still go back to the gym the next day and do it again. When I walk on the stair master until my vision is blurry, I still go back the next day and do it again. There is even something I learned (that turned my world upside down) called “progressive overload”. This is when you gradually increase the intensity of your workout over time. This can be done in a variety of ways: increasing weights used, repetitions completed, or pace of workout.
Bear in mind— I could be wrong. This is just what I’ve gathered so far.
Drawing the connection: I saw a quote the other day that said something along the lines of “Don’t ever think my success is just luck; I failed more times than you’ve tried.” I guess the incentive of my thought is exactly that… continuing to fail until you, inevitably, win. I mean it’s physics… every action has an equal and opposite reaction. An object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force… you know, all that good stuff.
ANYWAYS— Perhaps all of these tricks and trades of gym-is-life mentality are actually just life skills applied to our physical bodies. Don’t get the job you want? Apply again. Didn’t get into the program or school you wanted? Apply again. Your idea didn’t actualize the way you thought it would? Go back to the drawing board. There’s growth in failure. You just have to look for it— you have to feel it. You have to harness that feeling and rework it; let it be fuel to your fire. Most times, it’s not even failure— it’s only failure if you stop. However, if you push a little more, over and over again, you’ll look up one day and find you’re living in previously hoped for circumstances.
Relative Digression: In addition to what I’ve learned, different workout strategies for different bodily goals. I couldn’t really tell you what the methods are, I just know there are different ones. I do know one example, though: outside of the gym some people eat a lot of carbs, some people eat in a deficit, some people eat high protein. Some people even do splits and combinations of all those things throughout the week. What I’m saying is, working out until failure isn’t enough. You have to make modifications outside of the gym as well. In application, I suppose this looks like examining the situations we find ourselves in and the people we find ourselves surrounded by. Curating our daily lives to reflect the goals we are in pursuit of — if we’re actually serious.
Reminder: Please read this as more of a journal entry rather than an inspirational message. I hope this can simply be a safe space fo me to flush my thoughts.
Conclusion? We have to fail to build muscle. Ironic, I know. I think maybe the concept wasn’t as complex as I thought but I’m glad I got it out. Sometimes I think we apply ourselves but we do just the bare minimum— we submit the application and just wait. Or, we have an idea that doesn’t work and just give up. I see similarities between the intensity that is required in the gym to reach our goals and the intensity that is required in our day-to-day lives. It’s easy to put on cruise control and just take things day by day, but sometimes we have to activate the thrusters. We have to go full force. Tunnel Vision. Complete and unrelenting intensity. This is what is required sometimes— and I think there are intrinsic qualities in that frame of mind that are actually beautiful. The idea that we can hone in on something so intensely and will it to actualize and come to fruition. I think there’s beauty in ‘failing’ but only if you get back up and try again. There’s beauty in the getting-back-up! There’s beauty in not taking ‘no’ as an answer.
In addition to this I do think it’s worth mentioning that sometimes we just have to do that hard thing: change our surroundings. change our environments. make cuts where they’re needed. Just like most of our fitness goals are achieved by the hard work done outside of the gym, our life goals are achieved by doing the work required outside of the day to day tasks.
Refinement, fortitude, tenacity, and grit. These are the tools we use in the gym— I reckon that these are the tools we need to use in the gym of life. That’s it and that’s all. A little long winded, but you’ll forgive me for that.
That’s a wrap for this blog. I can’t wait to see What Happens Next. But until then,
Cheers!