Almost everywhere you turn, you hear people telling you to train to failure or to “work your ass off.”

Based upon my experience, this philosophy is wrong.

When I used to travel up to Oregon to train with my friend, Bill Pearl, a 4-time Mr. Universe, he put it this way, “When you train to failure, you leave the gym a failure.”

As you know, my weight-training and weight-lifting days have long passed.

I gave them up in 1999 and have promoted bodyweight exercise ever since because I found they gave me far more functional strength that I could use in martial arts and combat sports. Weight training, for me at least, made me more susceptible to injury.

Here’s why I bring this up: Almost all of the bodyweight fitness culture gives you the same advice as the weight training culture, i.e. they tell you to train to failure.

It’s wrong. And I can prove it to you.

Over the years, when people are stuck on a certain number of Hindu squats or Hindu pushups, and wonder how to get beyond their sticking point, I advise less instead of more.

Here’s an example of what I suggest:

“If you’re stuck on Hindu squats, do smaller, easier sets throughout the day, every hour on the hour. Not sets to failure, but about half of what you think you SHOULD do. Doing what you SHOULD do doesn’t work. Be natural. Make it easier on yourself and your brain and nervous system will repay you, big-time. If you do Hindu squats over the course of a day, in sets of 10, or 25 or 50, and you never get exhausted a single time, you are training with nature instead of against her. Don’t force anything. Coax your body. Do half (or less) of what you think you SHOULD be doing. At the end of the day, count your reps. How many total?”

Don’t believe this routine will work?

Then test it out and prove me wrong.

If, for example, your maximum for Hindu squats is currently 40 – then do sets of 15-20 repetitions throughout the day. Make sure you do at least 100 squats a day, everyday.  Follow this for a month and I guarantee you’ll blow so far past 40 reps in a row that you’ll be astounded. And you’ll do so without a single set going to failure.

Moreover, you’ll establish momentum and… you’ll love working out. And this momentum will turn you into an animal.

In future lessons I’ll explain more.

KATN (Kick Ass – Take Names)

Matt Furey

author of the International best-seller Combat Conditioning