Training Past Failure BOOSTS Muscle Growth!? (New Study)
In a Nutshell
Training to failure with full-ROM calf raises, then adding lengthened partials to a second failure point, produces the same hypertrophy as straight full-ROM sets when total hard reps are matched. The partials simply let you reach the same rep count in fewer sets, making the session shorter. Beyond-failure techniques linearly boost growth per set but exponentially raise fatigue, so they’re only worthwhile when recovery isn’t limiting; otherwise, stopping at 1–2 reps in reserve remains the better stimulus-to-fatigue choice.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
A big real-world problem is that lots of lifters think they're near failure, but often they're not as close to failure as they think. Training past failure with partials will absolutely make any given set more anabolic. It linearly increases the growth, which is sweet, but it exponentially increases the fatigue, which is not sweet. The study's purpose was to test the key question: are beyond failure lengthened partials intrinsically better or do they just increase muscle growth by just making you do more work?
The study title is "Does performing partial repetitions beyond momentary failure enhance muscle hypertrophy in volume load equated calf raise resistance training?" The authors include Amirali Golie and Sajjad Ahmadizad. It was published in 2026 in the International Journal of Exercise Science.
Muscle growth can be influenced by many training variables, such as how much volume you do, how many sets, how much weight is on the bar, the load, the range of motion, the rest times, and how close you get to momentary muscular failure, truly can't do another rep type of grind. Researchers are interested in beyond failure methods like drop sets, rest-pause, cheat reps, and partials after failure to see if there's something in that beyond failure close to failure condition that squeezes out more growth. Lengthened partials have received attention for being vetted in multiple studies as doing as well or sometimes better than full range of motion and definitely better than partial at the shortened position training for hypertrophy.
A recent study by Larson and colleagues found that beyond failure lengthened partials looked better and caused more growth. However, they did not equate for volume. The lengthened partial group did exactly the same workout as the normal full range of motion group, just did lengthened partials afterwards, and so just slapped more stimulus on top. This study tests whether beyond failure lengthened partials are intrinsically better or just increase muscle growth by making you do more work.
The two conditions compared were sets of full range of motion taken to failure versus the same full range of motion sets taken to failure, and then partials to a second failure point in that stretched partial range. The full ROM failure then partial failure group did calf raises until they couldn't do calf raises anymore, then did calf raises right after until they couldn't even raise their heel to parallel to the stepper. The full ROM only group just stopped at full ROM failure. The full ROM only group was able to do more sets so that the total amount of repetitions done with the full range of motion group and the full ROM plus partials was the same.
The researchers hypothesized that overall hypertrophy would be similar when you matched the number of very difficult reps that you're doing, the total reps done. They also suspected that full range of motion plus post-failure partials might be more efficient per set because the partials don't require as much movement, you can't do as many of them as you can a standard set, and they occur after already a pre-fatigued muscle.
The participants were 16 untrained 25-year-old men who didn't do resistance training for at least the last 6 months and didn't take any ergogenic aids. These are untrained participants, which means cool proof of concept physiologically, but maybe we should not be so excited about transferring this knowledge automatically to very well-trained participants.
The design is a within-subject unilateral study design where every person trained both of their calves. One calf would be trained only with full range of motion to failure, the other calf would be trained with full range to failure plus partials to failure. Every person serves as their own control, which is massive, and when things are different as far as the results are concerned, we really have good reason to believe that the conditions are what caused that difference.
The training duration was for 10 weeks, two sessions at a time each time per week, never on consecutive days. The exercise was unilateral standing calf raise machine. The loading target was to keep the rep range somewhere between 10 and 14 reps to failure, and if they got really way stronger, they would increase weight on the bar to keep them failing in the 10-to-14 range. The 10-to-14 rep range for calves works great because it's not so heavy that it's awkward, it's not so light that people just get bored, and it sits in the middle of every study we've ever had about what optimizes hypertrophy.
The set volume was equated. They took all the repetitions that the partial leg did and added them to the full range of motion leg, and so the reps done by both legs were the same. One leg did only full range reps, the other did some combination of full range plus partials, but the total rep count was identical. Technically speaking, because the partial reps are less physical translocation, the distance moved is smaller, it's not a work-equated system. The total work is higher for full range of motion. But from a hard reps perspective, and hard repetitions, tough reps you grind against are probably the thing that cause the most growth in the literature, that is a very good way to equate.
The tempo was 1 second on the concentric, 2 seconds on the eccentric, with 2 minutes rest between sets, and 5 minutes rest between legs. The outcome measure was calf thickness measured on B-mode ultrasound in just one spot.
Adherence was surprisingly damn near miraculous. Nobody dropped out of the study and no injuries reported. The total volume load, the reps between conditions was not statistically different. The overall hypertrophy, the muscle growth between the two different conditions, full ROM versus full ROM plus partials, was between 8 and 9% or about 8% rather over the course of the 10 weeks. When volume load was matched, full ROM only versus full ROM plus post-failure partials were statistically equivalent for growing the gastroc, the big part of the calf muscle. There were no meaningful differences found.
Because the partials do not take as much time as the full range of motion reps literally per rep, and because you don't have to rest a full amount of time after the full reps to do the partials, you just go right ahead, and then you can do the work in fewer sets, the per-set efficiency and thus per-workout efficiency was distinctly higher with full ROM plus partials versus just full ROM alone. The practical meaning is that full ROM plus post-failure partials got similar overall gains with fewer sets than just full ROM, implying that it may be a time-efficient way to reach a comparable hypertrophy result, at least in novices.
Individual responses varied. Some people grew barely at all, some people grew a shitload, some people have differences between the rep range or the different kind of modalities trained. Most people did not. Averages are important because they tell us where to start.
When total volume load is equal, when you're doing as many hard reps in a workout for a muscle, different workout, as many hard reps as the other workout, you get similar results. Each full ROM plus post-failure partial set seems to deliver a bigger stimulus per set, which matters if you're trying to get in and out of the gym faster. The total workout you can do, at least for calves, if you do partials after every full ROM set, is going to be shorter in duration and roughly the same amount of growth.
The authors compared this to the older research of the Larson and colleagues group. There the Larson group found that when you compare full range to full range plus partials, but you don't try to do more work in the full range, they thought maybe it's the partials, maybe it's the fact that it was after failure that they were done. This study is a rejoinder that says actually it's probably just the fact that they just did more work.
They didn't do any fancy motion tracking tools. It was kind of all on visual analysis. Ultrasound, they only measured one site in the muscles. We know muscles grow different amounts regionally. The population limitations are that these are untrained young men. We don't know exactly what would happen to trained people that are older.
Training past failure with partials will absolutely make any given set more anabolic. It will grow more muscle in any given set, period. Very interestingly, the mechanical work, force times distance, for the partials is lower, but the growth is the same rep equated to the full range of motion reps, which means that training either in the lengthened position through the partials, or training beyond failure, rather than normally to failure, that is get to failure in the standard way, you're still up continue on in a partials way, that cooking in the brine of failure condition, maybe it results in more growth per time spent doing the movement than conventional full ROM training.
If we say, "Okay, we moved a certain distance under certain load of full ROM, we actually moved less in partials cuz each rep is tinier. It literally each rep is like half the distance, but somehow for half the distance we're getting the same amount of growth. Either because the partials are really the distance you want to be doing there to lengthen situation, or because reps done very close to that failure condition just after it in this case are like especially anabolic. My guess, as a practical person who lifts and as a scientist, it's probably a combination of both. That is to say that more of your time spent at a lengthened situation for muscle, generating high tension, is probably going to grow you more. And more time spent training close to failure is probably also going to grow you more. That makes up for the mechanical work deficit. So, yes, even though it's rep for rep equated, you end up doing less work with the partials condition. Less work does not mean less fatigue. Does mean that it'll save you time.
This will likely save you time as it'll need fewer sets and thus fewer rest breaks and thus less total time to get the stimulus to what you need, which is great. That means if you're not constrained on recovery resources, which we'll get to in a second. Like you train two to four times a week for an hour or less each time, you live a normal lifestyle otherwise. You're just not pushing into systemic or even local MRV, maximum recoverable volume, by like any stretch of the imagination. If that's the case, training with partials to also failure after training each set to failure is a great strategy to employ in maybe all sets and definitely some sets, like the last set of every exercise, for example. This is a great thing for people that have lots of time and are not inhibited by overall recovery demands.
Stimulus to fatigue ratio rears its ugly, filthy head again. Before we can say that lengthen partials after failure to again also their failure beyond failure lengthen partials are categorically better way to grow muscle, which I guarantee you sure a lot of people on the internet will just say, training past failure is a very painful and psychologically tough. It will definitely cause more fatigue per unit of growth and tax more recovery per unit of growth versus the equivalent amount of training done not quite to failure, a few reps shy of failure, almost every single time. This means that just another straight set taken to one rep in reserve often beats any modifier like this one on stimulus to fatigue ratio. It does take more time, but it's usually time spent well for overall fatigue minimization and thus growth maximization when you're pushing for maximum volumes and growth.
If you're training your back in a way that it can barely recover from already and you're trying to eke in as much total work as you can where you can, just doing another set of back to one rep in reserve with a full range of motion or as a lengthen partial but to one rep in reserve instead of beyond failure is probably a better bet because when you take training beyond failure, it linearly increases the growth, which is sweet, but it exponentially increases the fatigue, which is not sweet. So, if you have fatigue to burn cuz you train twice a week, who gives a shit, absolutely send it on every single set to failure on the main set, partials to failure after that, failure just kind of wiggling on the ground, it all works. But if you have a constraint on recovery, if you're training a muscle group to its limits on volume, and you're training many muscle groups, and you're really trying to grow as much muscle as possible overall, there's still nothing that beats either partials or full range of motion taken to an average of one rep in reserve, two reps in reserve per set. That's how you build the best the best overall muscularity because the stimulus to fatigue ratio is the best, and you can shove more stimulus for any cost of fatigue.
If you track your training, in something like the RP Hypertrophy app, make sure to note that you did lengthened post failure partials next to every set or in the description of the exercise because otherwise you can just totally lose track of how much volume you're doing, and have no idea how your fatigue is making any sense whatsoever.
Some exercises, like calf raises, like bicep curls, are really suited to post failure lengthened partials. Other exercises will get your ass killed if you try to do some like that. You're not doing that on squats. You just don't. You just kind of die. And deadlifts, that sure won't work. Cuz once you're there in the bottom, you ain't going anywhere. There's no past failure or anything.
It's likely just the extra work that's doing the work. Yes, the lengthened partials can be an advantage. Yes, working close to or around failure is a big advantage, but it costs a ton of fatigue. So it's really the extra work that you're doing that's mostly giving you the extra growth in studies like this. If you don't feel like the extra partials are super fatiguing, on exercises like curls, on push downs, on wrist curls, on calf stuff, on laterals for shoulders, they kind of don't feel super fatiguing, then rock on and pour that stimulus in. Send it. A lot of times, I'll even do a thing where I have an exercise where I do full range of motion laterals, and then as soon as I hit close to failure, I just go halfway partial laterals, and that counts as one set. Awesome. No more real fatigue than as far as my experience goes than anything else.
If, however, the extra partials after failure really beat the shit out of you, especially psychologically, like they fry you, they hurt in an unbelievable way, save them for a rainy day or for the last set of an exercise in a given session, or for even just the last session in a meso cycle for that muscle group, so that you can full send, get all that growth, and not have to worry about accumulating fatigue. But if fatigue is not a concern, I had better see a lot of people after they finish their sets of calf raises, bicep curls, wrist curls, push downs, laterals, and a few other things doing some partials at the end. Hey, Leg curls, leg extensions, ideal for when you finish most of your sets. If you're really in the gym to grow as much as you can, and you really want to conserve time, and fatigue's not a big issue for you, after every single one of those exercise sets, do as many partials as you can. Each set becomes considerably more anabolic. The other thing to do is not to do any partials, but do myo reps or myo rep match. Do as many hamstring curls as you can, rest 5 seconds, do as many as you can, rest 5 seconds, do as many as you can. That ends up taking way less time to do just as many reps as you otherwise would have done over three sets where you rest a bunch. We already know from research on that modality that that's roughly equivalent on hypertrophy. Work is work. If you want to do your work faster and get out sooner, no problem. If you want to do your work faster and think you're going to get some kind of magic growth some kind of way way more out of it than you otherwise would, remember fatigue is an issue. We want the stimulative, want the least fatiguing. So, if you're full send living the bodybuilding lifestyle training as much as you can, full range of motion with some partials in there if you'd like, not all the way beyond failure all the time, just one rep in reserve probably still your best way to go.
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