Hypertrophy - lift to failure or not?

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For as long as I can remember I've done the typical pyramid style sets to failure. For example, bench press would look something like 4 sets starting at 10-12 reps, adding weight to each set and fatiguing the muscle to absolute failure at about 6 reps by the last set. Sometimes incorporating forced reps, negatives, drop sets, etc. This worked great, all good stuff. However, I'm realizing I haven't made any gains in muscle mass in a really long time. So lately, I've been honing in on research based programs specifically for hypertrophy. What I keep coming across is the comparison between power lifting/Olympic weight lifting and bodybuilding. Contrary to HIT style training as mentioned in an earlier post (which is great for overall fitness goals), strength and power lifters incorporate a much higher frequency and volume. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. I've always been stuck on the absolute failure thing because it seemed to be the end all be all.. to stimulate every last muscle fiber must equal the most muscle growth. It looks like what's happening is in total muscular failure routines, the central nervous system kind of burns out. You need a solid 5 days rest or you'll feel noticeably weaker, so now it becomes an issue of acute vs chronic stimuli. To decrease the intensity by stopping just before failure allows much higher frequency and volume in training - thus triggering protein synthesis in the muscle more often. The routine I chose to try out is HST (Hypertrophy Specific Training) aka Progressive Overload. At first it seems like a bit much because you're basically doing a full body workout 3 times a week, but don't worry your only doing 1-2 sets per exercise. By the end of the two weeks you'll have the same volume of a typical routine but spread out and hit more frequently. What you do is find your 15, 10, and 5 rep max's for all the exercises you want to do. Each rep ranges is used for two weeks. So 15 reps for 2 weeks then 10 reps for 2 weeks etc. But the important thing is the progressive overload factor - you want to decrease the weight from your maxes and slowly work up to them over the course of two weeks. For example a 135lb 15 rep max bench press would look like this:

• Mon - 85lb 15 reps
• Tue - rest
• Wed - 95lbs 15 reps
• Thurs - rest
•  Fri - 105lbs 15 reps
• Sat - rest
• Sun - 115lbs 15 reps
• Mon - rest
• Tue - 125lbs 15 reps
• Wed  - rest
• Thurs - 135lbs 15 reps

Then begin the 10 rep max weeks. For more details on HST you can check out the official website at http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/ or HST for dummies (which I found most helpful) on bodybuilding.com at http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/paul4.htm

I'm almost done the first two weeks of 15 reps and so far I really like the change. I'll post my thoughts once I've finish the full 6 weeks. Once I'm done, I'm either going to change it up to a strength program, maybe Wendlers 531 or something similar to Layne Nortan's Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training (PHAT). The latter may be the most optimal program for gaining size.. kind of like HST with power lifting added.. More on this in the next post. Also coming up will be the topic of macro nutrient requirements for putting on muscle mass.
-TK