To achieve success when you’re working out in the gym is a matter of seconds. That’s true! In the same way a fraction of a second during a 100 meter dash will make or break a sprinter’s race, that fraction determines muscle building success or failure and determines also your body’s muscle growth.

In fact, your entire margin of success in the gym can ultimately be reduced to just a short time span of 60 seconds. That’s correct, how you choose to handle a short 60 second time period during your workouts will translate to either poor, mediocre or significant muscle building results.

Although each entire workout will last for about an hour, only 60 seconds of that actual time will determine what kind of gains you achieve. How does it works? Well, the first reps in your set means just a little bit than nothing in terms of muscular growth. However, they play an important role.

If a given set consists of 6 reps, then reps 1-4 are only performed in order to get to reps 5 and 6. Reps 1-4 will do very little in terms of stimulating muscular growth, but are necessary to perform in order to overload the muscles on reps 5 and 6.

The important thing is to overload your muscles in the last reps. Muscles respond to stress, and there is no more stressful moment for your muscles than the moment at the end of your set.

There is simply no better way to trigger your body’s adaptive responses than to train until your muscles cannot move the weight another inch. The closer and closer that you can come to muscular failure, the more dramatically your body will respond.

Let’s do some math. If you perform 10 sets per workout, and have a margin of 6 seconds between success/failure per set, then it means that the way you handle that 60 seconds could mean a significant muscular growth…or a total waste of time.

Well, if we assume that you perform 10 total all out sets per workout and have a margin of 6 seconds between success/failure per set, this gives you 60 seconds of total time per workout to either battle through with full effort or to surrender and settle for mediocre results.

The closer and closer that you can come to muscular failure, the more dramatically your body will respond. Two seconds, five seconds, maybe another one rep, or two, would actually mean a great difference.

Training your muscles to muscular failure is the way to achieve betters results. If you drop the weight before you reach it you are compromising the results.

You must train hard and with full effort at all times. When the weight feels heavy and your muscles ache and burn with discomfort, you must push through and continue until true muscular failure is reached.

If you stop short, even a second short, your gains will be compromised. Keep this in mind at all times in the gym and you’ll experience better results than ever before.