If I were to make a list of the "necessary evils" of learning and growing, failing would certainly be on it. But even using the word "failure" triggers negative emotional responses for many—fear, shame, sadness—because that label carries significant normative weight. We assume that if we have "failed," we aren't "good enough" in some moral way, rather than attributing the failure to any number of mundane miscalculations, missteps, or happenstance. Whether we "fail" at something, though, depends on the goals we set and the latitude we give ourselves to engage in exploration. Failure/success is a false dichotomy: there are infinite shades of gray, progress that seems nonlinear, and learning and growth that can only happen by finding out what doesn't work. That's true whether we're talking about the work you do in the gym or your movement practice, or the work you do politically in your community.

**What can you learn from failure?**

If you never push your limits or test your boundaries, you may never find your opportunities for growth in the challenge.

What is "failure" in physical training?

Thinking about failure is one place where physical training, and strength training in particular, can offer insight into how we engage in our social and political learning. First, there are a few different ways you can experience "failure" in physical training. The most obvious is muscular failure, where you simply cannot generate enough force to produce the outcome you desire (e.g., your biceps simply cannot curl a 45 lb dumbbell).

The more ambiguous type of "failure," though, is form breakdown or technique failure. In competitive sports with standards for how you lift a weight, the contours of what counts as "failure" might be more clear (for example, "failing" to hit depth in your back squat). The variety of ways you can shift away from form that produces the desired force and output, though, is practically infinite. Some of those form breakdowns can then produce a third type of "failure" you experience in physical training, which is injury. More on that idea in another blog post in the future 😉

Most people aren't aiming to experience injury or form breakdown, but finding a sweet spot of how much weight or what type of set/repetition schema elicits muscular failure is one way of determining how to adequately challenging your muscular growth and strength over time. Lately the idea of "training to failure" has come into vogue as a method of maximizing hypertrophy gains (and perhaps strength). Taking sets to "failure," the thinking goes, ensures that you are exerting sufficient effort to stimulate muscles to grow.

Robinson et al. (2024) conducted a meta-analysis evaluating the dose-response relationship of proximity-to-failure in weight training. The authors statistically evaluate the existing literature to assess whether any claims can be made about how training closer to failure impacts strength or hypertrophy, and while they advise caution in interpreting their results due to the variation in measurement across the studies they assess, they find that training closer to failure most likely does help with hypertrophy, but may not meaningfully impact strength—that strength, rather, can be gained in a variety of different training ranges.¹

Perhaps you can already tell where this is going. "Failure" isn't just one thing, even in physical training or movement practices. Sure, we can measure and assess whether you've reached the limit of your muscular strength or joint and tendon mobility, but whether that constitutes a "failure" really depends on what you set out to do to begin with. If you are aiming to do quarter squats, then of course you aren't hitting depth.

Whether you want to pursue training that elicits failure intentionally may also depend on your goals. If the Robinson et al. study is to be believed, you may not need to push yourself to muscular failure in order to gain strength (and it may not even be ideal, since it compromises your ability to manage recovery and continue training). If your goal is hypertrophy, though, pursuing sets to muscular failure—especially if you can manage technique breakdown by using machines or cables that control stability—may serve you. Even then, however, you have to ask what the cost is: if I want to grow my muscles and don't pursue sets to muscular failure, thereby leaving gains on the table... does that constitute "failure" too? It depends.

Those pieces about about managing recovery and avoiding technique breakdown while pursuing "failure" focused training are key for unpacking what "failure" really means in a physical context. Most people in physical disciplines try to avoid injury where possible, so finding ways to mitigate the risks of injury and more "safely" pursue failure is critical if your objective is to really test your boundaries and find the edges of your strength. Sometimes this looks like getting a coach to guide you through movements; sometimes it means having a spotter; sometimes it means shifting away from one apparatus to a different one that manages load, instability, or range of motion.

When you're regularly challenging yourself physically, finding safe(r) ways to manage failure also includes getting adequate rest and nutrition. Recruiting all of these sources of support is a critical component of managing "failure" in a physical training sense. Without them, our risk/benefit calculations tip dangerously toward the negative end of the scale. Regardless, evidence from strength training suggests value to both understanding and pursuing failure, even if the magnitude of its importance and its relationship to growth is uncertain.

What does that have to do with political work?

These same components translate directly to how we do our political work. Obviously the costs and benefits differ: political and social work in our communities has broad potential impacts, as well as deep ones within our organizing relationships. "Failing" in a political sense can mean catastrophic consequences for vulnerable people whose interests are not considered. How we think about our training and actions also might differ: sometimes we're acting in tandem with others, and how we conduct ourselves has repercussions not only for our relationships with those people, but also for the work we aim to do together.

Many people fear being ineffective or making political missteps for this reason — "failure" to use appropriate or respectful language, to know about the history or meaning of a particular group or organizing tactic, or to act in a way that is either socially acceptable or politically effective can lead to social stigmatization and judgment. Anyone who has been made to feel like a "bad person" because of their language or actions knows what this is like: it creates a worry that your "failure" won't be a learning moment, but rather an indelible mark that forever shapes how others think of your character.

But just like in physical training, political and social justice "successes" often come from pushing our edges and boundaries in ways that break systems and test our collective strength. Change requires catalyzing our discomfort with operating outside of the status quo, and practicing meeting and testing that edge until we break through it.

**Training “failure” in your political work is part of the process of achieving change**

Pushing the boundaries of the status quo is how we make change — “failure” is just part of the journey

Here's where we can take a page from the book of our physical training to help us reframe the idea of "failure" in our political work:

1. Failure isn't the opposite of success

Just as there are a multitude of ways to "fail" in physical training, there are a lot of different "failure" modes in political work and training as well. Political change and working toward socially just outcomes requires experimentation, and that means granting yourself permission to not immediately succeed. In this analogy, what we're trying to avoid in our political work is similar to what we hope to avoid in physical training: injury. Experimentation that doesn't do immediate and/or irreparable harm but that does push on the boundaries of what is currently acceptable because our status quo conditions are unjust is the type of failure edge we want to explore. Injury isn't ideal in our physical training because it causes pain and sometimes permanent damage, and that same is true for political work.

But also just like physical injury, political and social injuries we inflict by trying to challenge current conditions can be healed, with work. That process itself is part of the political project of creating better conditions. That means that failure isn't the opposite of success, but that any success almost certainly contains "failures."

2. Failure can be considered, anticipated, and mitigated

Failure is inevitable, but how we respond to failures conditions whether they serve as learning and growth opportunities. Planning for failure, anticipating its possible risks and costs, and engaging in mitigation where possible are all strategies that we can adopt from our movement practices into our political work. Just as you would not cold attempt a 1 rep max at a weight you had never touched, you also should not expect immediate success in your political endeavors without practice and incremental growth toward challenging thresholds.

Practicing what "failure" looks like for you is part of the process of learning, but also part of the process of mitigating future risks of failure. If you already know how to dump a bar during a failed squat, you can do that when your body is at risk. If you already know how to have engage in repair and restoration after conflict with someone in your organizing collective, you can anticipate future rifts and work to mitigate them, but also can trust that you will be able to confront future challenging dynamics that you have previous experience with. Knowing that you will fail and planning for your next steps is a practice of resilience.

3. Failure can be supported

One of the scariest aspects of "failure" in our political and social justice work is the idea that this will be our only opportunity. If we invest in these high-stakes narratives, we deprive ourselves of opportunities to grow and learn, but we also are more likely to trip into feelings of shame when mistakes happen. This is where support becomes critical. Just like you would hire a coach or ask for a spotter in your physical endeavors when testing your boundaries and strength limits, you should also seek out mentors and community that can support your political and social learning processes.

This doesn't mean seeking out comfort—good athletic coaches are not ones who encourage you to avoid challenges, they're the ones who encourage you to push yourself toward your limits and improve as a result. The same is true of political learning and organizing: finding the mentors and community members who can really push you, but also create a supportive environment for you to "fail" is key to your personal political development as well as our collective struggles toward political change.

Ready to Pursue Failure? Get support

Look out for a future post exploring some of these ideas in their limits—the meaning of injury and recovery, as well as practices of resilience. In the meantime, if you're seeking support (and challenge!) for your physical or your political training, check out these opportunities for strength coaching and political mentorship.

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Robinson, Zac P., Joshua C. Pelland, Jacob F. Remmert, Martin C. Refalo, Ivan Jukic, James Steele, Michael C. Zourdos. 2024. "Exploring the Dose-Response Relationship Between Estimated Resistance Training Proximity to Failure, Strength Gain, and Muscle Hypertrophy: A Series of Meta-Regressions." Sports Med. Sep 54(9):2209-2231. doi: 10.1007/s40279-024-02069-2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38970765/

Failure Isn’t the Opposite of Success