Just joined a big name gym...
 

And I made the mistake of getting a personal trainer. We won't get into the story of how they tricked me into buying a year of trainer services from them, but here's my question.

When you're first starting out at lifting weights, should you be going until muscle failure? Because he's the only one I've spoken to that seems to think its a good thing to do. Any thoughts?

First starting out? No. Learn the form correctly first.

And as a newbie to weight training, you're liable to gain muscle mass and strength whatever the hell you do, so going to failure is kind of pointless. "Neural learning" or something. Take advantage of it. But you don't want to learn bad mistakes that you'll have to unlearn down the road.

(And for god's sake; if the trainer tells you that the proper form for a squat is on a Smith machine and keeping your back perfectly vertical, he's off his rocker.)

Hehehe Are you whining? : )I lift,starting that was extreme to me too,but now I am used to it. Perhaps he is just testing your limits?You will be amazed at howr dramamticaly your endurance will change in such short periods doing it thata way.Did you question him, maybe he can explain?

I guess I am whining in a way, but I've spoken to people who say he's wrong for starting someone off to failure at the beginning. I dunno, either way, I got rid of the trainer and I'm just going at it myself now. I seem to be getting better results on my own anyway.

Hey man I have been lifting for 3 years. In my experience, beginners (sp? I hate this word) should stick with light weight high reps, not necissarily to failure, but on certain sets probably isnt a bad idea.

And a side note about heavy lifting, especially if you have never lifted before, it can cause problems if you are lifting heavy right off the bat. Injury is a major concern because tendons and ligaments need conditioning before you can train intensely. Also you risk BAD form which can hinder your progress immensely.

Cya.

I'm not an expert by any means, but I would say going to failure isn't BAD, just maybe daunting for a beginner.

If you're sore the next day, failure or no failure, you've done well. It may take reps to failure in the future to be sore.

as long as youre not using too much weight as to hurt yourself
pushing yourself to complete the set wholeheartedly is the only way you will make progress
but you dont want to keep lifting for the sake of exhausting your muscles when you only going to be doing them halfway or awkwardly/incorrectly
starting off, its fine to stay in your comfort zone in order to warm up your possibly inactive muscles, but you should quickly move out of it