MacFhearchair's off-season anti-slack

[MacFhearchair]

My understanding was that lifting to failure (causing micro-tearing in the muscle) was the way to get the body to most efficiently build strong enough muscles to do the job next time - by forcing attention and repair jobs on the muscles targeted by the exercise (and then the next highest weight will cause failure and so on). So far that strategy has been working well enough and I've been making a lot of progress really fast, with week-long breaks here and there. Is there a reason I shouldn't do it this way?

Remember I'm a life-science nerd. If you can put it in data-supported, physiological terms, I'm more likely to see things your way and change my habits (or at least give it a whirl).

Background on how I do it:

I start with a weight I know I can do, and I do a set of 5. If I succeed, I go up in whatever increment seems logical. So for a squat day, I'll start at 135, go to 155, if I do all 5 at 155 and then at 175, I'll try something heavier like 185, and I can't touch anything heavier than that until I can get all 5 @ 185 (but I might mix up the previous stuff, like starting at 145, going to 165, and then trying 185 now that I know 185 is my max). ... so I'm pressing to failure in every session.

With things that involve weaker muscle groups like bench presses, i go up in smaller increments, obvs.