Progressive Overload MUST HAPPEN
The entire point of Strength Training is following this principle
To train effectively and make gains, you must understand one principle above all others.
Progressive Overload.
Progressive is the Principle of increasing stress over time in order to stimulate adaptation.
Said another way, if you want to improve your ability to do something, you must practice it and gradually increase the difficulty of what you are doing.
Progressive overload applies to everything in life.
Applied to exercise, it means that you must increase the intensity of your efforts to promote gains in strength, muscle, power, and/or endurance.
Specific to resistance training, you increase intensity two primary ways
1. by performing more repetitions with a weight
and/or
2. or increasing the amount of weight you are lifting.
This is not a random process, it is a scientific one.
Progressive overload is WHY Rep Ranges Exist
This is an example I’ve used many times, and I will reiterate again.
Imagine we have a rep range, the 8-12 rep range. What does this rep range mean? What is it advising us to do?
A rep range is a diagram of resistance in comparison to repetition.
1. The ‘8’ is the minimum number reps you are to perform in a set. To determine what weight is appropriate for 8 reps, you must select a weight that is heavy enough that you achieve positive failure performing eight repetitions.
Positive failure means you CANNOT safely do another repetition.
2. Next workout, aim to do nine reps to positive failure with that same weight.
Now you have moved from 8 to 9.
3. Next workout, aim to do 10-11 reps. Now you have gone from 8 to 10 or 11.
4. When you can perform 12 reps to positive failure in a set, you have gotten stronger.
What was previously a challenging weight for 8 reps has now become an EASIER weight to lift, and you are capable of doing 12 reps with it.
Next workout, you should add weight, and add enough weight that it drops you back down to 8 reps.
And the process repeats. This is Progressive Overload in Action.
The above model applies to any rep range, 5-8, 6-10, 8-12, 10-15, 15-20.
All of these rep ranges follow the same model; do a certain minimum number of reps with X amount of weight, and when you achieve the maximum number of given reps, you add weight again.
The goal is always the same; take a heavy weight, and make it EASIER to lift.
Some weeks you may add 2-3 reps. Or, you may be stuck at a weight for a few weeks before you can reps, that is NORMAL.
Progressive overload is not perfectly linear. Once you have been training for longer than 6 months, you will discover that your strength gains slow down dramatically. You will no longer be able to add weight every workout. In fact, you may not be able to add weight more than once a month. You will find yourself using the same weight for multiple workouts.
At about the year mark is when many people experience their first serious plateau. Why 2 years? Because 80% of your muscle gains happen in the first 2 years of training
This is also NORMAL. The body takes time to adapt. Some workouts you may not exceed your past performance, and that is okay. Progressive Overload is a principle to apply, not an absolute rule that you fail at if you do not execute it perfectly every workout.
The stronger you become, the more likely you experience strength plateaus in training.
A plateau does not mean your body is going backwards. It simply means that you are at the limits of your abilities, and it will take longer to make the desired adaptations happen.
Your strength gains will not be perfectly linear past the first 2 years of training.
Anyone who makes long term strength gains, this is how they train.
Progressive overload is not a secret, it is not a personal invention of mine. It’s simply how strength training (and biology) works. Progressive Overload has been practiced since the dawn of recording training history going back thousands of years.