[h=1]Progressive Overload is
the Holy Grail of Weight Training[/h]Progressive overload Is a crucial strength and muscle-building principle.
The concept is simple: you must continually increase the demand placed on your body – over time.
Understanding this principle will help
anyone improve their weight training results...
...In other words, if you implement this princinple, it is
guaranteed that you will gain muscle mass and build strength. Period.
[h=4]Progressive Overload:
Table of Contents (TOC)[/h]
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Whether you are struggling to gain muscle mass, want to increase your bench press or squat, or if you simply want to build muscle and strength
faster, then you are at the right place.
Before I get too deep in, I should stress the importance of proper diet and recovery. Simply put, you physically cannot follow the principle if your diet is poor and you fail to get enough rest.
Find out how
you should use it by reading the rest of this page.
You can use the table of contents (TOC) on the right side of your page for simple navigation throught this weight lifting principle guide.
Now, on with the show...
[h=2]What is Progressive Overload?[/h]Progressive overload is a fitness principle that continuously increases the demand placed on the body during training. This will lead the body to adapt to the demand and thus improve over time.
If you want to improve in strength and size, you have to understand and implement progressive overloading into your training workouts. Without this, you'll find that after a short time, your improvement will
plateau: at this point, no progress is being made.
The body will always react to what you push it to do, and in general, it will adapt. This is the standard in various contexts.
Take for example, the brain and learning; your brain will store information when we push it to, and while it may have a large capacity, very few people push it to its actual limits by continuously learning and memorizing information.
There are 3 components which encompass progressive overload. They are intensity, frequency, and volume. Any and all of these should be increased on a regular basis to improve results.
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[h=2]Benefits of Progressive Overload[/h]
Why You Need Progressive Overload. I'll continue by going over the many benefits of progressive overload to underline why everyone should
want to know about and use this essential training principle:
- "Muscle Memory." The body – and the mind – is always being challenged. When doing new or varying exercises, neural circuits are being formed and strengthened. This is because while new movements stress the muscles in a new way, they are also connected to the spine and brain, which have to learn the movements as well. The neural circuits formed are a large part of the workout. They are the reaction to a movement you want the muscle to do, while the muscle simply moves the load.
- Build Muscle and Strength. Simply, by pushing and stressing the muscle to move more, it will do what it must to meet the demands placed on it. The muscle fibers will grow in size and will have the increased contraction capacity needed for serious strength.
- Hypertrophy. This is the proper term for physical growth of the muscle. Physiologically, the muscle will grow in size only under certain conditions. While strength can be improved fairly easily, hypertrophy is dependent upon the number of sets, reps, and each individual's muscular structure.
- Rapid Improvement. By setting yourself up for a challenging and ever changing routine, you are also setting yourself up for great results.
- Keeping it Interesting. Getting out to the gym 4 or 5 or 6 days a week can become boring, especially if it's always the same, predictable workout. The same predictable workout gets tedious, easy, and unfortunately, boring. A part of progressive overloading is not only to change reps and sets, but also to use as many different exercises to challenge the same muscles in a variety of ways.
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[h=2]Achieving Progressive Overload[/h]When training with a goal in mind to improve strength and build muscle mass, it is important to create a program, rather than a repetitive routine, covering a longer time period.
A program will alternate different numbers of sets, reps, weight used, and the frequency of training. The overload principle denotes that a gradual but consistent increase in stress load must occur for continual improvement.
With a long-term program, full training cycles are planned and outlined ahead of time, so that regardless of how you might be feeling, a somewhat new plan is already set out for you.
If you are just starting out (within the first 6 or more months of training), go easy. First you'll have to get into shape – getting your muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints ready for what will come. This is very important to avoid injury which could seriously affect your training regimen altogether.
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[h=2]Intensity, Volume, and Frequency[/h]
The 3 Components. The components of progressive overload include:
- Intensity. Intensity is the actual load or weight you'll be lifting. It is measured according to what your 1 rep max is for a particular exercise/movement. The value of your one rep max is 100%, and the intensity is measured based off this. For example, your 1 rep max for a shoulder press is 100lbs and you would like to work out at 80% intensity, which means peaking at 80lbs for that particular training session.
- Volume. Volume is the number of repetitions you'll do for each exercise at a particular intensity. Volume and intensity are closely tied, and co-relate according to what stage you're at in the training cycle.
- Frequency. Frequency simply means, how often you are training and recovering. It would be optimal to train and recover as often and quickly as possible, to avoid tissue damage and over-training.
[h=3]Manipulating the Components for Optimal Results[/h]This subsection will talk about manipulating intensity, volume, and frequency in broader terms. The
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Changing Intensity. Intensity is the easiest to change: you simply increase the amount of weight.
- This should be your first option before you resort to tinkering with volume and/or frequency. Note, however, that when you do use the other two components (especially volume), intensity has a natural tendency to change in response.
Changing Frequency. Frequency is at the foundation of good training. You'll have to work each group of exercises (or muscle groups) in the most effective manner and allow enough time to have that section to recover.
- For example, you might start by working out 3 days a week – Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You'd cycle chest/triceps/shoulders Monday, then legs/back/biceps Wednesday, and back to chest/triceps/shoulders Friday. This way, you're doing each muscle every 5 days, giving it the optimal amount of time to recover properly (by tearing, rebuilding, and growing).
- Training at a rate that does not allow full recovery is dangerous and will lead to over-training, which will exhaust you and decrease strength and size.
Changing Volume. Volume does not have to be excessively high, but should be as high as possible while still allowing the quickest strength increases.
- This is really important to remember in your beginning years because having strength is so important in the long run to help avoiding plateauing in size because you have no strength base. This is also dependent on the intensity you are working at.
- As mentioned before, intensity and volume are closely related. They have an inverted relationship. This means as one goes up, the other should go down. So if you are doing a very high volume day, the intensity should drop accordingly.
- On the other hand, if you are doing a very high intensity day – like working at 90% of your max – the volume should drop accordingly.
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[h=2]Examples of How to Implement Progressive Overload[/h]
Specific Examples. Here is a list of methods you can use to achieve progressive overload:
- Increase Resistance. This is the most obvious way of practicing progressive overload. Add more weight once you are ready for a particular exercise. You can do it when, for example, whatever you are currently lifting becomes easy. A good way to determine if you are ready is if you are able to do an extra rep or two. (For All Levels of Experience)
- Increase Repetitions. Adding one or two reps to whatever exercise you're doing is also a good way to test yourself. You can use a spotter and if you are able to add 2 reps on your own, you'll know that it is time to up the resistance for that particular exercise. (For All Levels of Experience)
- Increase Sets. Increasing the number of sets you perform is also a great way to improve muscle endurance. You can add one set which will essentially fatigue the muscle completely. (For All Levels of Experience)
- Increase Frequency. Be careful with this one; ensure that your body is ready to increase from the usual once a week to slightly more frequently. Truthfully, every individual is different and you know your body best, and what works best for you. (For Advanced Lifters)
- Add Exercises. Adding exercises to the program that target the same muscle groups can be useful, especially if you are trying to improve the size of a particular muscle or improve proportionality. (For Intermediate and Advanced Lifters)
- Improved Effort. This is a psychological factor that really works. It means increasing your perception of the effort you have to put into each set. (For All Levels of Experience)
- Decrease Rest. This refers to the time you take between sets – usually rest time is 90 seconds, and this can be shortened which forces the muscles to do more work in less time. (For Advanced Lifters)
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[h=2]Going to Failure vs. Progressive Overload[/h]There is a difference between going to failure and progressive overload. Very simply, going to failure each training session will not provide the best results. You might feel good for a short time, notice improvements in size and strength, but very quickly, it will decline.
This is because while the practice of going to failure can be helpful as a part of a larger program, it is physically far too taxing on almost any lifter.
It does not allow for proper recovery and is the equivalent of maxing out every single session. The symptoms of over-training are inevitable.
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[h=2]Final Word[/h]Keeping these tips and techniques in mind will give your training an edge. Seeing yourself improve at the most efficient rate possible will be a great motivator to keep yourself going, especially on those days when you just don't want to go to the gym.
Good luck and train safely!
I agree with a lot of this, just food for discussion....
