How Does 'Progressive Overload' Benefit Your Fitness Journey?
- Kaitlyn Marie Redmore
- Aug 24, 2023
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 25, 2023
You may have heard that you need to be progressively overloading in order to make progress in the gym, but what exactly does that mean?
Progressive overload put simply, means to gradually increase the intensity or difficulty of your strength training over time. This promotes the development of muscle mass. This is due to the fact that our body needs to adapt and get stronger in order to keep up with the increased load and demand.
The progressive overload method helps to ensure you are continually improving. As well as encouraging new muscle growth, it also allows you to build strength and endurance.
We want to continue challenging ourselves in our workouts, if we consistently train at the same intensity and lift the same weights, we will eventually plateau. It will also become boring and you will most likely lose motivation if you are not making some form of improvement and progress.
When we first begin lifting, it is easy to see progress. However, your body is smart and will adapt quite quickly. This then means you need to increase the intensity or difficulty of your next workout in order to continue progressing. If you did the same workout week in and week out, you would get better at that same workout but never make further improvements beyond that workout.
Training is a never-ending journey, and progressive overload helps to ensure we are continually being challenged and getting stronger.
Progressive overload can be done in multiple different ways, it does not always mean just adding more weight to the bar. Progressive overload can be applied to any strength training exercise and can be done using different variations.
Progressive Overload Techniques:
Increase the weight:
One of the most commonly used progressive overload techniques is to increase the weight you are lifting. This means lifting a heavier weight on an exercise for the same amount of repetitions as you did the previous session. Ensure you only add on weight if you feel capable and your form is in check.
Increase the number of reps:
Increasing the number of repetitions you do on an exercise will increase the training volume. You want to ensure, if you do increase reps that you are not just adding in “junk” volume. Your reps should be executed with proper form and you should be aiming to push your sets close to failure. There is no point in doing 100 reps of an exercise and barely feeling like you did anything. Aim to train with intensity and use weights that safely challenge you.
Add in additional sets:
Another way to increase training volume is to add in additional sets of an exercise. For example, you may be comfortable completing 3 sets of squats, so now you could increase to 4 sets next workout.
Decrease your rest periods:
Decreasing the amount of time you are resting in between sets increases your muscle endurance and your metabolic efficiency. You may vary your rest times by reducing them slightly, for example, resting for 90 seconds instead of 2 minutes in between your sets. However, use this method with caution. If you are working with heavy lifts (e.g. close to your 1RM), you do want to utilise longer rest periods in order to safely lift at your max. So this method is not always ideal depending on your current training/program focus.
Increase training frequency
Training frequency relates to the number of times you train per week, more specifically how many times you train a particular muscle group. Increasing training frequency means adding more volume throughout the week. For example, you may go from training glutes 2 times a week to 3 times a week, this will help you increase the training volume of that particular muscle group. This can be a good way to stimulate more muscle growth in that particular area, as long as your body can handle the increase in volume. However, be careful not to overtrain a certain muscle group and give the body time to rest and recover in between sessions. Ideally, you want to give yourself at least 48 hours in between training the same muscle group.
Change training tempo:
Tempo in training relates to the rhythm in which you perform an exercise. Playing around with the speed you complete an exercise will help to freshen it up if you may have been doing a particular exercise for quite a while, it can also bring a new element of challenge. For example, you may slow down the eccentric phase of a squat (lowering portion) and aim for a quick, powerful concentric phase (drive to stand). As opposed to always keeping both the eccentric and concentric phases of an exercise at the same tempo. You can also add pause reps to some exercises for variety. Tempo has such a wide range, so you can try out different tempos during different phases of your programming.
Some Tips To Keep in Mind with Progressive Overload:
Always ensure proper form on every exercise and safe technique:
There is no point in increasing weight or adding in more training volume if your technique is not where it should be on a particular exercise. Work on executing an exercise with proper form and safe technique before increasing weight, intensity or volume.
Track your workouts:
This is a super important one! Tracking your workouts and logging your reps, sets, and weights on each exercise will ensure you are progressively overloading and improving. Otherwise, you leave your progress up to guesswork. Can you really remember every weight you did last workout on every exercise? Probably not! So, make sure you keep track by making note of them in some way.
Only change one thing at a time:
Avoid trying to add multiple progressive overload techniques onto a single exercise at once. This can increase your likelihood of injury, as you are likely increasing too much at one time. For example, don’t try and add more weight on an exercise next session as well as try and increase the amount of reps you do. Focus on one progressive overload technique at a time.
Complete all your rep and set targets on an exercise before progressively overloading:
There is no point in putting more weight on the bar if you are not completing all the recommended sets and reps of a particular exercise in your program. Aim to complete all sets and reps of an exercise with proper form before adding on weight or choosing a new progressive overload method to test out on that exercise.
Certain exercises will be more suited to particular types of progressive overload techniques than others, so mix up which methods you use for different exercises. For example, you may be able to increase the amounts of reps you do on a bicep curl, but you may be unable to keep pushing the weight higher. So increasing the number of repetitions could be a good way to continue progressing.
One essential thing to remember - Progress is not always linear! Do not expect to be able to continually increase your weights, sets or reps of a particular exercise every session. This is eventually going to be impossible! Aim to increase your training intensity only when possible and use progressive overload techniques when needed, don't try to progress before you are ready.
Your body is smart and will constantly attempt to adapt to any new load or stimulus you encounter. Just remember to always be safe when lifting weights or exercising in general. Only add progressive overload techniques into your training once you can perform a particular exercise with proper form.
So as you can see, progressive overload is a great way to ensure you continue to progress in the gym and do not hit a training plateau. Always just be mindful when implementing it in your training to ensure you use it correctly and safely.
