What Is Progressive Overload? How To Make Progress In the Gym

What is progressive overload? It is a term that gets thrown around by the fitness community, and many people are actually quite unsure about what it actually means. So, let’s actually get stuck into this topic and discuss what progressive overload actually is!

 

What Is Progressive Overload?

 

Today we are going to talk about progressive overload, which is a concept that really gets bastardized in the health and fitness world. A lot of people really don’t understand fundamentally what is going on with progressive overload, and then how to actually implement that in their training. This really does hold you back from really maximizing your return on investment in the gym, so let’s get into it.

So, what is progressive overload?

Progressive overload is basically the gradual increase of the stress placed on your muscles or muscle group. It’s effectively a stressor. That’s what resistance training is: you’re putting stress on the muscles. Progressive overload is an increase in that stress over time. So we’re effectively doing more than we previously were able to do, or that we previously did, at least. And this applies to the muscles themselves; it applies to the various tissues, like your connective tissues, and it also applies to the system overall. So our whole body, not just the individual muscles themselves.

Now, when we’re talking about resistance training, we’re generally talking about the stress that is placed on the muscles themselves, and also to an extent the nervous system. Because it’s the nervous system that is kind of integrating all of these stimuli, and then giving us the end result, which is the adaptation that we want. So while we are talking about progressive overload at the muscle; we’re talking about a muscular level, but we’re also talking about the system overall.

Now, there are a few different forms of stimulus that seem to be most effective in eliciting the goals or the adaptations that we want. And these seem to be for muscle building, at least, and to an extent strength building as well. Although that’s a little bit different, they seem to be muscular tension or mechanical tension on those muscles. So we need mechanical tension, and we’ll get into what that looks like in a second. We also potentially can benefit from metabolic stress on the muscle or in the muscle. And this is more so related to stuff like the pump. So if you ever do resistance training, you get a bit of a pump; you get a buildup of acidosis, which isn’t lactic acid, as is commonly thought. It’s actually just a buildup of hydrogens. But either way, you get that burning sensation; we can consider that a metabolic stressor.

 

How To Progressive Overload

Now, there are a few different ways that we can target that specific stressor or bias that specific stressor. However, it does seem to be that mechanical tension is the most favourable, or it is the more important thing that we should be focusing on when we’re talking about resistance training, especially with regard to progressive overload.

Now, there is another thing that we could potentially argue does play a causative role in building muscle, and that is muscle damage. Although this does seem to be secondary to both the other ones discussed, and especially secondary to the mechanical tension. Because we can induce a lot of muscular damage and then not actually get the adaptations that we want, the muscle building. For example, I can hit my muscles with a hammer, and induce a lot of muscular damage, but that doesn’t mean that the muscles are going to build up bigger and stronger over time as a result of that muscular damage. However, that also doesn’t mean that we completely ignore the muscular damage aspect. But if we’re looking for the biggest return on investment, we are going to focus on that mechanical tension aspect of progressive overload.

Right, now, how do we actually do this, or how do we actually progressively overload? How do we actually put more stress on the muscle over time?

Well, the first thing that we have to realise, and this is one of those things that really gets bastardized in the health and fitness world, is that you can’t just borrow from the future. You are only able to work within your current capacity. So a lot of people get this kind of backwards; they get progressive overload backwards.

 

 

They think that they are going to do more today, and that’s what’s actually eliciting the adaptations in the future. And what I mean by that, or how it looks in practice, is people will basically say, “Oh, I need to touch new weights,” or “I need to progress more and more.” And they think that it is the fact that they’ve touched new weights that then leads to their progress.

But the progress actually happens a little bit before that. Because you have adapted to such a degree that you are now able to use heavier weights, and that means that you need heavier weights to be able to continue adapting. So you’re not actually borrowing from the future. We’re actually only ever working within our capacity. And those actually have some ramifications for our thought processes in different aspects, which we’ll get into.

Alright, so how do we actually do progressive overload when we’re in the gym?

 

Progressive Overload Methods

We have discussed methods of progressive overload before, but touching on them here also makes sense. Well, first method is the the tried and true method, the one that everyone really focuses on, is increasing the weight that you are using. So if you are always using the same weight for a given exercise, let’s say you’re doing three sets of 10 of a given exercise, and you’re always using 100 kilos, you’re never really giving your body a stimulus to adapt. You’re never really giving your body a stimulus to progress. Because you’re always doing the same thing. Yeah, you’re always working within your capacity, but you’re never really pushing it beyond. You’re never getting up to those higher percentages of your capacity. You’re just always working at the same level, and as a result, you’re giving your body no stimulus to say, “Okay, well, we need to adapt so that this stressor that is being imposed on us is easier in future.”

There are other things that we can do to really focus on progressive overload, and these are the ones that kind of get ignored because everyone focuses on just adding more weight. “I gotta add more weight every single workout I go in. I’m going to try to add more weight. I’m going to keep pushing the weight.” And this often leads to a deterioration in your technique, and it actually generally leads to worsening results, even though you’re focusing, or at least you think you’re focusing, on the thing that seems to be driving the adaptations, which is progressive overload. And you’re focusing on the thing that seems to be most beneficial for that, which is increasing weights.

So how do we focus on other things to ensure that we can still keep that progressive overload going and not necessarily have to increase the weight every single session, which is realistically not going to happen? You can focus on increasing your technique or improving your technique, your tempo (the tempo at which you perform that exercise), and the control in which you exhibit during that exercise. So if you’re doing this, again, a bench press, for example, and you’re lowering it down over the course of three seconds, and then you’re pressing it back up, but you’re kind of flaring your elbows, and you’re not really getting the full range of motion, if you then do the same weight the next time you go in and you improve your technique, you make sure that you get your scapula retracted, you keep your elbows tucked in, you lower it down over the course of three seconds, and then you press it back up with a full extension, that’s an increase in stimulus. That’s a progressive overload. Because you’ve improved something, you’ve made that exercise harder even though you’re using the same weight.

Another thing that you can do is you can increase the volume of that given weight. So instead of doing three sets of 10, you do four sets of 10, or you do three sets of 12. By increasing the volume for a particular muscle group, you are able to get it to respond better over time. You can also increase the frequency. So instead of training that muscle group once per week, you train it twice per week. You can decrease the rest periods, although this has some implications on your overall performance.

Another thing that you can do is increase the range of motion, although this isn’t necessarily applicable to every single exercise. And then you can also think about a decreased RPE for a given weight. So if you’re doing 100 kilos for three sets of 10, and it’s an RPE of 9, and then you do 100 kilos for three sets of 10 again, and it’s an RPE of 8, that’s an indication of progression, although it’s not typically used as a progression method. It’s just a way of tracking progression.

 

What Is Progressive Overload Conclusion

Alright, so in summary, when we’re looking at progressive overload, we first want to focus on improving our technique and control. We then want to look at increasing the weight, or the reps, or the sets. And it’s not essential that you progress every single session. But you should see progression over time. If you’re using the same weights month after month after month, something needs to change. And you don’t need to go to failure to see progress.

I hope this answered the question of waht is progressive overload, and you have a much clearer understanding of what you need to do to progress in the gym. If you need help with your training specifically, we do also offer online coaching which can help you to both get the results you desire, but also learn more about training principles and programming.