progressive overload
the secret to building muscle & getting stronger
Have you ever gone to the gym and noticed that there are people there who do the same exercises every week? That there are people still doing the same weights week in and week out? Or people doing lighter weights than you would expect them to? People who you’ve seen countless times but don’t seem to be changing or growing? Is this YOU?
If you’ve noticed these things or have experienced them yourself and have asked yourself “why”, I have the answer for you.
In this blog, we’ll go over the what, why, and how of progressive overload. What it is exactly, why we need it, and how to implement it easily! If you don’t care about the what or why, scroll down to the “how” section to learn 3 easy ways to use progressive overload and get stronger, build more muscle, and improve your performance overall!
Let’s dive in…
What is Progressive Overload?!
Disclaimer: I’m going to be discussing progressive overload strictly in the context of lifting weights. This principle can be and should be applied to ALL forms of training, but I’m talking about it specifically for lifting weights. However, you should apply it to your running, cycling, climbing, swimming, sports, etc. to get the most out of your training.
Let’s get into it!
What exactly is progressive overload? The Wikipedia definition reads like this: “Progressive overload is a method of strength training and hypertrophy training that advocates for the gradual increase of the stress placed upon the musculoskeletal and nervous system”.
In simple terms: make your workouts more difficult/challenging every week.
Progressive overload sounds like what it means - progressively overloading our systems over time. This can be slow progressions or fast progressions, depending where you are in your training age.
If you’re new to lifting or any other form of training, you will likely make larger jumps in increasing the weight you’re able to lift, how much you’re able to do in one training session, how many sets and reps you can do, etc. If you have an older training age (i.e. you’ve been working out for 5+ years), your progressions with load/weight will likely be a lot slower, which means volume will have to be adjusted and timeline expectations need to be adjusted.
Progressive overload is a principle that should be used throughout our entire fitness journey. This concept is the cornerstone of hypertrophy (muscle building), building strength, and getting more fit. It is used for training, rehab, healing, attaining specific goals, and generally getting “better” at whatever it is we’re doing (i.e. performance).
Think about it this way: if you had the goal of climbing Mt. Everest, what would you do? You probably would NOT think “I’m going to climb Mt. Everest” and go attempt it next week. You would prepare for it. Depending on your experience with hiking, maybe you start with going on long walks, hitting the stair stepper at the gym, then start with small hikes, then travel to try more difficult hikes, maybe try a few lower level mountains, then work your way to big mountain hikes, maybe go for a 14-er, get used to the altitude of various mountains, learn how to camp, and so on and so forth.
That’s what progressive overload is. You gradually increase the demand on your body and the challenge you place on yourself over time, to build to whatever goal you have in mind.
So, how does it work, exactly?
One of the physiological changes that happens is the micro-injuries we are causing our muscles when we are lifting weights. We have little “micro tears” that happen at a very low level, and our muscles have to rebuild and repair those micro tears. When our muscles go through the rebuilding process, they make themselves bigger to better handle the load/stress we are putting on them. Think of your muscles saying “hey, I see that you’re lifting a heavier weight than you ever have, so let me rebuild to be even bigger so I can handle this new weight”.
You can see how, over time, rebuilding and repairing after lifting sessions will make our muscles bigger and stronger!
Another analogy that I like to use for progressive overload is the trajectory of school and learning.
School gets progressively harder over time, shaping our brains and thought processes, making us smarter and more adaptable. Our brain is forever changing, making new neural pathways, learning new skills and facts, becoming sharper and quicker.
This is similar to what our nervous system is doing with our muscles - increasing the neural firing and efficiency of how our nervous system talks to our muscles. The nervous system tells our muscles how and when to activate, making them stronger and more efficient.
Our muscles, tendons, nervous system, endocrine system, cardiovascular system, skeletal system, and energy systems all adapt to support the activity we are doing. This is how we become stronger, faster, and more athletic.
WHY do we care? Why does this matter so much?
Now, you may be asking yourself “why?”. Why would I want to do this? What’s the point? Why does it need to be so carefully planned out? Who cares? Why does it matter?
The answer is: it depends.
If your goal is to get better at ANYTHING, you need progressive overload.
If you don’t have any goals and you just want to go to the gym to say you go to the gym, by all means, go for it. But don’t expect any physiological or physical changes if you’re not challenging yourself.
There are 4 main reasons we want to implement progressive overload:
Build muscle
Increase strength
Improve/Gain a skill
Safety
The first three reasons I name are pretty self-explanatory. Build muscle (I quickly explained this process in the “what” section), increase how strong we are, and improve/gain a skill (olympic lifting, overhead squats, pull ups, push ups, etc.). If we’ve never done a pull up, we would work on the strength and skill-building over time in order to get our first one, right? We wouldn’t just jump on the bar and magically pull a pull up out of our butt.
But what about safety? What do we mean by that?
Well, I had a great conversation with one of my past clients: she expressed how she has seen people in the gym going for big weights that they probably shouldn’t be going for because they don’t have the form right or their quality of movement isn’t great or they can barely lift the weight, but still insist on going for it. She expressed that she thought maybe they should go through some sort of progressive overload before they try a specifically heavy weight.
And I agree 1000%. Just as I explained above with the analogy of hiking Mt. Everest, you cannot go from 0 to 100 overnight. I mean, you could, but it would not be a good idea. And it would be very unsafe.
With the proper program set in place with appropriate progressive overload, we can reach those heavy loads safely. Our bodies need time to ADAPT to whatever we are doing and if we throw too much at it before it's ready, it's not going to respond well (i.e. injury).
So, for more than one reason, progressive overload is extremely important, and is the cornerstone of all training principles.
How do we use progressive overload?
So now that we know what progressive overload is and WHY we do it, let’s talk about the how.
There are 3 main ways to implement progressive overload:
Increase weight over time
Increase volume over time
Increase amount of exercises per body part over time
The first one is pretty simple and it's the one that most everyone is familiar with: increase weight over time. Week by week, increase the amount of weight you lift for a given exercise. Or, you can increase every 2-3 weeks, depending on what you have available (i.e. do you have access to 12.5, 15, 17.5, 20, 22.5, and 25 lb dumbbells or do you only have access to 10, 15, 20, 25 lb dumbbells?).
The second option includes volume, which is our sets and reps per body part. For example, maybe week 1 we are doing 3 sets, 10 reps of bicep curls at 10 lbs, then week 2 we do 3 sets, 12 reps at 10 lbs. So we’ve added a couple reps with the same amount of weight, but our volume is increasing, meaning we have to lift MORE during that training session. We can do the same thing with increasing sets as well, at the same weight. This is a great option if you don’t have a huge variety in weights at your disposal, you can use the same weight, just add sets and reps.
The third option is especially great for beginner lifters. In the beginning stages of your fitness journey, you may only be doing 1-2 different exercises for a specific body part or muscle. But as time goes on, you slowly add in more exercises. So, let’s say you start with just doing bicep curls during week 1, then week 2 we add hammer curls, week 3 we add preacher curls, and week 4 we add incline bicep curls. We’ve gone from 1 exercise to 4 exercises just for the biceps muscle, slowly increasing the demand on that muscle per training session over time.
These 3 options can be adjusted on an individual basis depending on your training age, experience, injury, if you’ve taken a training hiatus, goal changes, etc. This is why having a coach can be so helpful, because they can adjust your plan/program based on your unique circumstances!
This is also why we want to track our progress over time. It can be easy to get discouraged and feel like you’re not making the progress you thought you should. However, if you write it down, you could easily notice that 3 months ago you did bicep curls with 10 lbs, and now you’re doing them with 20 lbs!
Record your lifts. Track your weights and sets and reps. If you’re stuck and not making much progress over the span of a few months, it may be time to reach out to someone for coaching! They will be able to create a program that will help you reach your goals!
FAQ
“How can I use progressive overload if I workout without weights?”
There’s a few different strategies we can use in this situation. We can add in pause reps, tempo reps, and full/quarter/half reps. Pause reps are what they sound like - pause somewhere in the movement (bottom of a squat, end range of a motion/movement, focusing on a “squeeze”). Tempo reps are performing a movement slower, in a specified amount of time, increasing time under tension, and ultimately improving strength. An example would be performing a tempo squat - 3 seconds down, 1 sec pause, 1 sec up. Another example might be push ups - 4 seconds down, pause, 1 sec up. The final strategy, full/quarter/half reps, might look like a squat to full depth, stand halfway up, squat back down, then stand all the way back up. This strategy also increases time under tension and teaches us to have more control of our movements.
One thing to note is that we likely won’t get a ton of hypertrophy with these 3 strategies. We can increase our strength to a certain extent, use these strategies to make our workouts harder, and aid somewhat in body recomposition with proper nutrition/calorie deficit. However, we won’t see drastic changes in muscle building and no massive changes in body composition, either. Just some food for thought in relation to goal setting.
“Can progressive overload prevent injury?”
Unfortunately, nothing can prevent injury. We can do everything right, be safe as can be, have great recovery & nutrition, train smart, and still get injured. What we CAN do is mitigate our risk of injury, and progressive overload can absolutely play a role in that. It safely preps our system over time for heavier weights and gives our body time to adapt and make the necessary changes to lift more weight.
“Can I use this to tone?”
Progressive overload plays a major role in muscle building and strength gains. Because we are building muscle, we are changing our body composition. “Toning” is generally looked at as having more visible muscles, less fat, and less “flab” (for lack of better words). The way we achieve “toning” is through muscle building, then through a calorie deficit to lose fat and become more “defined”. So, progressive overload is a component to the “toning” process, but implementing this principle won’t magically make you more toned!
Conclusion
We went over the what, why, and how of progressive overload, and answered some common questions around this topic. At this point, you should have a pretty solid understanding of what it means, why we want to implement it, and how to implement it.
The bottom line is this: if you have any goals in mind and you want to get better at whatever it is you’re doing, you absolutely need progressive overload.
This principle is one of the most important (if not THE most important) in training science. Build, build, build! This is how we grow, adapt, and become more resilient!
If you have any questions, need help, and/or are looking for a coach, you can reach out to me via email: sarah@doanability.com
I’d love to work together!
Thanks for reading 💜
Xoxo
Sarah
