Progress is power

“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens - and when it happens, it lasts.”

John Wooden

Each of us has a different goal regarding our health and fitness however, a common theme amongst most generally is that we want to progress. My goal is to build muscle and recomposition my body, so over the last 4 years, I’ve learnt to level up my fitness training with the help of one training principle I have implemented consistently in all of my programming phases,

Progressive overload is a training principle where you gradually increase the intensity, volume, or duration of your workouts over time to challenge your muscles and stimulate growth. Progressive overload is key for anyone looking to continually improve strength, endurance, or muscle mass. This training principle can be applied to any workout, including strength training and cardio workouts.

There are a few different ways to add progressive overload into your training. Let’s dive in… 

The most common method of progressive overload is to gradually increase the amount of weight you lift.  I recommend starting with a weight that challenges you but allows you to complete your desired number of repetitions with proper form. As you get stronger, gradually increase the weight to continue challenging your muscles.

Another way to progressively overload your muscles is to increase the number of repetitions or sets you perform for each exercise increasing total volume. This method is often paired with increasing the weight, to avoid ending up with endless repetitions, by working within a chosen rep range. This chosen rep range should reflect your fitness goals. For strength goals, your sets should be ranging anywhere between 1-6 reps. For muscle-building (hypertrophy) goals, a 8-12 rep range is optimal. For muscular endurance, 12-15 reps will be sufficient.

If you don’t have a variety of different weights available, increasing the time your muscles are under tension is another way to progressive overload. To grow, your muscles have to be exposed to stress and therefore if they aren’t spending enough time under tension you may not necessarily see the results you are expecting. This can be done in a few ways, training using tempo (the speed at which you lift weights) including holds or pulses to an exercise, slowing down the eccentric part of the exercise, adding in drop sets, or decreasing rest time between sets.

You could use a mixture of the following techniques however be mindful not to try and tackle them all at the same time to risk hitting a training plateau.

Some of my own personal tips for progressively improving your workouts include…

• Track your workouts - this is the most important tool you can use to ensure you are progressing and not staying stagnant during your workouts, consistently lifting the same weights. Without tracking it’s more difficult to increase the intensity week on week if you don’t keep a record of previous metrics. When you can’t physically see the progress you are making it’s easy to become demotivated and give up on yourself.

• Consistency is key - progressive overload becomes more difficult to achieve if you aren’t consistently performing the same workout each week. I encourage you to stick to the same routine for a minimum of 4-6 weeks whilst steadily increasing the intensity. If you are struggling to see any progress after this time, you can adjust your training accordingly.

• Increase intensity slowly - you should be aiming to increase the intensity of your workout by 10% a week to avoid injury. For example, increasing each set by one extra rep, using tempo to increase time under tension or moving up a weight category from 20kg to 22kg. I can’t emphasise this enough but avoid changing multiple factors each week as this can overload the body too quickly and potentially cause injury.

• Listening to your body - If you are feeling excessively tired or constantly sore, it may be a sign that you’re progressing too fast or need to allow your body longer recovery time.

Whether you’re new to working out or you’re looking to push through a current training plateau, a specific progressive overload plan can help you achieve those fitness goals more effectively. Enquire here for more information on how we can work together to create your personalised progressive overload plan.