When you exercise you place stress on the body this stress has to be recovered from and adapted to. When we adapt to the stressor we can do that same stressor again but with much less effort. Progressive overload is the focus of layering a slight incremental increase in training stress one on top of the other session after session, week after week so you continue to improve at a given task. Be that lifting weights, running faster, cycling longer etc.

What is the point of progressive overload?

The reality is progressive overload is the single most important thing you need to know. The human body has a borderline limitless capability to adapt to training which means you can achieve anything you want if you get progressive overload right. But, the body needs small increases in training stimulus so it can adapt/recover. If each exercise is gradually progressed the body has a chance to adapt fully to make the task easier and your body more efficient at it. But, what’s common is for people to throw too much at the body. You can get away with it but at some point, the lack of full adaption to training will hold you back via injury or fatigue.

How does it work for your body?

The word adapt is the key one here. When you recover from a bout of exercise you don’t just fix the damaged muscles, your body will try to fully adapt so the next time you do that exact thing it should be easier. In this process, your brain and body increase capillary number and strength to bring more blood to the muscles, improves nerve signalling (aka makes you stronger), stores energy more efficiently (so you store more energy in the muscles) and lays down more muscle and tendons plus a load more amazing things. These adaptions mean it’s easier the next time you go to lift that weight. These changes are gradual and take time. You can’t try to force it because when you do, that is when you injure yourself.

So, what are the best ways to implement progressive overload?

The two main things people think of are intensity and volume. 

Intensity is the weight you lift. Going up in load every 1-4 weeks in a clear way to progress your training. Note: intensity doesn’t mean jumping around and getting your heart rate up. When you are lifting weights intensity means weight/load lifted. Dumbbells are often 2kg incremental increases and for a barbell, there are usually 1.25kg plates you can add to each end of the bar.

Volume is the number of total reps performed. If you did 3 sets of 10 reps (3×10) you accumulated 30 total reps. You can take this one step further and say 3×10 at 10 kgs would give you a total volume of 300kgs (that’s classified as volume-load). So let’s say you are doing 3×10 @ 10kg and then went to 3×11 @ 10kg your volume increases by 3 reps and volume-load by 30kg

Things spoke about, but fit the model of progressive overload. 

Improving form – let’s say you can do a 12kg goblet squat but your knees always cave in. Spending 2-3 weeks mastering the form so you can move better is a method of gradual progression and a critical one.

Tempo – is the speed at which you do a rep. Most people rush their strength work. Slowing down is a great way to progress. It’s always the lowering phase that you should go slow on, and then adding a pause at the bottom of an exercise is a great way to stick to the same weight and volume, but make it more challenging. 👉🏼Note: don’t go slow as you come up, you want to lift the weight quickly but lower it slowly. 

Frequency – adding a session into your training is a method of progression but it could result in a huge jump in total work completed in a week, it’s not gradual and you can’t sustain increases in frequency (you’ll run out of days in a week). Make sure to remember it’s in the recovery process that we adapt, so doing more sessions might negatively affect your ability to recover. 

Please could you give an example of progressive overload?

First of all, can I say there is no ‘best / better” way you progressively overload. People naturally ask if I should increase volume or intensity. But seeing as this is a slow process why not do a bit of both? 

Let’s say you are doing goblet squats. You’re at 3×10 @ 12kgs (volume- load =  360kg). If you want to go up in weight to 14kg, a smart thing would be to come down in volume to 3×8 (this would give a volume load of 336kg), this safeguards your form but temporarily reduces volumes. A few weeks later you got up to 3×9 and then 3×10 @ 14kgs. Now you want to go to 16kgs and you do the same thing, come down to 3×8 and build up. 

This gradual approach is hands down the game changer in seeing constant progress. With a caveat that this stuff takes time, anyone stating 12 weeks to get stronger is lying to you. Gradual progression is how we all do it. It might not be sexy but it’s smart and smart wins every time. 

It’s also common for people to think that the best way to fix their “bad posture” is to sit like a robot in “neutral”. This is fundamentally wrong. Give your body full expression of movement in all directions and allow the joints to find their natural resting point. Don’t force it yourself, that simply will not work. Movement always wins!

Stay tuned next week for another instalment of Master the Basics and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram where I share exercise techniques, and show you how to maximise your training. I hope you enjoyed this blog post, if you have any questions I host a weekly Sunday Q&A session on my Instagram channel. Otherwise, please feel free to email me at andy@andyvincentpt.com. 

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