What is Progressive Overload?

Building muscle or losing weight requires consistency over time. If you train multiple days a week, eventually you'll notice the once challenging workout is now kinda easy. This is a great measure of improvement but also shows you need to start switching it up to push past the plateau and continue to grow. One method is to progressively overload. This increases the intensity of your training so your muscles are constantly being challenged. Which increases hypertrophy (muscle mass) strength, and/or endurance.

So let’s dive into ways to progressively overload and discuss how you can add this to your training routine, safely and effectively.

How does progressive overload work?

When weight training, the process of lifting heavy loads causes tiny tears within your muscle fibers. It may sound gnarly, but these tears cause your muscles to repair and rebuild stronger and larger. 

As they grow, they require more challenges for this process to continue. 

Progressive overload is when you increase your challenge in one of 4 ways: lifting heavier, working longer, adding reps, or boosting intensity. 

Method 1: Weight

If your main goal is hypertrophy, progressively overloading your weight limits will help you see results. 

Start with a warmup set using a lighter weight followed by a more reasonable weight for your first working set. This load should be enough for you to reach your rep goal with a decent amount of effort. For the remaining sets, increase the load by 5-10%, with your final set being your heaviest. This weight should be challenging enough that you can not reach your rep goal. As you continue to do this week by week, you should aim to increase the number of reps you can do at your heaviest weight. 

Method 2: Working Time

If your main goal is endurance, increasing your overall working time may work best.

Build cardiovascular endurance with an activity like running by increasing your cardio time by 5-15% each week. If you walked uphill for 10 minutes followed by a 20-minute run, next week aim for a 15-minute walk followed by a 25-minute run, and so on. 

Method 3: Reps

You can apply this method to build strength or hypertrophy. 

Aim to perform till failure (the point where you can no longer move the weight without losing form) as you progress through your sets. Choose a weight that can allow you to reach 10-15 reps for hypertrophy or 5-8 reps for strength.

Method 4: Intensity

This method can be applied to different goals. The key here is to find ways to increase the max effort for the exercise or activity you're doing. 

Some examples include: increasing your range of motion like squatting deeper, or increasing your time under tension. Another is decreasing the amount of rest you take between sets.

Avoiding Injury

While progressively overloading is effective, it can lead to injury if not done correctly. Here are some tips on how to progressively overload safely. 

1. Always warm up

Warming up your muscles prepares them for work and stress. Light cardio, dynamic stretching, and warmup sets help decrease your risk of injury by getting your blood pumping and stretching your muscles.

2. Listen to your body

Pay attention to how it feels as you increase your intensity. If you lift, don't push with your ego and instead pay attention to the type of pain you experience. A burn is normal, that is just the lactic acid, but any sharp pain, especially in your joints, should not be ignored.

3. Progress slowly 

To introduce this into your routine, you need to first identify your starting point. Then slowly increase the intensity by 5-15%. You want to give your muscles enough time to acclimate, rest, and recover before it's challenged again.

4. Rest!

The harder your muscles work the more time it takes to rebuild. 

Stretching, foam rolling, using a percussion gun, and doing hot-cold therapy on a rest day help your muscles heal more effectively.

5. Don't neglect the proper form

It's tempting to throw caution to the wind and do whatever it takes to move the weight. That’s a great way to hurt yourself or activate other muscle groups and make the move less effective. While form way waiver as you hit those max limits, you should always try and keep the proper form as much as possible.

We need to be challenged in order to grow. Ease and comfort are rarely the driving force behind lasting transformation. Progressively overloading is an effective way to keep you moving toward your goals.

To see results and take out the guess-work of knowing what to do, check out our plans that utilize progressive overload.