Importance behind Progressive Overload – One of the largest barriers to seeing growth and overall change in your physique are plateaus in your weightlifting progress. When you start to get stuck at a certain working weight or stop seeing visible results it can be incredibly discouraging. Overtime, if you continue to stick to the same routine, the same exercises, and the same weights, your muscle gets used to it and could also run the risk of overuse injuries. To prevent injuries and plateaus, a great way to combat this is to change up your workout routine, whether that be the exercises you do or the workout split that you follow, making these changes can help you get over that plateau and progress towards your goals.
This is where the concept of progressive overload comes in; to further muscle growth and gains, you have to keep making greater demands on your musculoskeletal system. By continuing to make your muscles work harder than you’re used to, your body adapts and improves your strength, endurance, and muscle size.
There are multiple ways in which you can do progressive overload:
1. Increasing Reps
This one is relatively straightforward, in which you increase the number of reps for an exercise overtime up to the optimal range of 8 to 12 reps per set. The reason why we cap the rep increase at that range is because it’s the most optimal for hypertrophy and muscle growth. Once you have reached that level of reps you can move onto the next method of progressive overload; increasing the resistance.
2. Increasing Resistance
This one is the keystone of progressive overload; increasing the weights you’re lifting whenever you hit that optimal range, and lowering your rep count until you can build back up to 8 to 12 reps.
3. Increasing Frequency
Increasing the frequency in which you train a specific muscle group is another great way to practice progressive overload. Switching to a 3-day split to your workouts like push, pull, legs, is one way to up the frequency in which you target a specific muscle group, and increase the overload. But keep in mind that you should still upkeep the 24 to 48 hour recovery times between sessions for each muscle group, so that you provide ample time for your muscles to recover and to avoid overtraining.
4. Adjusting Rest Times Between Sets
By reducing the rest times between each set of an exercise pushes you to do more in less time, and therefore forces your body to become more efficient in weightlifting. Although you may see an initial drop in working weight, overtime your body will adjust to the lesser rest intervals.
5. Increasing Volume
Alongside increasing reps and resistance, adding more sets for an exercise is another great way to increase your total training volume. You should still keep your reps within the to 8 to 12 range, and also make sure that you’re allowing yourself enough rest between sessions of the same muscle group. But by increasing the number of sets you’re doing, you are progressively making greater demands on your muscles. You could also add a new exercise to your routine as well.
