What is Progressive Overload?

Progressive Overload, two words that send the world of fitness into a frenzy. Throughout the world of fitness progressive overload is constantly discussed and sought after. It is true, that progress overload represents the holy grail of progress in fitness. To constantly challenge your muscles, forcing them to grow is a recipe for success. However, for the average person working out, progressive overload is all about lifting heavier and heavier. That, however, could not be further from the truth.

This article will focus on what progressive overload is, and how to apply it to your training to yield maximum results.

Progressive Overload.

According to the health line: Progressive overload is when you gradually increase the weight, frequency, or number of repetitions in your strength training routine. This is aimed to establish continuous stress on our muscles to force them to adapt and grow, essentially get stronger. The growth of muscles is about constantly breaking down muscle tissue and forcing the muscles to reconstruct themselves every time. 

Already we can see that progressive overload has a lot to do with the composition of your workout in addition to the change in resistance needed. 

Resistance is not everything.

As mentioned above, progressive overload is about more than just adding weight. Although it is true, adding weight gradually to some fundamental exercises will help you grow in the long term. It is however, not the be all end all to achieve results in the gym. Hitting a plateau is very normal, but it is difficult to recognize. Therefore, logging your workouts on an app or in a notebook is absolutely essential to see your progress and to pinpoint areas for improvement.

The type of resistance itself is also an essential part of progressive overload. Fitness experts and personal trainers at www.bodybuilding.com , you should switch up your workout routines anywhere between 6-12 weeks. The reason for this is adaptation, your body is smart, in fact our bodies are the most complex things to exist. If you perform the same thing for long enough, your body gets good at performing that specific movement, and that same principle applies to exercise. If you do the same workout over and over again, your body will adapt and will no longer progress. 

How to Apply Progressive Overload 

If you reached this stage of the article, you now have fundamental knowledge of progressive overload and the reasoning behind it. We move to the most difficult part of this process, practical application. As mentioned above, to properly utilize progressive overload, tracking your workouts is essential. By recording the number of sets, reps, and weights you perform every workout you can track your strength gains. Before the next workout, go back to the log and read what you carried out the week before and set weekly and monthly goals in the gym. As a result, you set yourself up for success.

Lastly, it is important to shock your body, muscle soreness is exactly that. When we first go to the gym our muscles are extremely sore, essentially, they are in shock. Therefore, you must try to shock your muscles every 12 weeks. Try something different, a new workout style, a new type of training, different exercises. Simply, play around, and see what feels challenging. For that is the only way you will achieve progressive overload.