Progressive Overload

Progressive Overload is the act of steadily increasing your training volume over time. In order for the body to progress and to continually inflict change, you need to apply overload to the muscles in order to send the right signal. Once you have been staying with the same training volume for a certain amount of time (volume being sets, reps, weight, intensity) your body will adapt and you will start to see progress come to a halt. In order for the body and your muscles to keep moving forward and progressing, weather it be strength, muscle growth and overall fitness progression; you need to be sending your muscled the right signal. That signal being progressive overload.

The most common and easiest example of progressive overload would be to aim for lifting heavier weight over time. Maybe not week on week, but overall and steadily increasing the amount of weight that you can move over time. This is most definitely not the only way to progressively overload. In fact, using this as your only method can ultimately be detrimental as you will eventually not be able to lift past a certain weight, not to mention that it can be quite disheartening if some weeks you are not able to push the weight as much as you would have liked (as we know, many factors can contribute to not being able to move the weight in any given workout; fatigue, underfed, stress etc.).

Some of the best ways to progressively overload includes total sets and reps in a given workout (as well as trying to push more weight within different rep ranges. e.g. 12-15 reps, try increase weight, then focus on 6-8 rep range and pushing more weight in this range and so on), workout frequency (ditch the "bro" split and try full body workouts, 3 times a week), and one really good method for progressive overload but often overlooked: tempo. Rather than your bicep curls being 2 second up, hold 2 seconds then 2 seconds on the way down; try 4 seconds on the eccentric portion (on the way down, lowering the weight). You almost never see this being done in the gym... but if you don't apply it, your missing out. Same thing goes if you always do 4 seconds on the negative; try and speed up the tempo and go slower on the way up with your curls.

There are so many different ways to progressively overload within your training routine that will ensure that you continue to grow, get stronger and avoid plateaus as much a possible. Take a dive into all the different ways you can overload your workouts and watch your progression in the gym push forward!