If you want your muscles to grow you must do some convincing Jack. As you begin resistance training your muscles will tear and grow, tear and grow, over and over. The process is beautiful and can continue for a decent amount of time if you’re just getting started Jill. But a period will come where one must progress Jacks And Jills.
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What Is Progressive Overload
This beautiful, beautiful process may seem imminent and endless, sadly it’s not. Not without enhanced tactics that is.
Progressive overload AKA the overload principle is to continuously increase exercise stress over time. Overloading creates homeostatic disruption. Homeostasis is your body’s preferred state, it’s a balanced condition that was developed for efficiency and energy preservation.
For hypertrophy one ought to constructively disrupt homeostasis. By doing so you manipulate your body into believing it needs extra muscle tissue for continued quality of life. Convinced this staggering stimuli will persist, a new homeostasis is formed. So if you supply yourself with the right tools (nutrition & recovery) you’ll adapt and be better equipped to handle a replicated version of that stress.
Note: adding/maintaining muscle is an energy intensive process. Your body only wants what it believes it needs. It’s an efficient system so assure it it’ll need the muscle. If you were to seize activity muscle would ultimately begin decaying, that’s an adaptation as well. “I don’t need this muscle anymore, time to reset.”
Think of being bedridden. As time passes and muscle usage is nil they begin to atrophy. When you leave the bed your muscles more or less reach former capacity from normal daily activities, however they don't just keep growing and make you Arnold Schwarzenegger. Adaption occurs and a more progressive incentive is necessary for continued growth.
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Tactics For Progressive Overload Training
Frequency: how often do you train the targeted muscle group? Try instead of once per week two or three times. Keep in mind recovery still matters, so don’t directly target a muscle group too often without a period of adaption.
Time under tension: how long does each rep last? Try longer repetitions. A great way of doing this is exploding concentrically, pausing statically, and slowly returning to start eccentrically. Feel the rep even longer than usual.
Volume: how many sets are you doing for the targeted muscle group? Try additional sets as your body adapts. Always keep in mind workout length matters so don’t add sets indefinitely, but within the parameters of optimization.
Shorter rest period: how long do you wait between sets? An underrepresented way of overloading is cutting rest periods. Instead of 2 minutes between sets try 90 seconds, 60 seconds, 30 seconds. Even shaving 5 seconds off your current rest period is a homeostatic disruption.
Increased intensity: how heavy are you lifting? For your chosen scheme of reps are you adding weight once the resistance becomes easily manageable? The most basic overload is adding more weight for the same number of reps.
Invent the remix: try a different version of the same exercise. Been barbell bench pressing for a while? Try a dumbbell bench press or machine chest press, maybe even a cable chest press. Married to the barbell bench? Well you could stick with barbell bench pressing and instead of, for example 120 pounds for 8 reps.. Go with 140 pounds for 6 reps.
Note: regardless of the amount of lifting and alternative methods you use if you aren’t slotting days for recover; you won’t grow. Regardless of how much you lift and allow days for recovery if your nutrition doesn’t match your output; you won’t grow. Nutrition provides the fuel for repair.
Another note: these tactics to progressively overload are the same for beating strength plateaus with the addition of increasing your calorie intake.
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So, It’s About That Time
Continue to progress, that’s the whole game. Be creative. When the weight becomes too easy add more, or more sets, or more reps, or less reps more weight, or another version of the move, but nevertheless progressively overloading will keep growth alive. The stronger you come to be the more you’ll require, give your body a new reason to adapt. Be Great.