One of the most fundamental weight training methods is the concept of progressive overload. This concept was drilled into my head when I started lifting a few decades ago and it often works really well for those who are on a two to three-month weight training program in preparation for a sport, and for lifters who are in the beginning or intermediate stages of weight training. If you fit within any of these categories, the progressive overload principle can help you to make excellent progress.
An example of progressive overload training through the weekly addition of more weight to an exercise is shown in the following example. This can also be referred to as linear loading.
Week 1: 5 sets of 5 reps 135 pounds
Week 2: 5 sets of 5 reps 140 pounds
Week 3: 5 sets of 5 reps 145 pounds
Week 4: 5 sets of 5 reps 150 pounds
Week 5: 5 sets of 5 reps 155 pounds
An example of progressive overload training through the weekly addition of more reps to an exercise is shown in the following example.
Week 1: 3 sets of 6 reps with 135 pounds
Week 2: 3 sets of 7 reps with 135 pounds
Week 3: 3 sets of 8 reps with 135 pounds
Week 5: 3 sets of 9 reps with 135 pounds
Week 6: 3 sets of 10 reps with 135 pounds
You can also alternate back and forth between progressively adding reps and progressively adding weight to your lifts as follows:
Week 1: 3 sets of 6 reps with 135 pounds
Week 2: 3 sets of 7 reps with 135 pounds
Week 3: 3 sets of 8 reps with 135 pounds
Week 4: 3 sets of 6 reps with 140 pounds
Week 5: 3 sets of 7 reps with 140 pounds
Week 6: 3 sets of 8 reps with 140 pounds
Week 7: 3 sets of 6 reps with 145 pounds
Week 8: 3 sets of 7 reps with 145 pounds
Week 9: 3 sets of 8 reps with 145 pounds
Notice in the previous example that the reps start with 6 reps the first week and increases to 8 reps every three weeks. Weight is increased once every three weeks, but the reps always drop from 8 to 6 when weight is increased.
Progressive Overload Weight Training Resources
For those who are interested in more information on how to apply progressive overload training, here are some links to articles, websites, or books that offer training that is based on the overload principle:
Websites and Articles
Muscle And Fitness article: 5 Week Progressive Overlaod Program
An Excellent website is HST or Hypertrophy Specific Training
Books
An excellent book: Starting Strength
Mark Ripptoe: Practical Programming for Strength Training
Tudor Bompa: Serious Weight Training
I also recommend the following video as a good resource in regard to progressive overload training. The video is not specifically about progressive overloading training, but is about a training method called “Hypertrophy Specific Training.” However, Hypertrophy Specific Training is based almost completely on progressive overload training cycles. Bryan Haycock is a highly educated man who is the inventor of this training method, a method that resulted from scientific data and research.
For those who train year around or have progressed beyond the beginning stages of weight training, the textbook definition for progressive overload may lack precision in how it should be applied. Why do I believe this? Let’s take a look at a definition used for progressive overload weight training in order to consider misconceptions that can easily arise.
The progressive overload weight training principle states the following:
“In order for a muscle to grow, or strength to be gained, or performance to increase, or for any similar improvement to occur, the human body must be forced to adapt to a tension that is above and beyond what it has previously experienced.”
This definition leads me to believe that in order to gain strength or muscle size, I must either lift a heavier weight or do more reps or sets with a weight than I have ever lifted before. I very much disagree with this concept. I feel it is based on a premise that is terribly misleading and creates mindsets towards weight training that are counterproductive.
Let me explain, I do believe that you must increase the weight, or reps of your workouts at some point in order to keep gaining strength and size, but not all of the time. The next statement I am going to make is diametrically opposed to the textbook definition of progressive overload. The statement will be its own paragraph because I want to emphasize its importance:
I am absolutely positive that you can workout using an amount of weight and reps that you have previously lifted and get stronger from it. Furthermore, you can repeat workouts with the same amount of weight and reps and keep gaining strength from it for quite a while. I believe this because I have done it.
Let me give you an example, if you can bench press 185 pounds for a maximum of ten reps, you can keep on repeating workouts with 185 pounds for two to three sets of ten reps for quite a while and gain strength from those workouts. You don’t have to immediately increase to 190 pounds as soon as you gain strength in order to keep on getting stronger. Likewise, you don’t have to immediately increase to eleven reps or keep adding sets as soon as you gain strength in order to keep getting stronger. You can simply repeat workouts with 185 pounds for ten reps and eventually get five to fifteen pounds stronger without adding weight.
As you get stronger from lifting 185 pounds for ten reps, it will become easier. Of course, if it eventually becomes too easy, it will cease to stimulate strength gains. However, I want to emphasize that this won’t happen right away, and you should not train as though you must immediately overload your muscles with an increase in weight or an increase in reps at the first hint of gaining strength. Why? Because it will lead to the pattern that kills progress.
The Pattern That Kills Progress
The pattern that kills progress occurs when you train in contradiction to the goal your body is trying to accomplish when it gains strength. What is this goal? Your body is simply attempting to decrease the amount of stress it takes to lift a weight by making it easier for you to lift the same amount of weight and reps. With this in mind, a contradiction occurs when your response to a strength gain is to immediately add weight or reps and make the weight harder to lift. Your body’s goal is to experience less stress and easier lifting, but you contradict this by immediately making your workouts harder with an increase in stress. The eventual response of your body will be to shut down your ability to gain strength because it always makes lifting harder instead of easier.
Think about this question:
- If the main goal that your body is trying to accomplish when it gains strength is to make your workouts easier, why would it gain strength when you oppose your body’s goal by constantly making your workouts harder when you gain strength?
When your body knows that strength gains will lead to an immediate increase in stress instead of a decrease in stress, it will stop gaining strength. When does your body figure out that an increase in strength will lead to an immediate increase in training stress? It figures it out when you develop a consistent pattern of immediately adding weight in response to strength gains.
The whole idea in weight training often seems to be to overwhelm your body with a difficult weight training stress so that it has no choice but to respond with strength gains. If you believe this is true, then let me ask you a question in regard to overwhelming your body to achieve strength gains:
- Why would your body want to gain strength and allow you to use even more weight or reps when it is already overwhelmed with the amount of weight and reps that you are currently using?
Your body gains strength to escape from a state of overwhelm, not to intensify it.
Overload vs. Sufficient Load
You don’t need overload to gain strength, what you really need is sufficient load. Sufficient load does not require that you improve by exposing your body to an amount of weight or reps that you have never used before.
Overload vs. Ideal Load
Instead of pounding the idea of overload into the minds of those who train with weights, it seems it would be a lot better to consider the idea of ideal load. What is ideal load? Ideal load can be obtained by using strength training thresholds. Strength training thresholds are sufficient and they are ideal.
Weak Reps and Strong Reps
Those of you who are familiar with precision point training concepts on this website will already understand the difference between strong reps and weak reps. For those who are not familiar with the terms, strong reps and weak reps, I will explain it like this:
As long as you can maintain a steady even rep pace during a set, you are performing strong reps. When you reach the point in a set where fatigue sets in and your rep speed noticeably slows down at the end of a set, you have crossed the threshold and have transitioned from strong reps to weak reps.
Progression Strategy: Convert Weak Reps to Strong Reps
If you are pushing a set hard enough to encounter the slower weaker reps that occur at the end of a set, you don’t need to add weight or reps in order to get stronger because your body will want to grow stronger in order to move the threshold in favor of easier training by converting weak reps into strong reps. Let me explain.
If you can bench press 185 pounds for a maximum of ten reps, the first seven reps will probably be strong reps that you can repeat using a steady even rep pace. The last three reps will probably be slower weaker reps. The fact that you are forced to lift the weight slower for your last three reps shows that they are significantly harder than the first seven. Your body will be uncomfortable with the last three reps because they are harder. In order to decrease the difficulty of the weak reps, your body will try to gain strength. In the process, weak reps will become easier to lift and increasingly faster until they are converted into strong reps. Let’s look at another example.
Improve Your Ratio of Strong Reps to Weak Reps
If you must push to failure to perform ten reps with 185 pounds, the ratio of strong reps to weak reps will probably be about seven strong reps to three weak reps. A two to three percent increase in strength will cause the ratio of strong reps to weak reps to change to eight strong reps and two weak reps. Further improvements in strength will allow you to perform nine strong reps to one weak rep, and you will eventually improve to the point where you can perform all ten reps as strong reps.
Getting Stronger From The Same Workout
When you reach the point where all ten reps are strong reps, it is likely that you would have the ability to do thirteen reps with 185 pounds if you push for max reps to failure. However, notice that when you started out with 185 pounds, you didn’t need to keep adding weight, all you needed to do was to keep doing ten reps with 185 pounds until all ten reps became faster stronger reps, which are higher quality reps.
The significance of what was just described is this:
Seven strong reps and three weak reps were converted into ten strong reps. The only way your body can accomplish this process is to get stronger, and it all occurred by repeating workouts with 185 pounds for ten reps. In other words, you don’t need to immediately overload your muscles with more weight or reps every time you gain strength in order to keep getting stronger.
Those who believe in the overload principle are convinced that it requires an increase in weight or reps to gain strength, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Yes, you will eventually need to increase weight or reps to gain strength, but not right away. Once all weak reps are converted into all strong reps, that’s when it is time to think about adding weight. If you take this approach, you can avoid the pattern that kills progress. Why? Because the weights will become easier to lift with improvement instead of harder with improvement. When the weights finally becomes too easy, that’s when you add weight or reps.
Marker Rep Training
If you have bought into the idea of progressive overload weight training and it doesn’t seem to be working as well as you would like, I would suggest reading the book, Marker Rep Training (available for free on the home page of this website). Marker Rep Training is done by pushing a set until you reach a point in the set where your rep speed starts to slow down. The first rep that is noticeably slower than the previous reps of the same set is called the marker rep. The marker rep is a weak rep. If your marker rep were to occur on your eighth rep with 250 pounds, stop on your eighth rep. Instead of adding more weight or reps, keep repeating workouts with 250 pounds for eight reps until the eighth rep becomes easier and converts into a strong rep. If you can perform all eight reps as strong reps for three workouts in a row, it is a sign that you have gained enough strength to add a little weight. But before you add weight, you can gain strength by allowing the same weight and reps to become easier due to an increase in strength.
The bottom line is that you don’t always need progressive overload weight training to gain strength, however, you do need sufficient load. Assuming you are using a sufficient load, you can can gain strength by allowing the same workouts to become easier, not harder, over time. Once the workouts become easy enough, you must make them harder. If you follow this process, you can avoid the pattern that kills progress and avoid plateaus. Best of training to you.