Progressive Overload: The Key To Continued Progress in Strength and Conditioning
Progressive overload involves gradually increasing the demands placed on the body in order to continue making progress. By repeating the same exercises and progressively increasing the demands, you can effectively target specific muscle groups and see consistent progress towards your strength and conditioning goals.
Ever wondered why your coach gives you the same programming week after week? It’s not out of laziness, it’s to abide by the principles of progressive overload! Progressive overload is a concept in strength and conditioning that involves gradually increasing the demands placed on the body during physical training. This can be done through a variety of different factor such as:
Increased Weight
Increased Reps
More Sets
Adding Additional Movements each Session
Improved Form
Enhanced Recovery
Greater Range of Motion
Some Combination of the Above
The goal of progressive overload is to continue making progress and improving muscle size, strength, and endurance. Although it may seem monotonous if you’re newer to the gym, repeating the same exercises and progressively increasing the demands is much more effective than constantly changing exercises. This allows for better tracking of progress, improved technique and form, and more effective targeting of specific muscle groups.
Progressive overload is important because it helps to continue the process of adaptation. When you engage in physical activity, your body undergoes stress and strain. In response to this stress, your body adapts by becoming stronger and more efficient. However, if you do not continue to increase the demands placed on your body, your progress will eventually plateau. By gradually increasing the intensity of your workouts through progressive overload, you can continue to challenge your body and stimulate further adaptation.
Whether your goal is to increase strength, speed, agility, or elicit some other adaptation, it’s critical to follow a progressively overloaded training program to help get you there. I promise you won’t be doing the same exercises for the rest of time, but adhering to an overloaded training plan for at least 1 mesocycle (~4-6 weeks) will ensure that you properly progress and recover to reach your goals as quickly as possible!
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