What is Progressive Overload?!

Progressive Overload is the concept of increasing weight, reps, workout frequency, or applied tension during strength training. It is the ability to continue progressing or further strengthening your muscles by not remaining stagnant; As you grow stronger you must build off of where you are lifting at currently.

How do I know when to lift heavier weights? What if I don't have heavier weights?!

OK let's say you've been doing bicep curls with 10lb dumbbells for a while, and working 3 sets of 10 reps at a time. Now this is becoming easy for you, so you want to push yourself to do more. A way to then progressively overload your muscles, or make them stronger, would be to now do 15 reps of bicep curls each, or add in a fourth set of 10 reps. After trying this, you could up your dumbbells to 12 lb weights,  or add more tension - focus on slowing down how fast you do your bicep curls (this is called "time under tension" which I will explain shortly). Now let's say you are only working your biceps once per week, and feel that you are not seeing results. Another way to progressively overload your biceps would be to work them twice per week. 

The 4 key elements of progressive overload are:

1. Increasing weight used for an exercise or movement.

2. Increasing the amount of sets or reps performed.

3. Time under tension - increase the duration of the movement of a particular exercise, or prolong the "time under tension". For example, with bicep curls, you can curl your dumbbell up at your normal pace, and then slowly lower the dumbbell, perhaps counting out 4 seconds or so. If you were easily curling 10 lb dumbbells, but now curl your 10 lb dumbbells in this manor, you will find the exercise become more challenging. 

4. Increase the frequency of workouts. As mentioned earlier, to strengthen your biceps you can increase from working them out once per week to twice per week. 

These concepts are critical to building strength and muscle growth!

Another very important thing to note is - you should not try to implement all 4 of these elements at once. A key principle of progressive overload is to choose one of these 4 factors at a time, or choose what makes the most sense for you. 

You can always increase your volume (# of reps or sets) first before increasing weight -  especially if you do not have heavier weights available, or if you are unsure if you are ready to increase. If you are easily working through generally 10-12 reps of a specific weight with no challenge, then the best way to see gains in strength would be to lift heavier. You can also add in increased tension (also called "time under tension" or eccentric training) or adding in another day to workout at any time. 

If you increase your weight too quickly before first playing around with increasing volume, you could run the risk of overworking or injuring your muscles! 
So how do I know if I am lifting too heavy??

There are a couple of key factors to look for that will indicate you are lifting too heavy!

First is that you are feeling strain in muscles or areas of your body that you are NOT targeting. For example, you are doing shoulder presses but feel a lot of pulling in your neck or back; or you are squatting and you feel more pressure in your lower back vs. your quads & glutes!

Secondly, the weights are too heavy if you are "breaking" your form, or not lifting the weights properly. If you find yourself swaying too much through a movement, or jutting your head forward, or using another part of your body to assist (for example, bending at the knees and pushing up to get dumbbells up for a shoulder press). 

Lastly, if you are not able to complete the recommended reps given for each exercise. In general, the strength building rep range is 8-12 reps. If you cannot push past to reach this range, and you are breaking form or feeling strain, then your weights are too heavy. 

If this occurs, refer back to the other principles of progressive overload as mentioned earlier to challenge your muscles further before lifting heavier!

I hope you found this helpful! As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions you may have!
Amanda :)