Per the legend, when Milo was an adolescent a neighbor of his had a newborn calf. Milo, already a strapping lad, saw the small calf, lifted it onto his shoulders, and walked around for a while. He then put the calf back down and went home.
The next day Milo returned and did the same thing. He continued this routine day after day. As the calf grew, so did Milo’s strength. His lifting each day prepared him to lift a little bit more the next day. At the end of four years, Milo was lifting a full-grown bull onto his shoulders.
History of progressive overload – Wikipedia
Progressive overload is a fundamental concept that we should apply during our fitness journey in order to always improve. To do so we should first understand on which parameters we want to focus and then we’ll see how to improve in each of these.
Training variables:
- Intensity: how hard we push during our training
- Volume: the number of sets we do for each muscle
- Density: the time in between sets of the same muscle
- Frequency: the frequency of training of each muscle group
How to improve on the training variables:
In order to achieve muscle growth we should focus on improving on each of these variables. There are many ways to plan a progression over these variables but to make it simple I personally recommend to try improving on two of these at the same time and then focus on the others in a second moment, making a right progression in different phases of the years is crucial in training planning and muscle growth over the years.
You could improve the density of your trainings by always slightly decreasing the rest time between sets of the same muscle group, this also stimulates cardiovascular adaptations.
Also, you can increase your volume by adding sets to exercises that you think might require it, neglected muscles for instance, or frequency by simply training more times per week the same muscle groups.
But the easiest and most common way of progression is in intensity, just by keeping the same training split over a certain period of time, you can allocate a certain rep range to a certain exercise and always try to improve over the time adding more reps until you don’t get more than you wanted so you can add more weight.
Should I add weight or repetitions?
In a study published in 2022 they tried to compare the weight progression and the repetitions progression, let’s see their methods and the results.
Methods: Forty-three participants with at least 1 year of consistent lower body resistance training experience were randomly assigned to one of two experimental, parallel groups: A group that aimed to increase load while keeping repetitions constant (LOAD: n = 22; 13 men, nine women) or a group that aimed to increase repetitions while keeping load constant (REPS: n = 21; 14 men, seven women). Subjects performed four sets of four lower body exercises (back squat, leg extension, straight-leg calf raise, and seated calf raise) twice per week. We assessed one repetition maximum (1RM) in the Smith machine squat, muscular endurance in the leg extension, countermovement jump height, and muscle thickness along the quadriceps and calf muscles.
Results: Rectus femoris growth modestly favored REPS Alternatively, dynamic strength increases slightly favored LOAD, with differences of questionable practical significance. No other notable between-group differences were found across outcomes (muscle thicknesses, <1 mm; endurance, <1%; countermovement jump, 0.1 cm; body fat, <1%; leg segmental lean mass, 0.1 kg), with narrow CIs for most outcomes.
Conclusion: Both progressions of repetitions and load appear to be viable strategies for enhancing muscular adaptations over an 8-week training cycle, which provides trainers and trainees with another promising approach to programming resistance training.
As you can see all data is pretty similar between the two groups which implies that we can progress pretty much how we want in both reps and load.
Example of progressive overload
Now I will try to give you an easy example that you can follow. Let’s think about the leg extension, one of the best exercises for quadriceps and also one of my favourite in general, I usually use a rep range of 10-12 but you can personalise it as you prefer.
- Week 1: 10 reps with 50kg
- Week 2: 11 reps with 50kg
- Week 3: 12 reps with 50kg
- Week 4: 13 reps with 50kg
- Week 5: 10 reps with 55kg
This is a very easy example but I think you got the point.
Important tip: always track your trainings!
For many people this is obvious but when I started I made the mistake of not tracking my loads and repetitions for each exercise so I would often mess up progression and then reach a stalling phase. So, as also recommended in my bodybuilding guide, always track your trainings!
Scientific principles
The goal of strength-training programs is to increase one’s physical strength and performance. This is achieved through resistance training. By placing the exercise musculature under greater-than-normal demand, the body will start a natural adaptation process, improving its capabilities to endure that higher amount of stress. Neuromuscular adaptation will occur first, which will already increase the individual’s strength when lifting. With consistency in the training sessions, what will follow will be an increase in overall muscle mass and the strengthening of connective tissue.
Progressive overload not only stimulates muscle hypertrophy, but it also stimulates the development of stronger and denser bones, ligaments, tendons and cartilage. Progressive overload also incrementally increases blood flow to regions of the body exercised and stimulates more responsive nerve connections between the brain and the muscles involved. In fact, studies suggest that the increase in muscle contraction force, caused by resistance training, happens partially due to an increase in the responsiveness and efficacy of the neural system.
according to Wikipedia