Most POWERFUL Training Principle

 

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Progressive Overload and When to Use it

One of the questions that has been coming up is, when to use progressive overload and how long to use it.

In a nutshell... you can start using progressive overload when you stop making muscle gains from your general workout, and use it as long as you want to build muscle and muscle density.

The Beginner Lifter

If you are a beginner, it will be pretty easy for you to build muscle without too much effort when starting out, but that dreaded plateau will eventually come... then what?

Like most beginners, when they stop receiving results in the muscle building department they begin adding more reps, sets, and exercises. That seems logical. More work equates more muscle growth, right?

Not so when it comes to muscle and strength gains. In the muscle building arena, less reps, sets, and exercises will get you further.

Did you get that? To ignite muscle gains after a plateau, beginner, don't add more exercises, sets, and reps, reduce them.

If you were doing this for back:

* Hammer Strength Pulldowns - 50 pounds; 4 sets of 12

* Seated rows - 40 pounds; 4 sets of 12

* Hyper-extensions - 4 sets of 12

* Bentover DB rows - 15 pounds; 4 sets of 12

And you plateau on that, you wouldn't add another exercise, and certainly not another set or rep or you'll be entering overtraining mode.

To pull that back training program out of a rut try something like this:

* Deadlifts - 95 pounds; 3 sets of 10

* Seated rows - 60 pounds; 3 sets of 10

* Hammer Strength Pulldowns - 80 pounds; 3 sets of 10

As you can see I cut it down to 3 exercises, 3 sets, and 10 reps... With that, increase your poundage.

You don't really need 4 back exercises. Ideally, you want to work your lower back (hyper extensions, deadlifts), back thickness (rows), and back width (pulldowns or pull ups). Stimulate the muscle, don't annihilate the muscle. Personally, I prefer working the lower back first, to work the stability first.

The Intermediate to Advanced Lifter

When you get to the intermediate and advanced level of bodybuilding (usually it takes a beginner about 3-4 months of consistent training to merge into the intermediate category, but this can vary), that's when the real work starts.

When you get to this level you need to change your way of thinking. You need to program your brain to go in the gym, hit the weights hard and heavy, yet briefly. Also, implementing progressive overload can help you burst through to new muscle growth.

Without progressive overload you will not build muscle continually.

Progressive overload: For muscle improvement to occur, a heavier training load must be applied each training session. Quite simply this is saying that you must gradually increase your lifts each workout.

Ideally, you should increase your poundage used each workout, but that's unlikely for most people over the long haul. Therefore, you can safely say progressive overload is an increase in poundage or reps, in at least one set if not more, each training session, and I will tell you how...

For muscle growth to occur you need to train to failure in the 6-8 rep range. I found that a lot of people don't understand this fully, so let me give you a visual.

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If you were doing this for biceps:

EZ curl - 30 pounds; 4 sets of 12 reps

That's pretty good poundage and set and rep scheme. However, doing 3-4 sets of a 30-pound curl for 12 reps each week won't get you anywhere after the first month.

How do you improve that? Like this...

Grab 40 pounds and curl and see if you can do 8 reps to failure. (If you can't get to 8 reps the weight is a tad bit heavy and if you can do more than 8 reps the weight is too light).

If you were able to do 10 reps with 40 pounds on the EZ curl then you need to increase the poundage because the rep range we need is 6-8 to failure.

Grab 45 pounds and curl and see if you can do 8 reps to failure. Let's say you did 7 reps to failure. That will make 45 pounds your starting weight for EZ curls. Remember, a total of 3 sets in the 6-8 rep rage is all you need. More is not better.

NOW, write down your curl exercise...

EZ Curls:
45 pounds x 7 reps
45 pounds x 7 reps
45 pounds x 6 reps

As you can see, the last set the reps went down one. This is not on purpose, it's due to muscle fatigue. When you train your muscles beyond the norm, you will fatigue them much faster, which is why excess sets are not necessary.

This is INFORMATION for your next biceps training session to ensure muscle growth. It's a starting point on your muscle-building map.

What do you do the next week when you go to do curls again? start off with 45 pounds and shoot for 8 reps to failure. When you are able to do all sets of that given exercise with 8 reps, move up the poundage.

Second week...

EZ Curls:
45 pounds x 8 reps
45 pounds x 8 reps
45 pounds x 8 reps

Third week...

EZ Curls:
50 pounds x 7 reps
50 pounds x 6 reps
50 pounds x 6 reps

The third week was a little challenging, but it was still effective since there was an increase in poundage and the reps were in the 6-8 range.

According to the charted progress, it'll be a few weeks before you get to 55 pounds, but don't fret... if you progressed just one set and/or one rep, that's progress.

Try 8 weeks of progressive overload, take a week off and get back to the gym with a fresh routine implementing progressive overload again to keep the muscle gains and muscle density up.

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