How to Progressive Overload In Weight Training

Step 1

All too often I witness people who go to the gym almost every day of the week and do the same exercises, the same reps, and use the same weight time after time after time. These people never seem to make any gains in size or strength, and after a while they become disheartened and decide to stop workout out altogether. This kind of training is simply malarkey, and it does nothing more than waste your time.

Step 2

The real kind of training for anybody hoping to increase strength, size, and athletic ability, is progressive overload training. This kind of training, believe or not, was developed for soldiers being rehabilitated after world war two. That being said, those who were lifting weights were involved with progressive overload training before it had a special name.

Step 3

The concept for progressive overload training is really quite simple. It spans from individual exercises to entire workouts, and it is a guaranteed way of getting bigger and stronger. If you plan on taking weightlifting even a little bit seriously (which you should, because otherwise you're stepping into the gym for no other reason than to touch weights and always look the exact same) then listen up, and apply progressive overload training to your next workout and all the workouts afterwards.

Step 4

For the individual exercise, progressive overload training goes like this: start the exercise with a weight that you can get 10-12 reps out of. This first set will warm your muscles up, and get your body in tune with the movement of that particular exercise. For the next set, raise the weight to a resistance that allows you to get 8-10 reps. This weight will challenge your strength, and begin pushing your muscles to get stronger. For the third set, up the weight so that you can get 6-8 reps out. This set will really test your strength limit, and will overload your muscles. Do this for every exercise in your routine (aside from exercises that are specifically designed for 15 reps, such as front/side/post raises)

Step 5

Moving from individual exercises to entire workouts, progressive overload training works like this: you want to strive to increase the amount of weight every week. So, if you did a set of 10-12 reps with 155 on the bench press during the week before, attempt to do the same amount of reps with a slightly higher weight this week. Similarly, raise the weight on the set of 8-10, and the set of 6-8. This way, you are not only progressively overloading within the workout, but between workouts week to week.

Step 6

This is the way to do progressive overload training. By overloading your muscles within workouts, and between workouts, you are striving to increase strength, size, and athletic ability. All of weightlifting, be it powerlifting, bodybuilding, crossfit training, or anything else, is designed around progressive overload training. This kind of training functions as a guarantee towards bettering yourself and your fitness.