How using progressive overload is crucial to building muscle mass
Every jacked person would agree with the following statement:
If you don’t understand and apply progressive overload, you’re not gaining muscles at the rate you could be.
Luckily for you, it’s as simple as it is practical.
Once you know about it, it’ll seem so basic that you’ll gladly apply it to your workout practice. You will feel way more confident in what you’re doing, and without a doubt, the results will show.
After clearly defining it, I will tell you exactly how to take advantage of that asset in five different manners. Then, I’ll share other tips to help you reach the beach body of your dreams.
What is progressive overload?
Plainly, it can be defined as the gradual increase of stress on the muscle during weight training.
Right after training, the muscles you worked out are weaker because you fatigued them. With recovery time, they grow stronger. That is called adaptive response. If the next workout doesn’t provide more challenge, your muscles don’t have any reason to grow because they can already perform what is asked of them.
In other words, if your goal is to grow muscle, you must demand more of it every time you train.
Five ways to achieve progressive overload
Let’s imagine you use the squat to strengthen your legs during a workout session:
Exercise: Squats
Load = 100lbs
Sets = 3 (meaning you repeat the exercise three times)
Reps = 10 (meaning you repeat the movement ten times during one set)
To produce gains, you need to make the next workout harder. An excellent way to quantify that is to calculate the additional volume you moved from one session to the next.
Volume = Load x Reps x Sets
Here are five tools you possess to do just that.
1. Load
Lift more weight for the same number of reps and sets. In our example, you could use a load of 110lbs. You are now lifting an additional 10lbs for 30 reps.
Additional volume = 10lbs additional x 10 Reps x 3 Sets = 300lbs
For a beginner, it’s the main way to apply the progressive overload principle. As you progress, you won’t be able to add more weight while keeping the same number of reps and sets.
This is when the second way to progressively overload comes in handy.
2. Reps
Let’s say you don’t feel comfortable adding weight to the bar yet. You have the option to add one rep to each set.
Additional volume = 100lbs x 1 additional Rep x 3 Sets = 300lbs
You get the same additional volume.
Would it be suitable to increase the number of reps indefinitely, considering you want to maximize gains?
It seems you could go up to around 30 reps and still produce similar muscle growth as long as you get close to failure (1).
What does it mean to get close to failure? It relates to the amount of effort you put into the exercise, aka the intensity. This is crucial to muscle growth.
Reaching failure means you are not able to do one more rep. You can lift heavy for low reps or light for high reps.
Although both options seem to produce similar muscle growth, using sets with lower reps/higer load are better for increasing maximal strenght (2).
A good suggestion is to use both types of sets to maximize both strenght and hypertrophy (3).
A common practise is to keep most of your sets within the range of 6 to 12 reps. However, it is still good to have a minority of sets under 6 reps for strength progression and a minority over 12 reps for stimulative variety.
A convenient way to process is by combining augmenting the load and the number of reps, like such:
3. Sets
The next way to apply progressive overload is, you’ve guessed it, by adding a set.
Additional volume = 100lbs x 10 Reps x 1 additional Set = 1000lbs
While adding a set guarantees results on your gains, it makes workout sessions considerably longer and demands a lot of your body.
There is a limit to the number of sets you can add. Of course, you must consider the recovery of the muscle. You can see how it is a bad idea to do one set of squats every five minutes of your waking time, seven days a week. So, where is that limit?
First, a good rule of thumb is to increase volume no more than 10-20% per week. Going over that represents risking exhausting yourself and hidering your gains and overall health.
Also, it has been found that performing between 10 to 20 sets per week per muscle group is ideal for boosting muscle growth (4).
Going back to our example, let’s put our three sets of the squatting exercise within a total workout of 4 different exercises. That means you find yourself doing 12 sets of leg exercises.
You can add more sets to your routine while not going over 20 per week. Then, cycle back down to the original program that you started with, using a heavier load.
Notice here that the volume added each week stays below 20%.
4. Tempo
To produce more growth, you also have the option to slow down the tempo of your reps. Increasing the amount of time that your muscles are under tension works wonders.
Again, there is a maximum amount of time for a single rep which past it becomes counterproductive for hypertrophy. It seems that past 8 seconds, the effects on muscle growth are diminished (5).
Hypertrophy is defined as an increase in tissue mass because of an increase in cell size.
Practically, if you are used to taking 1 second to go down and another to go back up when performing a squat, you can work your way up to 4 seconds going down and up to apply the principle of progressive overload.
5. Form
The mind-muscle connection is often grossly underestimated by lifters of all levels. Being mindful of what is happening in your body during every rep is crucial.
There is an intended result sought behind every exercise. It is your job to research precisely what muscles are supposed to be squeezing and stretching and experiment with each movement to find the most effective position for you. Our bodies are all different.
We can all imagine that guy at the gym that looks ridiculous because he obviously isn’t working out the right way. That guy is at the end of the spectrum, on which you are too.
With practice, you’ll get better at it, but keeping good form and exploiting the benefit of an exercise maximally is never-ending work. In my opinion, that’s what makes strength training so entertaining!
Before thinking of adding load, sets, reps, or adjusting tempo in your workouts, make sure you are performing the exercises correctly. This will be a humbling experience.
By not being able to use momentum and activate the “wrong” muscles, you will have to reduce the load significantly for many exercises.
A big ego won’t get results; using the correct form will. Think long-term, both in terms of growth and injury prevention.
Other tips to optimize muscle growth
Here are some quick pointers that are out of the scope of this article on which you should attend to optimize your results.
Nutrition
To build something, you need building blocks. To build muscle, you need amino acids, which you get by eating protein. You already consume lots of proteins; I’m not saying you must go crazy on protein powder.
The recommended amount to optimize muscle growth varies from one source to the other. To give you a ballpark, one research shows that eating up to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of your body weight per day (or 0.7g/lb) is a good target (5).
What the hell? How do I know how much protein I consume in a day?
Multiple apps exist to help you with that by letting you register what food you eat. While it may seem like a lot of work, you don’t need to be that precise.
Do it approximately, and you’ll get a good enough average. Do it for a month, and you’ll get a good grip on what your nutrition needs to look like to get the protein you need.
Don’t overthink it; it doesn’t need to be perfect for you to see substantial results.
Also, drink enough water. Just do it. It’s so important.
Effort
The mainstream scientific consensus is that you shouldn’t reach failure every set, but you should be close. A good ballpark is to leave 2 to 3 reps in the tank every set.
Breathing
Please don’t hold your breath; it hinders your capacity to lift and is very unhealthy.
Diversity of training
Making every workout different is fun, but it prevents you from being able to measure progressive overload, which in turn makes it harder to induce muscle growth.
If you want to add diversity, a good option is to have a central body workout routine and modify some exercises as you go along. It allows you to keep progressively overloading, and adding diversity is good for muscle growth as it will target them differently.
Warmups and cool downs
It is easy to underestimate but very important. It makes your muscle tissues longer, which you need to perform strength training within a greater range of movement. Your workouts will be more effective, and you will minimize the risk of injury within a session and throughout your life.
Exercise selection
Multi-joint compound exercises like squats, presses, and rows activate large muscle mass and promote more efficient total body strength gains.
Single-joint isolation exercises can target smaller muscles like deltoids, biceps, and abs which can be underutilized if you only perform multi-joint movements.
A good practice is to put multi-joint movements at the beginning of a session when you have more energy to spend and finish with single-joint exercises. Again, experiment and see what works best for you.
Frequency
It is best to hit a muscle at least twice weekly to promote higher volume per week and higher quality volumes per workout. The famous “Bro split,” or single muscle split, is a good strategy, but using the Push-Pull-Legs split allows more recovery.
Sleep
This one is obvious. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of a regular sleep schedule to overall health.
Conclusion
Here’s a tip, a new habit to add to your workout routine to ensure a very high return on your time investment:
Keep a journal of your workouts to make it easier to track your progression (I use the notes app on my cell phone).
During your next training, write down the exercises you perform, the load used, and the number of reps and sets.
Next time you do that routine, make sure you use progressive overload and modify your notes. It is simple and requires very little time to set up.
Load – Sets – Reps – Tempo - Form
You can use different combinations of the methods we studied here to maximize muscle growth. I encourage you to do so; adding variety will make it more fun. Remember that CONSISTENCY is the key to muscle growth, which comes with enjoying your workouts.