Progression and progressive overload is one of the universal training principles. The human body is resistant to change. It is a homeostatic machine that needs a strong forceful push for change. That change might be to build more muscle mass, lose fat, gain strength and improve conditioning and fitness.
photo credit: bobster855
If your goal is to build muscle, you have to constantly supply your body with reason for building thicker, beefier, and stronger muscles in the first place. You need progression in your strength training and weight lifting workouts. Progression is not something you can't skip.
By progression, I'm talking about increasing stimulus. The workouts must be tougher over time. The body is also a machine of adaptation. When we first lift weights, our muscles rebuild and overcompensate to get stronger and bigger.
If we stop supplying the muscles with heavier and heavier stresses, the muscles will stop responding to growth because it has no reason to. Your muscles haved already habituated to the same exercises, weights, number of sets and reps in each workout. If there are no further tougher, more intense stimulus for the muscles, there will be no need for the body to adapt either.
If you curled 50 lbs. six months ago and are still curling 50 lbs. today, would it make sense to expect your muscles to grow magically? Of course not. Your muscles have no reason to grow anymore. You're essentially lifting the same amount of weights over and over again. This is an exact definition of insanity.
Sink this point into your head:
You must ensure a systemic method of progression in your strength training workouts if you're looking to maximize your muscle mass gains.
The first thing I'd look at, aside from nutrition plan, is the progression of workouts over time, if you're not gaining or growing.
Are you growing stronger since last year?
How much are you getting stronger?
How much have your compound lifts gone up? Have you been using heavier weights? Progressive overload is the name of the game here.
There has to be a degree of improvement. Would it also make sense for a person with 13" arms being able to curl 200 lbs. or bench 400 lbs.? No. Why would a skinny armed be able to handle such heavy weights anyway? Progression was obviously missing in this case.
Progressive overload is quite intuitive once you experience the results of more muscle gain. There are 5 main techniques of progression that will help you gain more muscle mass and get stronger.
Progression methods:
- increase weight/load
- increase volume
- decrease rest periods
- increase density of work or work capacity
- using more difficult exercise variations
Let's take a look at each method in depth with examples,
Increasing the amout of weight is basically just adding more weight to the bar over time. This is the first reliable way to measure progress. If you can strap 100 lbs. of weights onto a weight belt and do sets of dips and chinups with it, you can bet you'll have a large chest, back, and arms.
Example of weight progression while keeping volume (set x reps x weight) constant,
Workout 1
barbell squat: 100 lbs. 5 x 5 (sets x reps)
Workout 2
barbell squat: 105 lbs. 5x5
Workout 3
barbell squat: 110 lbs. 5x5
Workout 4
barbell squat: 115 lbs. 5x5
You went from squatting 100 lbs. to handling 115 lbs. through weight progression.
Weight progression is also quite effective when used with micro weights ranging from 1/2 to 2 lbs. This is called microloading.
Increasing volume
There are two ways to increase volume. Volume is defined as the amount of total work done based on the number of sets times the number of repetitions per set ( sets x reps ). So to increase volume, you either have to increase the number of reps per set or increase the number of sets per exercise.
Example of increasing reps while keeping weight and sets constant,
workout 1: bench press: 100 lbs. for 3 sets of 8
workout 2: bench press: 100 lbs. for 3 sets of 9
workout 3: bench press: 100 lbs. for 3 sets of 10
workout 4: bench press: 100 lbs. for 3 sets of 12
the number of reps per set goes up from 8 to 12
Example of increasing sets per exercise while keeping weight and reps constant,
workout 1: military press: 50 lbs. for 2 sets of 5
workout 2: military press: 50 lbs. for 3 sets of 5
workout 3: military press: 50 lbs. for 4 sets of 5
workout 4: military press: 50 lbs. for 5 sets of 5
Next up is decreasing the rest period between each set, while keeping weights and total volume constant. This allows you the added benefit of increased conditioning because you're forced to finish the workout in less time.
You end up doing the same amount of work in less time over successive workout. Eventually you'll be able to handle more work and volume,
workout 1: dips 4 sets of 12, 2 minute rest between each set
workout 2: dips 4 sets of 12, 90 second rest between each set
workout 3: dips 4 sets of 12, 75 second rest between each set
workout 4: dips 4 sets of 12, 60 second rest between each set
Here you see a progression from 2 minute rest to only 60 seconds of rest, cutting the total rest time down in half.
Next we have density progression in which you'll try to complete the entire workout in less time while adding additional volume, with either increased number of sets or reps per set.
This works well with bodyweight training (see density method in bodyweight training primer) exercises where a time limit is set in intervals. This method is based on a multi-progression model because time and volume is manipulated.
For example,
workout 1: barbell rows with 8 minutes time interval, complete as many sets of 5 in these 8 minutes with 100 lbs. Rest as necessary
workout 2: barbell rows with 6 minutes time interval, complete as many sets of 6 in these 6 minutes with 100 lbs. Rest as necessary
workout 3: barbell rows with 5 minutes time interval, compelete as many sets of 7 in these 5 minutes with 100 lbs. Rest as necessary
The goal is to increase volume while decreasing total workout time per workout. You're stressing to increase work capacity. In the above example, let's say you started out with 5 sets of 5 in that 8 minute interval time with a weight of 100 lbs. Volume is then 5 x 5 x 100 = 2,500 units. For the second workout you'll aim to increase that number. Let's say you did 5 sets of 6 in 6 minutes, 5 x 6 x 100 = 3,000 units, a 500 unit increase over one workout.
photo credit: crabchick
Finally, we have an exercise selection progression method when you go from one main lift to a different or more difficult variation of the same movement. This works best with compound movements. Compound lifts have different variations. For squats, there are front squats, sissy squats, box squats, dumbbell squats, and single legged squats.
Take the squats example, by transitioning from a regular barbell back squat to the front squat, you're moving to provide a new challenge to your body with different mechanics of an exercise. Your body will now need to adopt to the new movement. Using variations is also a good way to overcome plateaus and stagnation in progression.
These 5 progression methods are crucial to your bodybuilding and muscle gaining success. Make sure you employ at least one of these progression techniques into your daily workouts.
These progression methods are also linear in nature because the trend is upwards improvement in weight, volume, and density. Now you won't be able to use progressive overload forever without stagnating or plateauing due to the law of diminishing returns. Each time you use progression, the body will adapt and start building up that resistance until it resists all progression. Otherwise you'd be benching 1,000 lbs. or curling 500 lbs. within the year. Not possible. When you plateau, the body has peaked. It's the nature and order of the body's mechanism in exercise.
When you finally stagnate with linear progression, there are several things you can do:
- scale back the weights used by cycling down to 5-10% higher than starting weight.
- take a week off to rest your body
- switch to a different progression technique, remember you're only using 1 or 2 progression methods at a time so you have other options when plateauing
- change rep ranges
- change exercise selection
- change the frequency of each muscle worked
Also assess the off-training, off-gym factors like nutrition and recovery. Are you eating enough? sleeping enough? If you want to build muscle, you better be getting lots of sleep.
I'll address the topic of overcoming stagnation and busting through plateaus in a future article so stay tuned.
So start employing these progression techniques to your training. This is simple stuff. Make sure each workout is a little bit more difficult over time.
Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
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