3 Reasons Why You Need To Start Progressive Overload Training Now

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Progressive overload training is the best way to achieve your fitness goals properly and effectively! Here are 3 reasons why you need to start progressive overload training now!

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What Is Progressive Overload Training?

Progressive overload training is a training principle in which you increase the difficulty of your fitness regimen by increasing your repetitions, sets, weight, and time under tension, in order to increase muscle growth and strength and improve your overall fitness level.

Our bodies are highly adaptable and doing the same workouts over and over again without increasing difficulty, will lead to absolutely nothing.

This is where this incredible, foundational principle comes in!

The efficacy of progressive overload training goes beyond resistance training!

It can also be applied to different types of training such as endurance, running, bodyweight, etc.

Progressive Overload Example

1. Increase Your Weights When Your Body Has Surpassed Them

The most common way to introduce the principle of progressive overload training to your workout plan is by increasing your weights as you get stronger and adapt.

For example, let’s say it’s Monday and you hit legs:

You squat 100 lbs for your first set.

Then you squat 130 lbs for your second.

Lastly, you squat 150 lbs for your third set.

Assuming you hit legs twice that week, you most likely won’t have to increase the weight too much or even at all, since the body adapts quickly but also requires proper rest and recovery to grow stronger.

Next Monday rolls in and it’s leg day once again:

This time you start with 110 lbs.

You squat 140 lbs for your second set.

Lastly, you squat 160 lbs for your final set.

And there you have it!

You can increase your weight on a weekly basis by 5-10 pounds for your upper body and 10-20 pounds for your lower body.

This will ensure that you can keep progressing and growing stronger!

***A word of caution: If you don’t feel ready to increase your weight, don’t. Remember to prioritize proper form over weight, otherwise, you are risking serious injury.

2. If You Don’t Have Access To Weights, Increase Your Reps

If you are currently training from home and aren’t planning on joining a gym or investing in your own home gym, don’t despair!

You can still adopt the progressive overload by increasing your repetitions!

As I mentioned above, check in with your body and move accordingly.

If you feel like performing an air squat for 15 reps feels too easy, add another 5. The 20-rep mark will now be your new milestone to beat!

3. Increase Time Under Tension

Another incredible progressive overload example, increasing time under tension breaks down your working muscles, which through proper recovery and nutrition will grow stronger and bigger.

4. Increase Volume

You can increase your workout’s volume by adding one more set at the end of your exercises in order to increase hypertrophy (muscle growth).

Remember to keep your repetitions in the 8-12 range to avoid overtraining!

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3 Reasons Why You Need To Start Progressive Overload Training Now

1. Keep challenging your highly adaptive body.

Our bodies have an amazing ability to adapt very quickly.

Training creates micro-tears in the muscles which your body then has to repair thus growing bigger and stronger.

This happens relatively quickly in almost every form of training.

To avoid hitting a plateau, adopting progressive overload as your guide to training is an absolute must.

You want to keep challenging your body in order for it to keep growing and strengthening!

2. Sustained progress without plateaus.

Progressive overload training guarantees sustained progress without any chance of plateaus when done correctly.

If you are sick of hitting plateaus or not seeing those muscle growth results you’ve been chasing, it’s time to change your style of training, as well as your mindset.

3. Increased confidence in yourself and your workout regime.

When I first started weightlifting back in 2014, I did things in a really bad and useless way.

My goal was to increase muscle mass overall, with a focus on my legs and glutes.

Being the beginner I was at the time, I assumed that maintaining the same amount of weights reps and workout structure would eventually give me the results I wanted.

I was so far from being anywhere near my aspired results, my confidence in myself and my workout was below zero.

It wasn’t until I came across the progressive overload training concept that I finally started to see astonishing muscle growth results, in a small amount of time. (As a mesomorph, I tend to put on muscle easier than other body types).

So, if you are ready to take your training goals and aspirations seriously, you must adopt this effective and evergreen training principle!

***Download the FREE Monthly Goal Planner Printable and use it to track your weight, reps, and sets goals and progress!***

Do I Need Supplements?

Supplements, as the name suggests, are there to supplement a well-established workout plan, to propel you into success a bit faster.

Since I have been weightlifting since 2014, I can promise you that I have tried every supplement out there and found that you only need 1-3 of them. (BCAAs, green powder supps, casein protein powders, etc. never really did anything for me).

My personal favourite game changers have been: a creatine powder supplement, and a protein powder supplement. This combination has been beyond successful and helpful for my fitness goals.

For reference, these are the products I have been using with lots of success: