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If you've been going to the gym for a while and have noticed that you've stopped making progress in a variety of ways, it could be that you are lacking in a fundamental tenet of training known as progressive overload. In the most basic of terms, progressive overload has to do with how you provide a greater challenge to your muscles (or cardiovascular system) in your exercise routine. The goal is to overcome what is known in powerlifting as the law of accommodation, but it applies broadly to the gym in general.
The idea is that over time, providing the same stimulus (lifting the same weight for the same number of repetitions) provides less of a signal to your body for change over time. So to work around this, we apply greater overload in different ways to the systems we are trying to train. In resistance training, the easiest way to do this is simply to increase the weight, but eventually only using this strategy will lead to a performance ceiling that we'll address later.
Progressive overload deals with other areas of fitness too. It also applies to the cardiovascular system. The law of accommodation applies here as well because, as you may have experienced, doing the same basic 30 minutes on the treadmill has stopped netting you gains in cardiovascular fitness beyond what you get from just being physically active. The thing that both the muscular and cardiovascular systems have in common is that they both require overload to overcome the law of accommodation.
First, we need a framework to apply progressive overload in, otherwise we just end up doing randomly harder and undirected work which leads to unrecoverable amounts of training, burnout and overuse injuries. The typical framework is something known in the strength and conditioning world as periodization, but it's not too complicated once you get used to it.
We'll talk about periodization more in future articles but we also have a module about it in our health education program that is geared toward new gym goers, meaning it's not as scary as it might sound if you are seeing the word for the first time.
The idea behind periodization is that you will have predictable changes in your training volume and intensity as your program progresses which allows you to safely apply the principle of progressive overload to your program. Volume being very generally your sets and repetitions and intensity being how close to your actual one repetition max or estimated max. In cardiovascular training it's a similar idea where volume is likely your distance or time, and intensity is going to be something like working at a given percentage of your heart rate max or Rate of Perceived Exertion. We have an article about measuring your intensity that goes into more detail on this topic.
The following activity is to help you visualize how your resistance training program will change as it progresses. This model will show the most basic periodization model which is the one most commonly used called linear periodization. It is characterized by a linear increase in intensity with a concurrent decrease in volume. A good rule of thumb for both resistance training and cardiovascular training is you want volume and intensity going in opposite directions as your program progresses (outside of some very specific instances).
Now that we have a basic framework, let's talk about how progressive overload can be applied. For the purpose of this article, we are going to stick to resistance training as the example and we'll visit progressive overload in cardiovascular training in a future article.
Like we mentioned before, the most common way in resistance training is to increase the weight. However, there is a point where just increasing the weight will lead to a performance ceiling where either you'll need to grind for greater strength (not a bad idea) or find another way of applying stress to your muscles without increasing the total load being used.
The reason we want to discuss some alternatives is not everyone wants to do a dedicated maximal strength program after they've reached a ceiling on performance. Either it doesn't interest them or they may have previous injuries or other considerations that don't make it a good idea, so these alternatives give us more options on how to stress our muscles without having to increase our maximal strength to a significant degree.
Here are some guidelines to help you start thinking more broadly about progressive overload in your resistance training.
Train Somewhat Near Failure (Reps in Reserve)
We really dug into some research in the article linked here and it's definitely worth looking at more in depth. The quick version is that you typically want to train at a point where you reliably have 1-2 repetitions in the tank before you reach failure (where you can't complete another repetition on your own). This intensity seems to correlate well to both strength and hypertrophy (increasing muscle size). It's also more accurate at slightly higher percentages of your one repetition max and less accurate with lighter weights. Over time you may be able to do a slightly higher weight at the same 1-2 repetitions in reserve. One important way this helps you apply more overload is by not cutting your sets short. Many people vastly underestimate how much they can actually do and stop way before failure, so this tool can both be a means of keeping your sets high quality (thereby providing mroe total overload if you were undershooting your sets) and we can also use it to very gradually increase how many repetitions we can do in a given set close to failure.
Increase Your Training Volume
More volume is a good alternative to higher intensity because muscle responds really well to higher training volume generally speaking. This one is really simple: either add more repetitions per set (especially in conjuction with repetitions in reserve), or add an extra set. If you add an extra set, you may want to make the new set a little shorter than your normal ones until you adjust. Adding another set might not seem like that big of a deal, but if you are doing that at a decent percentage of your max over several exercises, that fatigue will catch you pretty quick and you want to make something you can stick to. Haphazardly adding more volume isn't a good idea either because you may start cutting corners by cutting a rep here and there or rushing through exercises leading to what is commonly called 'junk volume'. Basically more work for the sake of more work, but it's not really that adaptive. Gradually adding more volume and keeping the quality high by attaching modifiers to your set like repetitions in reserve will help you increase training volume in a more meaningful way.
Adjust Your Rest Periods
Rest periods can be manipulated as another form of progressive overload, though the research on this topic has evolved significantly. Current evidence suggests that longer rest periods (around 2-3 minutes) are generally superior for both strength and hypertrophy because they allow better recovery between sets, enabling you to maintain higher loads and training quality.
However, you can use shorter rest periods as a specific overload technique by forcing your body to do the same work in less recovery time, which increases metabolic stress. Some research has identified metabolic stress as a correlate to growth so this can be a viable option. Also, being able to increase the total work you do in a given block of time means that you may be able to do more work total if your available gym time is the limiting factor in your training. The key with shortening rest periods if you opt to do this is not to go into your next set completely gassed out. Take enough of a break to where you can complete all of your repetitions and end with one to two repetitions in reserve like recommended earlier to keep yourself honest on training quality and intensity.
Change Exercise Angles and Mechanical Leverage
A lot of times you'll hear bodybuilders advocating for hitting a muscle at different angles for better growth. There are a few reasons this is a really good idea, but let's separate out some of the bro science. First, most muscles are relatively straightforward, so as long as the exercise is applying tension along the muscle fiber's line of pull, it'll be effective.
However, there are muscles like the gluteus maximus, trapezius and pectoralis major that have more complex anatomy, and hitting these at multiple angles actually could help with greater development. As an example, even muscles like the biceps brachii, while simpler than the pecs, are bi-articulate muscles that cross both the elbow and shoulder joints. So if you really wanted to hit it most effectively at both joinnts you'll need to hit it slightly differently. Because the biceps crosses the shoulder, shoulder position affects the relative contribution of each head. Exercises involving shoulder extension (e.g., incline curls) place the long head under greater stretch, while shoulder flexion (e.g., preacher curls) shortens the long head and may slightly bias the short head by reducing long-head involvement.
Where different angles become particularly valuable is with complex muscles like the glutes or pecs. For another example, the pectoralis major can perform horizontal adduction like you do in a dumbbell fly type movement, and it can also assist with shoulder flexion like you would in a dumbbell chest press. Both of these movements are distinct joint actions and will place the pectoralis major under different degrees of tension depending on the depth of the movement and the degree of incline.
With either of these exercises you place a unique stress on the pectoralis major based on the leverage and the amount of stretch you can get at the end range of motion. As an example, your arm acts as a longer lever when performing a fly and you can get a deep stretch at the end range of motion. While you do get a stretch at the bottom of a chest press, you can typically achieve more with a fly, and this enhanced stretch may account for additional growth stimulus, particularly in beginners.
Now, we are going to discuss putting this into a periodized framework because while we can use all of the things mentioned above, and other techniques not covered here, we don't want to do it all at the same time. Too many new variables will leave you excessively sore and make it impossible to track what's actually working.
Using our periodization example from above, you might think of it this way. The first week should be the most straightforward - highest volume, lowest intensity, and probably not too many modifiers like strict reps in reserve, exercises that have you working at a mechanical disadvantage, or super short rest periods.
Maybe you introduce one of these variables in week 2. Perhaps you start implementing more strict reps in reserve tracking that week. Maybe in week 3, you start introducing exercises that target the same muscle groups but at a different angle than the ones you started the program with in week 1.
Over the course of the program, all these variables can change, but just like we saw in the example, you don't want too much changing at once. Use the structure of periodization to let you make gradual changes to your program over time so that you don't get overwhelmed by a suddenly intense program that you aren't ready for. Gradually introducing new variables for progressive overload gives your body more time to adapt.
We recommend using periodization after you've established a solid gym routine. It does have a greater degree of planning involved than just getting to the gym like you may be focused on when first starting. So, while it's useful, you should really focus on establishing a good routine first before getting too deep into the complexity of your training program.
That said, it's a very useful tool once you start hitting more plateaus in your training and it's one of the best tools for applying progressive overload. Progressive overload is something that you absolutely should strive for in all aspects of your training. This will keep you progressing at a steady rate without overtaxing your body.
