This one thing you need to do to ensure progress in the gym

Read time: 4 min

I’m about to explain the art and science of progressive overload- every trainer’s favourite gym principle.

When you understand this ONE thing about training correctly, you’ll start to gain improvements in your physique, week by week, program by program, block by block.

And while you might train for mental health, strength, the social aspect, and the challenge- it’s hard to deny that we all enjoy the physical improvements that accompany training consistently.

Once you understand how to apply progressive overload to your training, you can guarantee that you’ll progress in your strength gains and physique too.

TLDR; Repeat the same movements across the strength training program for a minimum of 4 weeks and increase the difficulty to get muscle growth and physique changes.

Let's dive in.

Progressive Overload is a simple principle: Progressive = gradual. Overload = increase in training load (otherwise known as volume).

Those who can keep driving gradual increases in training load, will continue gaining muscle mass and improving their metabolisms. Progressive overload is a key concept for those looking to tone up, or to undergo body recomposition (gain in muscle, loss of fat).

Here are the maths: 

Volume = weight used x reps x sets

You do a regular barbell back squat using 50kg in week 1. 50kg x 10 reps x 3 sets. 50 x 10 x 3 = 1500kg.

You've done 1500kg of volume for squats here.

Next week, if you increase the weight, the reps or the sets, your total volume increases, and you have progressively overloaded the muscles you’re using during this exercise.

You don't need to be pushing up all of these variables every single week, but you should be doing the same exercises across your program block (of say, 4 weeks) and aiming for incremental improvements in volume by manipulating one of the variables.

That’s it. Simple!

Here’s what happens physically:

When you do the same exercise repeatedly, with an increase in volume, your body senses this.

It must adapt to keep up with the training load. It sends signals to the muscles to get bigger and stronger to respond to the new load that it hasn’t experienced before. Therefore, your muscles gain mass and get stronger. Luckily, the movement pattern is being practised week to week throughout the program, so your body knows where it needs to get stronger.

Your nervous system is tuned to the movement pattern and the muscles can generate force in synchronicity to nail the movement.

Put simply: when you repeat the exercise across your program block, instead of focusing on learning a new motor pattern, your body can focus on getting stronger.

Imagine, on the contrary doing 3 sets of 20 reps one week of a sumo squat.

Then in week 2, doing 4 sets of 5 reps of a barbell squat.

Then in week 3 not doing squats at all.

Then in week 4 doing jump squats max reps for 1 minute.

This isn’t just bad programming. This just isn’t programming at all.

Your body doesn’t know what the heck is going on, and you sure aren’t going to ‘shock it’ into getting better results. Your body instead is getting a mixed jumble of messages. This does not result in improvements in muscle mass once you get past the newbie gains phase.

Once you’ve been training for 3-6 months, you need to be using proper programming to advance.

The takeaways I want you to get from this:

Follow a training program consistently, at least for 4 weeks before changing exercises.

Incrementally increase your weights across the weeks of a program, or reps, or sets Record the weights you use for reps of an exercise so you can refer back weekly & aim to improve.

By taking these factors into account, you’re already well ahead of most of the pack. Keep focussed, keep improving, and enjoy your sessions!

If you want more help in the gym & you’re ready to take things to the next level, check out my coaching packages here