Welcome to Week 2 of Muscle & Power! What is Progressive Overload and How Do You Select Your Weights?
Good morning, FB Family!
Welcome to Week 2, Day 6 of Muscle & Power! This week we transition to more opportunities for heavier lifting so now’s a good time to chat about your weight selections and safely progressing your strength/improving your performance.
By now many of you have heard the term “progressive overload” referenced in strength training programming - it’s all the rage in the fitness world right now but it’s not a new topic or concept. In fact, the principles of progressive overload aren’t specific to strength training but can be applied to any training modality. But for the sake of clarity (and brevity, haha) we’ll chat about it in the context of strength training.
Here’s a relatively straightforward way to define progressive overload in relation to strength training: Incrementally and intentionally increasing muscular mechanical tension via variations in resistance, load, density, and movement variations/progressions. I know. That doesn’t sound super straightforward but bear with me for a few minutes. Let’s quickly breakdown each component:
Resistance: Increasing the weights used for an exercise. [example: adding 5 lbs to your goblet squats after 1-2 weeks at a baseline weight]
Load: Bumping up the volume (training at longer durations) and intensity (higher efforts). You don’t have to increase both elements at once but they often go hand-in-hand. [example: tempo training increases intensity and usually increases the length of training]
Density: Increasing the amount of work completed within a designated amount of time. [example: supersetting a deadlift with a glute bridge maintains focus on the target muscles with minimal rest, more work in less time]
Movement Choice: Completing increasingly challenging or complementary variations of an exercise. [example: completing single-leg RDL’s to improve unilateral strength/imbalances to consequently improve bilateral RDL strength).
You’ll encounter several of these principles in Muscle & Power (and all other Fitness Blender programming!), but increasing weight/resistance is the most well-known variable of progressive overload. So how do you know when to up your weights? There are several nuances to consider (workout formatting, exercise sequencing, training objective, etc.), but if your goal is increased strength (muscle force production), you should select weights for each exercise that make the last two reps of a set feel questioningly attainable and if asked to continue lifting beyond the interval you should only have 2-4 reps in reserve (possibly only 1-3 reps if you’re lifting really heavy!). Something important to note: You won’t linearly go on a never-ending journey of weight increases. Some training sessions will require you to decrease your weight loads due to fatigue, mental fog, poor sleep, or your own decision to not push your body.
If you’re interested in a learning a bit more about progressive overload, weight selections, and how we as trainers design our workouts to encourage progressions in strength and overall fitness, checkout Episode 13 of Trainer Talk, our latest podcast episode! Brian and I discuss our personal approaches to programming workouts/content as well as our own day-to-day training. And Brian gives you a truly straightforward definition of progressive overload, haha.
I could write much more but then you’d be reading a novel so I’ll stop here for now. Just remember - making fitness/wellness improvements isn’t as complicated as it seems and we as trainers are doing a lot of the hard thinking for you!
Keep this post in mind as you enjoy your Day 6 workout. You’ll be encouraged to lift your heavy (for you!) weights throughout lower body supersets interspersed with power burnout rounds. And there’s a finisher - hurray!
Chat with us below - have you noticed any improvements in your strength? Which Fitness Blender workouts, programs, and/or challenges have been most helpful to you in improving your strength?
Welcome to Week 2 of Muscle & Power! What is Progressive Overload and How Do You Select Your Weights?
Good morning, FB Family!
Welcome to Week 2, Day 6 of Muscle & Power! This week we transition to more opportunities for heavier lifting so now’s a good time to chat about your weight selections and safely progressing your strength/improving your performance.
By now many of you have heard the term “progressive overload” referenced in strength training programming - it’s all the rage in the fitness world right now but it’s not a new topic or concept. In fact, the principles of progressive overload aren’t specific to strength training but can be applied to any training modality. But for the sake of clarity (and brevity, haha) we’ll chat about it in the context of strength training.
Here’s a relatively straightforward way to define progressive overload in relation to strength training: Incrementally and intentionally increasing muscular mechanical tension via variations in resistance, load, density, and movement variations/progressions. I know. That doesn’t sound super straightforward but bear with me for a few minutes. Let’s quickly breakdown each component:
You’ll encounter several of these principles in Muscle & Power (and all other Fitness Blender programming!), but increasing weight/resistance is the most well-known variable of progressive overload. So how do you know when to up your weights? There are several nuances to consider (workout formatting, exercise sequencing, training objective, etc.), but if your goal is increased strength (muscle force production), you should select weights for each exercise that make the last two reps of a set feel questioningly attainable and if asked to continue lifting beyond the interval you should only have 2-4 reps in reserve (possibly only 1-3 reps if you’re lifting really heavy!). Something important to note: You won’t linearly go on a never-ending journey of weight increases. Some training sessions will require you to decrease your weight loads due to fatigue, mental fog, poor sleep, or your own decision to not push your body.
If you’re interested in a learning a bit more about progressive overload, weight selections, and how we as trainers design our workouts to encourage progressions in strength and overall fitness, checkout Episode 13 of Trainer Talk, our latest podcast episode! Brian and I discuss our personal approaches to programming workouts/content as well as our own day-to-day training. And Brian gives you a truly straightforward definition of progressive overload, haha.
I could write much more but then you’d be reading a novel so I’ll stop here for now. Just remember - making fitness/wellness improvements isn’t as complicated as it seems and we as trainers are doing a lot of the hard thinking for you!
Keep this post in mind as you enjoy your Day 6 workout. You’ll be encouraged to lift your heavy (for you!) weights throughout lower body supersets interspersed with power burnout rounds. And there’s a finisher - hurray!
Here’s a peek at Week 2:
Chat with us below - have you noticed any improvements in your strength? Which Fitness Blender workouts, programs, and/or challenges have been most helpful to you in improving your strength?
See you on the screen!
-Tasha