Progressive Overload 101

Understanding the SAID Principle

For the TLDR: version, scroll down to practical application section of article

Within the field of exercise science, and nested within the Philosophy of Biology, there is a fundamental principle.

ADAPTATION

Living organisms have the ability to adapt. Through exposure to environmental stimuli and stressors, their physiology will adjust to increase efficiency, reduce the intensity of the stressor, and increase survivability.

If living systems were fixated in their function and could not adjust, they would die.

Specific to human physiology and exercise science, this mega principle of adaptation takes the form of the SAID Principle

Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands

This means what it says. The body will specifically adapt to the demands imposed on it.

Run every day, and you will get better at running.

Do pushups every day, you will get stronger at pushups.

Practice vertical jumping, you will gradually jump higher.

So on and so forth.

For the Body to Adapt, the Demand must be of sufficient intensity.

Modeled visually, it looks like this

The training stimulus must be of sufficient intensity to stimulate adaptation.

Said simple, if an exercise is too easy, nothing much will happen. Whether its lifting weights or elevating heart rate, your exercise must be CHALLENGING to the body.

If exercise is TOO intense, it can cause injury, severe muscle breakdown, and the body will struggle to recover, and probably not adapt.

However, “working out too hard” is an exceedingly rare problem.

While there are upper limits to adaptation, there is almost always immense room for improvement

Obviously the human body cannot jump 20 feet into the air, or do 1000 pushups in a row, or run 1000 miles nonstop.

There are physiological constraints that limit our performance. But our capacity to improve can be geometric. Going from 10 pushups to 50 is a 500% improvement. As is struggling to run 1 mile to running 5 miles. Or learning how to deadlift an empty bar, and eventually deadlifting double bodyweight.

And for the record, the farthest the human body has run without stopping is 350 miles, over 88 hours and 44 minutes. This record was set by Dean Karnazes in 2005.

The examples are legion. And this leads us to the next incarnation of the principle

Progressive Overload

Sometimes called the Overload principle, Progressive Overload has been formally defined since the 1950s, but its still largely unknown (and misunderstood) by the general public.

Progressive Overload is the Principle of increasing stress over time in order to stimulate further adaptations.

For resistance training (lifting weights), that means you increase the repetitions that you can perform, or increase the amount of weight you are lifting.

For example, you lift 40lbs for 10 repetitions, after lifting it for only 8 in your last workout. Or you lift 50lbs 8 times, instead of 40lbs.

For cardio, it means increasing either the speed, distance, or duration at which you are doing an activity.

For example, you can run 1 mile faster than you did last time, or you run for more time (15 minutes instead of 10 minutes) or a greater distance (1.5 miles instead of 1 mile).

For the sake of specificity, lets talk about Progressive Overload as applied to resistance training (lifting weights).

Time for a story.

Progressive Overload in Myth

The Legend of Milos of Croton

Milos of Croton was wrestler that lived in the 6th century BC in what is today modern Italy. He was a real person, and won Olympic titles in wrestling 6 times over 24 years.

The most famous legend attributed to him was his carrying of a full grown bull on his shoulders.

Between Olympiads, Milos would gradually peak his strength levels over FOUR years.

He would began by carying a newly born calf across his shoulders, along the length of a race track (about 120 meters).

By the time of the Olympiad, the calf would be a fully grown bull. At which point there was some form of celebration and the bull was slaughtered and eaten.

While modern bulls can weigh in excess of 2000lbs, in antiquity livestock were MUCH smaller compared to today.

A bull of that era in Crotonia would have been about 600lbs when fully grown.

Considering that modern competitive strongmen are capable of Yoke carries with 3x their bodyweight, this is not an impossible feat. Perhaps he really did this.

Milos carrying of the Bull follows scientific principles of Progressive Overload

He carried it the same DISTANCE every day.

This is equivalent to performing the same number of REPS each time you train, but every so slowly increasing the weight.

And he did this for FOUR YEARS. His strength increase was gradual.

Progressive Overload Applied Practically

Finally we get to the portion of the article discussing how Progressive Overload works in an actual workout.

The most effective method to apply progressive overload is the Double Progression Method.

It works like this

1. You select a REP RANGE for an exercise. Generally for upper body I suggest 6-10 reps, and lower body I suggest 8-15 reps.

2. For example, lets us imagine we are doing Flat Dumbbell Chest Press. We are using the 6-10 rep range.

3. We need determine what our respective SIX rep maximum is on Dumbbell Chest Press.
   
   We do this for by first warming up, and then make an estimation.
   
   IF you are an experienced trainee, you should have accurate estimate of your strength levels for every exercise you perform

4. Let us assume you have accurately estimated your 6 rep max, and that weight is 80lbs (per hand)

5. You perform your working set of 6 reps. You press the 80lb dumbbells for 6 reps.

6. You record this set in your Log book. This is your “working set” for this exercise.
   
   DB Chest Press, 6x80
   
   For the sake of clarity, lets assume you are doing ONE working set per exercise

7. Next workout, your goal is to do SEVEN reps with 80lb DBs

8. Over the course of multiple workouts, your goal is to do TEN 10 reps with 80lb DBS

9. Once you can perform 10 reps with 80lb DBs, you increase the weight by 10-20%. Your weight increase should drop you back down to the 6-7 rep working range

10. The process then repeats itself
    
    The Above Process Applies to ALL Exercises and Rep Ranges

You pick an exercise, any exercise. You figure out an appropriate level of resistance. You increase the number of reps you can do over time. And when you can more reps, then you increase the weight again.

This works for 6-10 reps, 8-12 reps, 5-8 reps, 4-8 reps, 10-15 reps, 15-20 reps. It even works for 20-30 reps if you want to train with very high reps.

What about doing MULTIPLE sets though? What about a Pyramid set?

3x8-10?

4x8-12?

5x5-8

Or a pyramid set? Like 12, 10, 8, 6?

This is How

• If you are only doing 1-2 working sets, lift to positive failure

• If you are doing more than two sets, do NOT lift to positive failure, leave 1-2 reps in reserve on your sets

• So something like 4 sets of 8-12 reps, you would NOT be taking any of the sets to failure. You’d pick a weight that you can lift for 4 sets of AT LEAST 8 reps across ALL the sets, and then gradually increase the reps until you can do 4 sets of 12.

• The same applies for 3 sets of 8-10 reps, or 5 sets of 5-8 reps, etc. More sets means leaving reps in reserve on each set in order to stay within the target rep range.

• For Pyramid sets, you also want to leave 1-2 reps in reserve on each set.
  
  So a hard set of 12, then hard set of 10, and then a hard set of 8, and then finally a hard set of 6. On the last set you might take that set to failure, but not all the sets.

• Basically train to failure on two or less sets. Dont train to failure on 3 or more sets.

The overall goal process does not change. You add Reps first, and then add weight.

The Most Productive Exercises are the Ones you can Progressively Overload the Longest

A productive exercise will train a muscle through its respective biomechanical range, it will be a stable movement, and it will allow you to make strength gains long term for months and years.

Unproductive exercise will be the opposite; incomplete range of motion, poor biomechanical profile, unstable, and limited ability to add weight long term.

On a Long Enough Timeline, Muscle will be built by becoming STRONGER, for REPS, on Productive Exercises

We will get to Productive Exercises in another article though.

Any questions, feel free to ask in the comments