﻿hey everyone i'm Jim Bathurst head coach here at Nerd Fitness
and today we're going to be talking about progressive overload because it's
such a critical component in building strength and muscle
progressive overloading is all about doing a little bit more
each time so whether that's lifting a little bit more weight or doing another
rep
we're really testing our body's capabilities
by doing this slowly but surely and consistently over time
we're going to get stronger as our body adapts to the ever-increasing demands
without overload there is no adaptation in progress
when we challenge our body it responds in turn several different ways by
increasing neuromuscular coordination by increasing
bone and muscle mass there is improvement in the connective tissue
strength and there is increased lactic acid
tolerance so you can see there's a host of
benefits just by increasing the difficulty
of your workouts over the weeks and months
there are a lot of different ways that you can increase the challenge of a
workout
from day to day and week to week first off and most
obvious would be increasing the weight i will talk a little bit later about how
to do that but that's one of the most classic ones
another way to increase the difficulty of a workout
is to increase the number of reps that you do so say you did 10 reps of the
exercise last time maybe you do 11 this time
another great way to increase the difficulty of the workout
is to increase the number of sets that you do so maybe you did three sets of
ten push-ups last time maybe four sets of ten push-ups this
time you can also increase the frequency of
your workouts to make things more challenging
so say you're working out twice a week on monday and thursday
you can increase it to working out on monday wednesday and friday
this will give you more total work for the week and be a little tougher
you can also look to decrease your rest time in between your sets so you'll have
the same weight same reps but just the period of time
you rest between sets will decrease this may be a good option
for some based on your goals and your schedule
for those of you progressing bodyweight exercises
look to see if you can do a more difficult variation or a more difficult
angle for that exercise it's a great way to
make things more challenging and for any exercise you can also adjust
the tempo at which you do that exercise so maybe
slow down a little bit in part or all of the exercise you can
even hold at the bottom or most difficult
section of that exercise
you know you're ready to increase the weight or intensity
when you're able to do all the prescribed sets and reps for an exercise
and you still feel like you can do a few more reps
when you're just starting off you'll adapt quickly a lot
of this adaptation comes from just increased coordination
and comfort with the exercise that means that you'll be able to progressively
overload much more frequently you might be increasing your difficulty
between each workout or every single week it's important to
understand that progressive overloading doesn't just increase upwards forever
for example if you started benching 45 pounds
and you increased 5 pounds every week you'd be benching over 500 pounds in
less than two years
that would be insane and that's not how this works
after a while progress will go slower and slower
you may even plateau and stay at the same intensity for several weeks or more
and that's totally fine how long you stay on those plateaus
is going to be dependent on a lot of factors your training
your nutrition your recovery and even your age
we recommend going up in small increments when adding weight to an
exercise for barbell lifts five pounds or about two and a half kilos to each
side of the bar
is a pretty good rule of thumb that would mean a total increase of
10 pounds or about 5 kilos to the entire lift
so you might go from benching 75 pounds to 85 pounds
for some upper body lifts that might be too much of an increase for you
if that's the case we recommend adding two and a half pounds
or about one kilo to each side of the bar
so that would make for an increase of five pounds or
two kilos for the entire lift if even that is too much of an increase
there's even smaller fractional plates that you can
buy that will increase the weight by even smaller amounts
for lower body lifts we might want to add a little bit more weight
so you might want to add 10 pounds or about 5
kilos to each side of the bar that would make for an increase
of 20 pounds or 10 kilos for the entire lift
so you might go from dead lifting 135
pounds to deadlifting 155 pounds
the biggest danger with progressive overloading is simply just pushing too
hard and too fast before your body can properly adapt can
you do handstand push-ups or a 315-pound deadlift sure
there's nothing inherently dangerous with those exercises
but i've seen a lot of people jump too far too
fast and that's when they hurt themselves
start your training by doing it less than you think
even perhaps lifting only the bar or even a broomstick
when you do increase in weight do so in small increments there is no rush
now do you always have to be progressively overloading always adding
weight and reps and difficulty to your exercises and workouts
no it's totally fine and just to hold steady where you're at
you're still getting tons of great benefits just by moving around
we made this video for those of you who had heard the term progressive overload
but weren't quite sure what that meant as well as those people who had wanted
to increase the difficulty of their workouts
but just weren't quite sure how so there you have it
in order to get strong and progress you need to progressively overload
adding more weight to an exercise is one of the most common methods
but remember we can increase difficulty in a number of different ways we can
increase the reps
increase the sets increase the frequency of our workouts during the week
decrease our rest time we can pick a more difficult variation
we can also play around with the tempo of the exercise
slowing down part of the range of motion or even holding it
just remember to make small changes it'll take time for your body to adjust
and adapt
and rushing it is just asking for trouble alright that's it for now
everyone stay strong stay nerdy
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