Progressive Resistance Vs Progressive Overload
There are two main ways in the various sports weightlifting contributes to to overloading muscle which then leads to hypertrophy, whether that hypertrophy be myofibrillar hypertrophy or sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, the muscle group to be hypertrophied has to be overloaded.
The two main ways are progressive resistance and progressive overload.
Progressive overload refers to overloading muscle tissue by using various methods, preferably by increasing the total volume of the workout (volume = weight x sets x reps).
Progressive resistance uses a different set of principles, you overload weight by doing exactly what the name says progressive (increasing) resistance (weight).
It's all broken down into simplest form.
Which of these two dedicated training methods works the best? Well, it's really hard to say.
You can't argue the results, people for the last century has responded phenomenally from significantly overloading muscle tissue using principles of both methods.
But I do have my own theories on which one would work best, which is the point of this article.
Both principles should be applied to someone's training routine at some point but the time line on when exactly the principles should be portrayed is all depended upon one thing, level of experience.
I'll elaborate on my theory.
Muscle adaption is the absolute worse thing that can happen to a weightlifter.
The fortunate thing is this is recognized by even beginners! The unfortunate thing is that people go about "adaption" the wrong way.
Muscle adaption is highly confused, people think it requires a drastic change in exercises and volume for the rest of your life and that is absolutely not true.
Muscle adaption refers to change, but changing exercises is the best way to waste time, especially for a beginner.
In order to get better at something, whether it be lifting weights or something equivalent dealing with everyday life, you essentially must practice this to become more efficient at whatever it is you're attempting to master.
So if I'm trying to gain a big chest, or a strong bench press, while my bench press is progressive why interrupt the linear progression for something else? Why stop what works for something else that works? Doesn't make sense! Bench presses are a compound exercise, I use this as an example because it's the most popular exercise and coincidentally, it's my favorite exercise! Performing a fly over bench presses doesn't make sense, why? While chest flyes are a chest developing exercise, the progress will not be as significant as that of a bench press.
Here's why, we choose our more dominant compound movements by exercises that mainly occur in nature.
Why? It all makes perfect sense, you generate force in the primary motions of the body to educate those movements and therefore will result in those movements being performed freely more efficiently.
If I bench press, I am gaining strength in one of the body's three dimensional plane (transverse) and I'm going to be stronger in that plane of motion.
Which is why they should be performed over a conventional fly, they are more natural and therefore are considered an exercise that relates to functional strength (functional strength means it has potential carryover into the real world).
Compound movements are intended to overload various muscles at one time, if more muscles are stressed, it's generally an overall more effective workout, therefore they are better for promoting mass, isolation's are intended to assist compounds in bringing up lagging parts.
For example, if your biceps are failing during a bent over row, strengthening the biceps are the suitable approach.
Back to the original subject, progressive resistance IMO, is generally a better approach and should be taken advantage of to full potential, seeing it's a harder task than progressive overload.
Beginners, in the sport of weightlifting, have the ability to make linear progress on their big compound movements; particularly the squat, deadlift and bench press can progressive each week or every three weeks.
People tend to express that 10 reps made bodybuilders look the way they do.
Simply not true, do you think 10 reps made Arnold look how he did? If so, why he did even apply intensity (weight)? Why didn't he just perform his work with the bar? 10 reps builds size right? Yes, it can.
But not without weight.
Weight is the most important factor in the range of motion.
Therefore, we can conclude 10 reps didn't make Arnold look how he did, 10 reps with 315 pounds did.
With this in mind, a muscle does NOT progress unless it's overloaded.
It overloads when there is a change in the stress levels placed upon it, if the stress levels do not change or increase somehow each workout, then your body will have nothing new to grow from and therefore will fail at progressing in strength, hypertrophy or endurance.
When you have the ability to make progressive resistance possible, that advantage should be taken advantage of to full potential.
If you're capable of moving more weight, you're capable of doing more reps with less weight, right? Usually, but not always.
Therefore, a stronger person can have a better potential advantage of have better endurance and more weight is a better tool for gaining hypertrophy (provided the nutrition is acceptable) therefore progressive resistance should be applied, regardless of the goal.
Once you get to the point where your bench press has gotten up to +200 lbs for reps, it is a lot harder to add weight each session or every 2-3 sessions.
Therefore muscle adaption can kick in and you have nothing to grow from.
This is when progressive overload (adding volume) can be the effective approach.
You can't make linear progress on your bench press anymore, yet you still need to overload that muscle; therefore, you would need to add in more volume to continue overloading that muscle to continue progression in hypertrophy, endurance or strength.
If I can no longer increase the intensity (which is the weight), I can conclude that I still need to overload that muscle group.
It's not possible for me to add anymore weight now, I won't have anything new to grow from, so assistance / accessory exercises are the suitable approach.
As a beginner, it's not necessary seeing you can add weight each 1-3 weeks, but as an intermediate / professional, that task becomes much more difficult and therefore adding progressive overload, which would involve increasing the reps, tempo, sets or adding in other movements to overload that muscle beyond the previous workout is the suitable suggestion.
The conclusion is that progressive resistance is the suitable approach for beginners and should be taken advantage of to full potential; when this fails, progressive overload can assist in continuing to overload muscle tissue and give you something new to grow from.
The two main ways are progressive resistance and progressive overload.
Progressive overload refers to overloading muscle tissue by using various methods, preferably by increasing the total volume of the workout (volume = weight x sets x reps).
Progressive resistance uses a different set of principles, you overload weight by doing exactly what the name says progressive (increasing) resistance (weight).
It's all broken down into simplest form.
Which of these two dedicated training methods works the best? Well, it's really hard to say.
You can't argue the results, people for the last century has responded phenomenally from significantly overloading muscle tissue using principles of both methods.
But I do have my own theories on which one would work best, which is the point of this article.
Both principles should be applied to someone's training routine at some point but the time line on when exactly the principles should be portrayed is all depended upon one thing, level of experience.
I'll elaborate on my theory.
Muscle adaption is the absolute worse thing that can happen to a weightlifter.
The fortunate thing is this is recognized by even beginners! The unfortunate thing is that people go about "adaption" the wrong way.
Muscle adaption is highly confused, people think it requires a drastic change in exercises and volume for the rest of your life and that is absolutely not true.
Muscle adaption refers to change, but changing exercises is the best way to waste time, especially for a beginner.
In order to get better at something, whether it be lifting weights or something equivalent dealing with everyday life, you essentially must practice this to become more efficient at whatever it is you're attempting to master.
So if I'm trying to gain a big chest, or a strong bench press, while my bench press is progressive why interrupt the linear progression for something else? Why stop what works for something else that works? Doesn't make sense! Bench presses are a compound exercise, I use this as an example because it's the most popular exercise and coincidentally, it's my favorite exercise! Performing a fly over bench presses doesn't make sense, why? While chest flyes are a chest developing exercise, the progress will not be as significant as that of a bench press.
Here's why, we choose our more dominant compound movements by exercises that mainly occur in nature.
Why? It all makes perfect sense, you generate force in the primary motions of the body to educate those movements and therefore will result in those movements being performed freely more efficiently.
If I bench press, I am gaining strength in one of the body's three dimensional plane (transverse) and I'm going to be stronger in that plane of motion.
Which is why they should be performed over a conventional fly, they are more natural and therefore are considered an exercise that relates to functional strength (functional strength means it has potential carryover into the real world).
Compound movements are intended to overload various muscles at one time, if more muscles are stressed, it's generally an overall more effective workout, therefore they are better for promoting mass, isolation's are intended to assist compounds in bringing up lagging parts.
For example, if your biceps are failing during a bent over row, strengthening the biceps are the suitable approach.
Back to the original subject, progressive resistance IMO, is generally a better approach and should be taken advantage of to full potential, seeing it's a harder task than progressive overload.
Beginners, in the sport of weightlifting, have the ability to make linear progress on their big compound movements; particularly the squat, deadlift and bench press can progressive each week or every three weeks.
People tend to express that 10 reps made bodybuilders look the way they do.
Simply not true, do you think 10 reps made Arnold look how he did? If so, why he did even apply intensity (weight)? Why didn't he just perform his work with the bar? 10 reps builds size right? Yes, it can.
But not without weight.
Weight is the most important factor in the range of motion.
Therefore, we can conclude 10 reps didn't make Arnold look how he did, 10 reps with 315 pounds did.
With this in mind, a muscle does NOT progress unless it's overloaded.
It overloads when there is a change in the stress levels placed upon it, if the stress levels do not change or increase somehow each workout, then your body will have nothing new to grow from and therefore will fail at progressing in strength, hypertrophy or endurance.
When you have the ability to make progressive resistance possible, that advantage should be taken advantage of to full potential.
If you're capable of moving more weight, you're capable of doing more reps with less weight, right? Usually, but not always.
Therefore, a stronger person can have a better potential advantage of have better endurance and more weight is a better tool for gaining hypertrophy (provided the nutrition is acceptable) therefore progressive resistance should be applied, regardless of the goal.
Once you get to the point where your bench press has gotten up to +200 lbs for reps, it is a lot harder to add weight each session or every 2-3 sessions.
Therefore muscle adaption can kick in and you have nothing to grow from.
This is when progressive overload (adding volume) can be the effective approach.
You can't make linear progress on your bench press anymore, yet you still need to overload that muscle; therefore, you would need to add in more volume to continue overloading that muscle to continue progression in hypertrophy, endurance or strength.
If I can no longer increase the intensity (which is the weight), I can conclude that I still need to overload that muscle group.
It's not possible for me to add anymore weight now, I won't have anything new to grow from, so assistance / accessory exercises are the suitable approach.
As a beginner, it's not necessary seeing you can add weight each 1-3 weeks, but as an intermediate / professional, that task becomes much more difficult and therefore adding progressive overload, which would involve increasing the reps, tempo, sets or adding in other movements to overload that muscle beyond the previous workout is the suitable suggestion.
The conclusion is that progressive resistance is the suitable approach for beginners and should be taken advantage of to full potential; when this fails, progressive overload can assist in continuing to overload muscle tissue and give you something new to grow from.
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