The Hidden Danger Of Progressive Overload (Caution!)

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The Hidden Danger Of Progressive Overload (Caution!)

Progressive overload is the underlying driver of the entire muscle building process. Consistently improving on your workout performance over time is what forces your body to adapt and grow. Unless you’re a more advanced lifter, those performance increases should primarily be in the form of basic linear weight and rep increases.

Focus on getting stronger over time on all the key compound exercises. When you combine that with a small calorie surplus and sufficient protein, if your numbers in the gym are consistently going up, then you are going to consistently build muscle as well.

But a big mistake I see a lot of lifters make with progressive overload is rushing the process and trying to increase their strength too quickly. They end up sacrificing form for the sake of lifting heavier weight, which could mean they aren’t activating the targeted muscle because they’re using momentum or that other muscle groups are taking over.

But even more importantly, the risk for injury goes way up. If you get injured, it’s going to slow down your rate of muscle building progress in the long term because you’ll have to take time off to heal, and it could even permanently negatively affect your training efforts.

Bottom line?

Any time you add weight to the bar, your form should look exactly the same as it did with the previous weight – no additional momentum, same speed on the negative, same full range of motion.

If any of those factors are significantly changing after you’ve increased the weight, then that’s not true progressive overload. You’re moving too quickly.

You don’t need to add more weight to the bar every single workout or even every single week. Even performing one extra rep with the same weight is meaningful strength progression.

The general approach I recommend is to train for additional reps with a given weight. Once you hit the upper end of your target rep range, increase the weight by five pounds (or even less if it’s a smaller isolation lift). Then just go back to training for reps and repeat that process.

If you’re consistently adding one rep per week and then increasing the weight every two to three weeks, maybe slightly longer depending on the exercise, while maintaining perfect form, you’ll be generally on the right track as far as building muscle goes.

So if you’re serious about your muscle building goals and want to maximize your chances for long-term bodybuilding success, slow down. This is something you want to be doing for the rest of your life.

Don’t try to add weight too quickly, because it will eventually backfire. The quality of your training will gradually decrease, and you’ll be at much higher risk for injury.

Increasing your strength on compound lifts will add muscle to your frame at the fastest rate, but true progressive overload means that your form remains exactly the same regardless of how heavy the load is.

Progressive overload is the primary driver of hypertrophy, but only if it’s being applied properly.