Why You Should Know About Progressive Overload

My current training program focuses a lot on progressive overload. Within the fitness world, this is an often used term where the idea is to gradually increase the stress that is placed on the body. The progressive overload principle was developed by Thomas Delorme right after WWII where he rehabilitated soldiers. During my workout today, I thought a bit more about this concept. And I want to share this idea with you.

Plateau

One of the examples of progressive overload is to keep adding small amounts of weight every time you were able to do the previous weight successfully. This way your body will adjust to the new weight, without you noticing any difference. If you are interested find more information here. It is a simple concept but if you keep it up consistently it is almost inevitable that you make progress and your body becomes stronger over time.

Sometimes you hit a plateau even when applying this principle. And at that point, you reflect and change your approach. You just trick your body into the next stage. For instance by keeping the same weight but do more repetitions. Or start with the heaviest weight and do fewer repetitions. At some point, you will pass that checkpoint and your body adapts again.

“It’s an upwards spiral you want to be in”

Becoming 1% better every day

I believe this principle is something we could also use outside of the gym. It is a pretty powerful and effective idea when we apply it to the things we want to learn or grow as a person. It strongly relates to the concept of making 1% improvement every day. A philosophy that was introduced by the Americans, but eventually used against them in the Car industry by the Japanese who named it Kaizen.

The power of making these small wins is perfectly explained in this article at Harvard Business Review. It not only about improving yourself but you also strengthen your ambition and motivation when you recognize your own improvements. It’s an upwards spiral you want to be in.

The idea of becoming 1% better every day is so strong and for me relates to the principle of progressive overload. If we focus on making small gains every day it will eventually lead to remarkable improvements after a year.

A good example of where we could use the idea of progressive overload is when we try to step out of our comfort zone. We grab this zone with both hands and pull to stretch it up. Think of a rubber band; when you stretch it often enough the tension becomes less. But if you stop practicing it, it will return to it’s former shape. You need to maintain it.

Do you see the resemblance with progressive overload? Stretching your comfort zone feels as awkward and maybe as painful as when you just picked up your first weights. Especially when you do it suddenly like putting 20 kilograms extra load on your exercise. But to grow you should find the edges of your comfort zone, because it is often a good pointer to the area where you can become better.

Start Small

How do I put this to use?

Start small. And gradually add some weight. Nowadays I keep this principle in mind while learning Hungarian. Learning this language is currently a habit I’ve attached to my Miracle Morning routine. I use Memrise to work on my vocabulary, the program keeps steadily adding new words and putting some up for review. But I also gradually set the Daily Goal higher. So I add some extra weight. My mind starts to adjust. And takes in even more words in a quicker way. Hence progressive overload.

From good to great

Let’s say you want to become better in public speaking. You start small, first, you find out what builds up to a good speech.

You could kick it off with a course on Coursera. Or you go through all the available material on Ted. Then you start recording yourself and as a next step, you may share this recording within a group of people who have the same purpose. Your first real talk could be in front of any small group, at your work or at a birthday. And at some point, you do a talk for a small group without being too nervous while applying some of the learned techniques.

This is the point where we often stop or just keep doing it on the same level. Are we able to do a talk right? Then this is where progressive overload can take you from good to great. Take it to the next level, add some extra ‘weight’ by presenting in front of a bigger group or on a different stage. Find new ways to stretch yourself.

I would love to learn about some other examples from you!

For now Happy Stretching!