Section Progress
0% Complete

HOW WE WILL PROGRESS ON THIS PROGRAM:

As mentioned earlier, The Goal of this program is to increase your physical strength and muscle mass. In order to achieve more strength, your muscles need to be stressed in such a way that triggers the body’s natural, adaptive response to new demands placed on it.

This is why this program is built on the Principle of Progressive Overload.

Progressive Overload is the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise training. By stress, we mean weight. Simply put, it means that you have to demand more of your body if you want it to continually improve. Otherwise, it has no reason for further growth.

Progressive overload not only stimulates muscle hypertrophy (muscle growth), but it also stimulates the development of stronger and denser bones, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage, which is crucial for mobility and longevity as we age.

The most commonly known method of applying progressive overload is to add more weight to the bar every session, every week, or every month. This is the standard. With that being said, it isn’t the only way to utilize progressive overload. â€‹

Ways To Apply PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD:

  1. INCREASED INTENSITY: Add more weight on the bar than last time. Example: 180X5 today, 185X5 next time, and 190×5 the following week.
  2. INCREASED VOLUME: More total amount of work done on a particular movement. (WEIGHT X REPS X SETS) 200lbs 3X5 TODAY. 200 4X5 OR 200 3X6 NEXT TIME.
  3. INCREASED TRAINING DENSITY: Accomplishing the same amount of work in a shorter period of time. 200lbs 3X5 WITH 2 MINUTES BETWEEN SETS TODAY, 200 3X5 WITH 90 SECONDS BETWEEN SETS NEXT TIME.
  4. INCREASED MOVEMENT DIFFICULTY: DO THE SAME THING WITH A SLIGHTLY MORE CHALLENGING MOVEMENT NEXT TIME. 150 3X5 TOUCH AND GO BENCH TODAY, 150 3X5 PAUSED BENCH NEXT TIME â€‹

Ultimately, if you’re applying any sort of progressive overload and your performance in the gym improves measurably, the End result will be an increase in strength and muscle mass.

The easiest way to see that is when you’re just adding more weight to the bar (if you could do 175×5 today, and you could only do 170×5 last week, then you’ve clearly gotten stronger)

In this program, we’re going to focus on increasing intensity each week by the smallest increment. This will be our main form of progression.

HOW WE WILL PROGRESS ON THIS PROGRAM:

When performing each exercise, Pick a weight that you can lift and complete the prescribed amount of sets and reps. With each exercise, the weight should be light enough for you to be able to perform 2 more reps after finishing your set.

But it should also be heavy enough that you’re literally Only able to perform 2 more reps.
Every week, we will be increasing the weight by the smallest increment available, 1.5LBS, 2.5LBS, or 5 pounds. So if you perform the bench press with 40 pound dumbbells, for 5 reps with 4 sets. The next week you will move up to 45 pound dumbbells and aim to hit the same 5 reps for 4 sets.

If you accomplish all 5 reps for 4 sets, we’ll increase the weight the following week to 50 pound dumbbells and keep progressing in that manner.

BUT, what happens if you fail to benchpress the 40 pound dumbbells for all prescribed sets and reps? Let’s say on your Day 1 workout, you benchpress 40 pounds for all 5 reps on sets 1,2 and 3. But on set 4, you only can do 3 reps. Take note of it and the next week you must perform that same weight for the same number of sets and reps until you reach all 4 sets of 5 reps. THEN, and only then, can you go up in weight.

​Remember, proper form is key and is a priority over increasing weight, if you can’t yet perform all sets and reps with proper form, don’t increase the weight.

If your butt is flying high off the bench while you’re bench pressing, stay at that weight and hit the required sets and reps again without popping off the bench. We want to minimize the risk of injury and maximize muscle growth. ​