This One Change to Your Routine Will Make You Grow Like Never Before
You’re doing it right. You view going to the gym as more than just a social event. Your primary goal is building muscle – no nonsense. Yet you are not growing the way you should be. Why not?
The fact of the matter is that most people go to the gym without a focused plan to get to the next level. The name of that plan? Progressive overloading. As the name suggests, this strategy involves continually challenging your muscles, so they are forced to adapt. If gym-goers do this at all, they focus on increasing the weight by moving the pin, adding plates or picking up a heavier dumbbell. But as exercise scientist Brad Schoenfeld puts it: “Manipulation of any variable is effective provided it challenges the muscles to adapt.” Drop sets, rest pauses, add-ons – all these count as challenging the muscles. My personal favorite technique is adding volume (i.e. more sets).
Why does this work? Let’s get basic: The human body responds to new stimuli. In the case of weight training, it responds with muscle growth. However, if we train our bodies the same way, day in and day out, we build up an eventual resistance to that particular stimulus. Everyone has experienced this. It’s commonly called a “plateau.”
Plateaus are caused by another characteristic of the human body, one that allowed us to survive and thrive as a species. Our bodies are very efficient when it comes to using energy and will expend the least amount of energy necessary to perform a certain amount of work. Without imposing a more demanding stimulus, the body has no need to grow or get stronger. There you have it: This is why your muscles aren’t responding to your training efforts.
Progressive overloading addresses this issue by keeping the stimulus fresh and putting your body in a position where it has no choice but to grow. You can apply this insight immediately to your current training cycle. Set a short-term goal – I recommend six weeks to start – and adjust your plan accordingly. In the workout below, I use a simple chest routine to illustrate a progressive overloading approach. However, the strategy can be applied to any muscle or muscle group.
Upon completion of the six-week training block, you should “deload” for one training cycle. Deloading involves going back to the first week of your training block and doing exactly what you did before – except this time you perform high reps for every exercise at a weight that keeps you far away from muscle failure. When I deload, I do 15-20 reps per set at a weight where I could do 25 reps with ease if I wanted. Doing this promotes good blood flow to the muscles while giving them a much-needed break in order to fully recover before the next training block.
A deload can come sooner or later in your training cycle. It depends on several different factors: your age, how experienced you are as a lifter, what kind of shape you are in, how intensely you train and how much sleep you get. Things like this play into how effectively and for how long you can continue to train at a high level and with good intensity.
With this in mind, I want to reiterate that it’s a good idea to start with a goal of six weeks for your first block of training and see how you stack up. If you are feeling really tired and beat up, perhaps a four-week or five-week block is best for you. If you have a ton of energy at the completion of your training block, maybe a seven-week or eight-week block of training suits you better. Keep in mind that training intensity is always the key, no matter where you fall in terms of durability. Regardless, I strongly recommend that everyone deload every eight weeks at minimum. Muscles need rest to grow.
When you finish deloading, move on to your next training cycle. This will be the same as your last cycle with one difference: Your starting weights on all movements will be two to three percent heavier than last time. And that’s how you smash through plateaus and make sure you keep seeing results in the gym.
Work hard, train smarter!
For Paid Subscribers Only
Click here for a workout routine that illustrates the progressive overloading approach.