f you've been wading through the wonderful, confusing and self-contradictory world of online fitness advice, there are some nuggets you can't avoid coming across.
(Yes, I know this is online fitness advice too... but it's different. How? It just is, OK? Right, back to my point.)
The solution for all weight loss is to eat less and move more.
(Why didn't anyone tell us that sooner? Now we just need to figure out what to eat, how much, when it's going to be made, what exercise to do, where, when and how.)
To sleep better, you need to control your stress.
(Again, how? It takes more than a few deep breaths to stop worrying about whether the baby is going to wake you up, what help your ageing parents need or finishing the report for tomorrow that you were only told about this morning.)
My point is that fitness and health are very simple in principle. But being able to implement those principles in a real, messy, human life can be challenging.
The one I'm going to try and help you with here is progressive overload.
No, that's not the name of a new wave punk band. It's one of the principles that us internet fitness people love to tell you to implement.
So, what does it actually mean, and how do you put it into practice?
What Is Progressive Overload?
To get better at anything, we need a bit of stress.
A bit of a challenge.
If your gym sessions always involve the same exercises, the same reps and the same weights, you're unlikely to see much continued improvement in your strength or muscle development.
Your body has already adapted to that level of demand.
Think about your job. Imagine if you were still doing exactly the same tasks you were given when you were 19. You probably wouldn't have developed the skills, knowledge or experience you have today.
At various points you've been challenged, pushed and asked to do things you couldn't previously do.
Which is why your day doesn't revolve around making tea and being sent to the shops for everyone else.
Without a reason to adapt, there's little reason for further progress.
Progressive overload simply means gradually increasing the demands placed on your body so that it has a reason to keep adapting.
That doesn't necessarily mean lifting heavier weights every time you walk into the gym. There are several ways we can do it.
Should You Change Exercises to Surprise Your Muscles?
No. No, we don't.
Mainly because the idea that you need to constantly surprise your muscles is a big old myth, which thankfully doesn't seem to be quite as popular as it used to be.
Your muscles don't get bored.
They don't wake up on a Monday morning thinking, "Oh great, another set of squats. I wish he'd mix things up a bit."
Your body responds to the demands placed on it. It doesn't need entertaining.
In fact, constantly changing your exercises can make it much harder to get stronger.
Each time you perform an exercise, you're practising that movement. Your nervous system gets better at coordinating your muscles, your technique improves and you become more efficient at performing it.
Imagine trying to learn a musical instrument but never playing the same tune twice.
You'd become reasonably familiar with lots of different tunes, but you'd struggle to become particularly good at any of them.
Changing exercises over a period of weeks, or gradually progressing an exercise to a more challenging variation, can be great tools for developing your training.
But chopping and changing every couple of sessions makes it much harder to measure progress.
Give yourself the opportunity to get good at something before deciding you need something new.
Do You Need to Increase the Weight Every Session?
This is how progressive overload is usually presented.
Try to add a little more weight every time you train.
When you're new to training, this is fairly achievable.
You're learning technique, building confidence and becoming more familiar with what you're capable of.
But it can't go on forever.
Within a few months you'd be setting world records in every lift.
There wouldn't be enough weights in the gym to cope with your mighty strength.
Progress doesn't happen in a straight line, and the stronger you become, the harder it is to keep adding weight at the same rate.
Some days you'll feel amazing and the weights feel like someone has turned the gravity off.
Other days…well…it’ll feel like you have lead boots, the gravity is on double and you really don’t want to be there.
Like the rest of your life, some days are better than others.
How to Apply Progressive Overload to Your Training
Here's one way of doing it.
It's extremely simple, but very effective if you have a little patience and are smart enough to record your weights and reps each session.
Let's use a simple example.
Choose an exercise and a weight that allows you to perform three sets of eight good-quality repetitions.
You don't need to be completely exhausted at the end of every set, but the weight should provide a reasonable challenge.
Once you can perform three sets of eight with good technique, keep the weight the same and increase your target to ten repetitions.
Work towards getting ten reps on all three sets.
Once you can do that, increase your target to twelve repetitions.
Still with the same weight.
When you can perform three sets of twelve, increase the weight and drop your target back to eight repetitions.
Then repeat the process.
Essentially, you're gradually increasing the amount of work you can do before making the exercise heavier.
Simple.
But effective.
Progressive Overload in Practice
Let's say you've chosen a weight for three sets of eight repetitions.
Here's what that might look like:
Week 1
Set 1: 8 reps
Set 2: 8 reps
Set 3: 6 reps
Not quite there yet.
Week 2
Set 1: 8 reps
Set 2: 8 reps
Set 3: 8 reps
Cool. High five to you.
You've hit all three sets of eight, so next time you're aiming for ten.
Week 3
Set 1: 10 reps
Set 2: 8 reps
Set 3: 6 reps
That's fine. Keep working towards ten.
Week 4
Set 1: 10 reps
Set 2: 9 reps
Set 3: 8 reps
Getting closer.
Week 5
Set 1: 10 reps
Set 2: 10 reps
Set 3: 10 reps
Lovely stuff.
Now your target becomes twelve reps.
You keep the same weight and repeat the process until you can perform three sets of twelve.
At that point, increase the weight, drop back to eight reps and start again.
You might progress faster than this, or it might take you longer. It doesn't matter.
The important thing is that you're gradually improving what you can do.
A Few Things to Remember
There are a couple of things worth keeping in mind.
Your technique comes first.
There's little point adding weight or repetitions if you're having to butcher the movement to get them done. The quality of the repetitions matters.
You don't need to progress every session.
Some days you'll feel stronger than others. Sleep, stress, nutrition and general life all have an impact on how you perform.
Don't confuse one difficult session with a lack of progress.
Keep a record of what you do.
This is probably the most important practical point.
If you don't record your weights and repetitions, how do you know whether you're improving?
You don't need anything fancy. A notebook or a training app will do.
Be patient.
Getting stronger takes time. The aim isn't to find a way to make every workout harder than the last. It's to give your body a reason to adapt over time.
The Takeaway
Progressive overload isn't complicated.
You don't need to constantly change your exercises, chase heavier weights every session or find increasingly inventive ways to exhaust yourself.
You need a sensible training plan, a way of measuring what you're doing and the patience to gradually build on it.
The principles of getting stronger are relatively simple.
Putting them into practice consistently, especially when you've got a job, family and everything else life throws at you, is where the real challenge lies.
And that's probably a much better thing to spend your energy worrying about than whether you've found the perfect exercise to surprise your muscles.