This concept is important so I want to expand on it. The body adapts to the demand placed on it.

If you do the exact same workout week after week – your body will adapt to it and you will stop seeing changes.

That being said, increasing weight is not the only way to apply progressive overload. Your body doesn’t know WHY or HOW greater stress is placed on it – it just feels and responds appropriately.

PO can be applied through a variety of techniques including tempo, weights, reps, sets or even just decreased rest periods.

Here is an example for a beginner progression using only weights and reps to progress:

Here is a more advanced example over 6 weeks using tempo, reps, sets and rest to progress:

This could be done with the same weight all 6 weeks and as simple as this is – this is progressive overload.

THIS is why you don’t need to change every exercise in a workout every week.

THIS is why SIMPLE IS BETTER.

This would be considered a more advanced type of progressive overload, based largely on tempo and rest periods.

Here is an example of progressive overload as well as how one can increase weights WITHIN the workout to progress over the weeks using just weights and reps. TEMPO AND REST STAY THE SAME

For this particular rep scheme the goal is 10-15 reps. Once you’ve hit 15 reps at a given weight for 2-3 sets it’s time to go up in weight. This is as simple as progressive overload gets. Once something is easy – make it harder!

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to HOW you progress and which method is necessarily more optimal as it all completely depends on your goals. Get creative and use various methods to break past plateaus, increase strength and look buff!