Is Progressive overload important for hypertrophy training?
In a nutshell, progressive overload (PO) means that your
training loads and volume is steadily creeping higher as you train more and
more. Either you are doing more reps with same weight or more weight for same
reps.
But is PO really that important?
Many pro bodybuilders claim they don’t care about
progressive overload, they rather “train by feel”. They hit the gym. Train each
exercise hard, close to failure or to failure, get a massive pump, flex, and
bounce.
No measured progression from session to session, week to
week. Just lifting heavy iron.
Yet, they are the most muscular people on the planet.
How can this be possible? Are they just lying through their teeth?
Well, training volume is one of the most important drivers of
hypertrophy (Sets per muscle group). The more training volume you do, the more
you are doing to grow. At least to a point, and considering you are indeed
recovering from session to session. This has been shown lately with more
experienced trainees (Brigatto et
al. 2022). However, the jury is still out on where the practical
limit for training volume lies. More research is needed, but volume matters. A
lot.
Effective training
Another aspect that needs to be discussed before conclusion
is the length of the working sets and effective repetitions.
Sets ranging from 5 reps all the way to 30 reps induce well
enough stimulus to cause hypertrophy. Any rep-range does, but this 5 to 30 rep-range
could be considered the most practical one. Five is enough reps to pack in one
set so that you don’t need to do a masochistic amount of heavy triples or
singles, and 30 is just long enough before you start falling asleep mid-set.
But there is a catch. These sets need to be taken close to
failure, or even all the way to failure. Meaning momentary muscular failure, when you cannot
concentrically lift the weight anymore, or technical failure, where your
lifting technique breaks down during the concentric action.
Anything from 5 reps to failure to all the way to failure
induce almost the same amount of hypertrophy. Closer to failure you get, the
more stimulus you impose. However, the difference is quite small. These zero to
five “reps in reserve” can be considered as the effective reps. This is also when
training is considered hard by the way.
So, if you incrementally aim for higher training volume,
does it really matter what loads you are lifting? Or how many reps you are
performing with that load? Just as long as volume increases, or simply stays
very high, and the working sets are effective?
Are you ready to forget about progressive overload now?
Don’t be too hasty…
Progressive practicality
Let’s imagine, that from now on you forget about progressive
overload, and just aim for high volume training with effective sets and good
pumps.
What’s the downside?
You’d get more and more “swole” no matter what! Just keep
the volume high and lift hard!
Well, unfortunately there is more to training than just
training.
You must recover as well.
You probably know that recovery is very important for
progress in the gym. If you simply train and train all the time, you won’t make
any progress. At rest, is when you actually make the gains from the training
session. If you train under-recovered, you only build more fatigue, and
overtime you will burn out.
Monitoring recovery is where PO comes in super handy.
If you track your training loads, you can look back on how
much you lifted a week ago, load that same weight on the bar, and if you cannot
match the reps you did last time, you are very likely not recovered. If this
same incidence happens over and over again, you should pay better attention to
your recovery from training.
Along with performance and recovery, PO helps to measure whether
you’ve made any improvements.
If you can lift heavier for same reps than 6 months ago, you
are very likely more muscular.
Unless we’re talking about beginners, who make gains mostly via
neural improvements. But if you have been lifting for multiple years and your
ten rep max increases by 10kg in 6 months, you’re probably a bit bigger.
So, are you still over progressive overload?
If the answer is yes, go ahead and train by feel and do whatever
you wish at the gym. You might not expect the best results from your training.
Not a big deal.
If the answer is no, I’ve got the absolutely greatest tool
for you to incorporate progressive overload to your training.
CookieCutter training program.
It is a strength training platform designed to increase
muscle mass and strength, and it features the progressive overload component
unlike no other training program. This does take some work from your part, of
course. You need to evaluate your own training.
If you are an intermediate to experienced lifter looking to
gain muscle mass make sure to check this gem out here!
Thank you for reading,
Sincerely,
Mitja
References:
Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Strength and
Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: A
Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Strength Cond Res. 2017
Dec;31(12):3508-3523.
Brigatto FA, Lima LEM, Germano MD, Aoki MS, Braz TV, Lopes
CR. High Resistance-Training Volume Enhances Muscle Thickness in
Resistance-Trained Men. J Strength Cond Res. 2022 Jan 1;36(1):22-30.
Schoenfeld BJ, Contreras B, Krieger J, Grgic J, Delcastillo
K, Belliard R, Alto A. Resistance Training Volume Enhances Muscle Hypertrophy
but Not Strength in Trained Men. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2019 Jan;51(1):94-103.
Nóbrega SR, Ugrinowitsch C, Pintanel L, Barcelos C, Libardi CA. Effect of Resistance Training to Muscle Failure vs. Volitional Interruption at High- and Low-Intensities on Muscle Mass and Strength. J Strength Cond Res. 2018 Jan;32(1):162-169.
Israetel, Mike PhD1; Feather, Jared MS1; Faleiro, Tiago V.1; Juneau, Carl-Etienne PhD2 Mesocycle Progression in Hypertrophy: Volume Versus Intensity, Strength and Conditioning Journal: October 2020 - Volume 42 - Issue 5 - p 2-6
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