When it comes to how to grow muscle, you need to continuously challenge them with more than they’re used to. In other words: you need progressive overload. As simple as this sounds, most people’s training don’t accomplish progressive overload. Sure they’ll get a good pump and sweat out of their workouts but they aren’t actually doing much to signal their muscles to grow overtime. To understand the importance of progressive overload for hypertrophy, you should first know how muscles grow. So let’s say we just finished a workout. Immediately after, our muscles don’t actually get stronger. In fact, it’s not until after a few days of proper recovery that they adapt to the damage we put them through. Meaning? For consistent gains overtime, your workouts need to be designed such that they literally force your muscles to grow every single session. So, today, we’ll cover the 5 types of progressive overload you must know.
Increasing the amount of weight lifted is the progressive overload method most people rely on. To apply it, it’s quite straightforward. Let’s say you can currently bench press 100lbs for 8 reps. Next week, you might try to increase the load and do 110lbs for 8 reps. That said, if you take our previous example of bench pressing 100lbs in week 1 and adding 10lbs of weight every week, at the end of the year theoretically you should be benching 620lbs. That’s impossible. This is where our next point comes in handy.
When applied properly, adding more reps is another great way to incorporate progressive overload into your training to force your muscles to grow. As long as you’re continuing to push hard, you can keep the same weight and increase all the way up to 30 reps and still get the same growth compared to adding more weight. This is helpful if you only have limited equipment or a nagging injury and can’t increase the weight on your lifts. However for those who do have access to more weights, consider double progression. However, again this often only works for so long. What happens when you get stuck unable to add more weight or do more reps?
The next method of progressive overload to stimulate hypertrophy has to do with how many sets you perform. However, while ee know doing at least 10 sets per muscle-group per week nearly doubles the amount of gains you would get from doing 5 sets per muscle group per week, there comes a point of diminishing returns when you get into the 20-30 set zone. A good rule of thumb is to increase volume no more than 10-20% per week. Then, once you get to the 20-30 set zone or just begin to feel quite fatigued, you can cycle back to the original program you started with.
The next two types of progressive overload are ways you can continue forcing your muscles to grow while lifting the same weight and doing the same number of reps and sets every week. First: if we slow down our reps, we can increase the amount of time that tension is placed on the muscle to stimulate more growth. This is especially effective for exercises involving smaller, weaker muscle groups like lateral raises where adding just a little bit of weight disproportionately often increases the difficulty, or bodyweight exercises like push-ups and pull-ups where adding weight may not even be an option. However, you want to avoid going too slow as that can provide the opposite effect and start to hinder muscle growth rather than boost it. Note: it seems that we can slow down our reps up to about 6 seconds total.
Oftentimes when people think they are challenging their muscles more by adding more weight to their lifts, they really just end up compromising their form in the process. Instead, realize that when it comes to how to grow muscle, if you do the same workout you did the week before, but you performed your exercises with better control, less momentum, and more activation of your target muscles, that is progression. Better form involves relying more on the target muscles and will result in growth even if all other variables remain the same.
Now as for which of these 5 methods is best and will provide the most growth, the truth is, it depends. It depends on your level of experience, your equipment availability, and if there’s a certain type of plateau you’re stuck in. The best way to find out is to experiment with them and see what works best for you. But if you’re looking for a step by step program that takes care of all the guesswork for you and ensures that week by week you’re challenging your body in the right way to consistently build muscle and lose fat, just take our analysis quiz to find out which of our programs is best for you and your body below:
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Hope you enjoyed this one! For those interested you can read the full article at https://builtwithscience.com/progressive-overload-techniques/ ! Let me know what you'd like to see next! Cheers!
1. Have good genetics
bro, the sound is bad, try getting in a place without echo
because your voice is less clear
You’ve made learning this topic so enjoyable and stress-free.
5:56 gyatt!!
Your videos always leave me feeling more confident and informed.
Why is increase intake of proteins not being mentioned? Would the muscles grow bigger with all these tips if the protein intake remains the same?
Anyone 2024
great video learned a lot
Your voice is like transgender, you need to see a speech therapist! Free advice
I want to ask you a question, hope you answer it. So, I am 14 years old, and you can say I am a starter. I got my six pack, for my chest, but can't get my arms. I do pull ups every day, doing everything I can, dumbells, but nothing helps. Could you tell me what to do
Like why
?? 5:56
In India, in every 60 Seconds become 1 minute now a days
Is this bro science?
Okay, I am 70 years old, started in December 2023. I started with a warm up set, then 3 sets. Each set is 8 reps, then the week after 9, progressing up to 12 reps after several weeks. At 12 reps, I do 2 weeks, then weight increase, drop back to 8 reps and repeat, until I fail. Then I do a rethink and that is where I am for this week.
Great information
Thanks man it really helped I’m at the gym rn so ima try it out
This video is actually very important. 2:30 he starts talking about how if you can’t add more weight do more reps. Honestly this is sooo true !!! Just add reps to the previous weight you been hitting and eventually you can lift heavier weight. Who ever sees this info and is stuck don’t ever stop.
Modifications in training routine and nutition routines help to build muscles faster
Oldie but goodie
Im taking longjack supplement along with workout. I think it helped me with faster muscle growth and recovery. Just started reverse grip push up, squats and chin up for about a week plus, but now im able to maintain consistent reps and do more sets. No noticeable growth yet but definitely can feel the muscles are getting harder. I must have faith and never give up
hi! im a teenager and im struggling to gain muscle mass. will this work and can anyone help me? thanks.
what should i do if i cant acces a gym im 14
Started my fitness journey a while ago, and I haven’t been making progress so I’m watching this video to see what I’m doing wrong
Aside this guy's excellent advice the good stuff happens at 5:57
yeah if it hurts your biceps its rlly good u know why bc its damaged but it gonna grow stroger
Like 10 bucks for planet fitness or the other one, I forgot right now. Easy. Don’t need 100 grand, you need a couple of grand to 5-10 max depends how ripped you wanna be. I’m targeting atleast 170 and my real target is 180-190(in case I gotta go against heavyweights you know) cause ima ectomorph. Yeah. That’s what life gave me. Or else I can work out easy, I’m a hard gainer. I worked out before, my muscles deflated and so did my pack. Inactivity. I smoke and drank too much. I used to be kinda fast. Kinda strong. Kinda lb for lb. Ima do it again. My lung capacity was like 3-4 min breath hold etc. you know. Once I get rid of lame niggas who wanna copy me 24-7z then I can do my shits without boys following me. And girls too. Who can live life like that. Celebrities got it hard… nobody cares the stress they go through.
Need proper nutritions and I need money, so that means I gotta get rid of my stalkers who are obsessed right? Cause I was shit, they wouldn’t spend 24-7 365 10 years + on me. Imagine following a retarded person around all the time? Who does that! Lol. Makes sense? Only to stupid people xD Cx
Im at a plateu where I feel like I get a good pump every workout but see the same exact results. None. Lol. My arms are average sized but buff is the goal.