PROGRESSIVE OVER LOAD AND GAINS:HOW TO APPLY TO TRAINING?

Who does not want to gain muscle and look more aesthetic?

But to everyone who says “I have been going to the gym for XYZ months but no weight loss, no muscle gain” have you thought why?
Muscles need Progressive Overload to grow and develop.
WHY PROGRESSIVE OVER LOAD?
When we train we are going to hit a plateau at some point of time. This is when we can’t see any progress in terms of SIZE & STRENGTH, or inches and kilos.
This can be mainly because 2 reasons:

1. You are doing way too much, that is your volume and your work exceeds your current recovery capacities and you simply cannot adapt to that ongoing training stimulus. Then you need to reduce your volume and continue your way.
2. OR… you not doing enough.

THIS IS WHERE PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD COMES IN PLAY…

By not doing enough, even when you feel you are going to gym daily, what I mean is, your body has got accustomed to, the current amt of stress, which you are imposing daily during resistance training, and it’s super easy for it to withstand daily.
This is why it is important to understand what PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD is. It is not just adding weights to the bar but also making a point to increasing the amt of stress you are exposing to your musculature through external load and resistance tension in your training set.
Best way to remember this is with

S-R-A CURVE— STIMULATE-RECOVER-ADAPT

Let’s say we go to gym and do squats. Now the STIMULUS & STRESS should be DISRUPTIVE enough to challenge the body’s system, that is the musculature, nervous system, your hormones, your immune system, and many other things that act as chain reactions to each other.
So next time when the same amount of STRESS is imposed on the body it is not going to cause the same amount of disruption in the whole system as the body will adapt to the stress. The GOAL OF THE BODY to maintain HOMEOSTATIS.
So over a course of time we need to progressively make the STIMULUS & STRESS harder and harder. And that is where LOT OF PEOPLE GO WRONG.
People underestimate the PROGRESSIVE NATURE of the concept of overloading part and disruptive component of progressive overload.

Your training must be hard and stressful enough to cause adaptation. If it’s not done you will recover to BASE LINE and you will not get to see positive adaptation.
NOW the ADAPTATION we are talking about here is part of HYPERTROPHY…
That is, the changes in myofibrils and the contractile element, the protein so that we are getting bigger and visually looking larger.

Now let’s see what the MECHANISM behind HTPERTROPHY IS.
It depends on 2 KEY FACTORS

MECHANICAL TENSION-force or resistance of stimulus in training that is the load on the cable, bar, pulley, simply put the weights.

METABOLIC STRESS- simply energy production via anaerobic glycolysis, where we see build up of metabolites lactic acid, and inorganic phosphate —this increases the swelling of cell which means that it’s going to disrupt integrity of cell.

The applied pressure that increases the growth potential long term is MUSCLE DAMAGE…This by-product of that TENSION AND STRESS
Now over a course of time if we increase overload, that is the amount of tension placed on muscle and the amount of metabolic stress we going to see an increase in muscle protein balance.
So with caloric surplus or maintenance and protein on point we can easily achieve our GOAL…
HOW TO APPLY TO TRAINING

By

Leena Doshi

INFS & ESA Certified

Fitness & Nutrition Consultant

FITTR Coach