What Is Progressive Overload?
It basically comes down to applying a maximal stress to the muscle so that it doesn’t have a choice but to grow bigger and stronger. A muscle working within its limitations has no reason to change, so you constantly need to increase the overload (weight lifted) in order to create the same stimulus. Here are a few guidelines to use when constructing your ultimate workout routine: • Choose the most productive (compound) exercises for each muscle group. • Use free weights in replace of machines whenever possible. • Train each muscle group only once a week. • Train 1-2 muscle groups per day. • For your workout, use between 3-6 sets per body-part, and no greater then 10 total sets for the entire session. • During a set, keep the time under tension less then 20 seconds. • If the weights are starting to feel easy, you need to increase the overload. • Recovery is key. Take a week off whenever you feel totally drained and unmotivated. 5 – Action With all the information I have put forth to you,
Progressive overload is the gradual increase of intensity placed upon your body during a workout over a period of time. This means that in order for your muscles to grow, you need to continually challenge your body by increasing the intensity of your workout in very small steps. In STS you will start the first week of Mesocycle 1 using weights that are only about 60% of your one rep max (1RM). Then every week, except week #3, you will slowly and gradually increase your weights by about 5% so that by the time you finish the program you will be using heavy weights that are up to 90% of your 1RM.
