Progressive Overload is Overrated

Luckily for Milo, the bull stopped growing because, as any lifter eventually discovers, progressive overload is a finite thing. Ultimately, you are limited by your genetic potential, the gravity of the earth, the length of your lever arms, general physics, and in some cases, how comfortable you are with the sensation of a huge bull penis rubbing against each other. against his back.

It is a fact of life; all overcome. But here’s the irony: It’s the obsessive pursuit of progressive overload that causes untold numbers of lifters to peak prematurely.

This is something I remembered while running some “fitness snacks.” In case you’re not familiar with the term, it relates to doing several short bursts of exercise throughout the day that are separate from your main workout(s). In my case, I was doing things like push-ups, pull-ups, timed hangs, and timed planks.

Every day, or every time I did one of those moves, I would try to add a rep or a few seconds, depending on the move. You know, progression. But invariably, he would start to struggle with the reps or the extra seconds. Each progression became more difficult. He no longer felt like doing them.

Eventually, I would shit, do the last rep or extra seconds with terrible form, or expend so much energy and will doing the last record rep that my workout snack would end with me coughing up a workout. hairball Ultimately, I would lose enthusiasm and stop doing it.

And that’s when it hit me. I should have chosen a different type of progression; I picked a manageable amount of reps or seconds, and did them every day until I had them, until they were so easy that adding a couple of reps or seconds would be easy.

And then he would continue to do that new number until he had them. That way, he could progress easily, almost effortlessly, at least to the point where he would need to introduce some more creative methods.

It also made me re-evaluate the way I was doing my regular workouts. I realized that my endless pursuit of personal bests (my obsession with a single path of progression) was also sabotaging my efforts.