Skip to content
Coach Sheet

Glossary entry — methodology

Progressive Overload

Increasing training stimulus over time to drive adaptation. Most often via load, reps, or set count; sometimes via tempo, range of motion, or rest reduction.

What progressive overload means

Progressive overload is the gradual increase in training demand to keep driving adaptation. The body adapts to the current load, and the program responds by raising the demand next session. Without overload, the lifter plateaus.

The principle dates to Milo of Croton’s apocryphal calf-carrying story. The modern formulation (DeLorme 1948, Berger 1962) framed it as load progression. Contemporary research recognizes that multiple variables can progress and that load is one of several axes.

Forms of progressive overload

  • Load progression: same reps, more weight (5×5 at 80 kg this week, 82.5 kg next)
  • Rep progression: same weight, more reps (3×8 at 80 kg this week, 3×9 next)
  • Set progression: same prescription, more sets (3×8 this week, 4×8 next)
  • Tempo progression: longer eccentric or paused rep
  • Range of motion progression: deeper squat, fuller stretch in lengthened position
  • Rest reduction: same load, shorter rest periods (cardiovascular and density bias)
  • Density progression: more total work in the same training time

For most lifters in most blocks, load and rep progressions are the primary axes. Set progression is the secondary axis used to push volume during a hypertrophy block.

What “progress” looks like

Plotkin et al, 2022, compared load progression to rep progression in trained lifters. Both produced similar hypertrophy results, suggesting either lever is valid. The implication: don’t fixate on adding weight every week. Adding reps at the same weight is genuine progress.

For strength-specific outcomes (1RM increase), load progression has more direct transfer because 1RM is a load-domain measure.

When progress stalls

Stalls happen at the personal ceiling. The fix isn’t always more weight. Often it’s:

  • A short deload week to clear accumulated fatigue
  • A rep progression cycle (build reps at a sub-maximal load before pushing 1RM)
  • A volume increase (more sets at the working load)
  • A movement variation (front squat block before returning to back squat)

Coaches who insist on weekly load progression as the only valid metric drive clients into plateaus and overuse injuries.

In Coach Sheet

The Save Week automation defaults to load progression (2.5% if RPE allowed it), but the coach can override this on any cell. For hypertrophy blocks where rep progression is the lever, the coach holds load constant and adds rep targets in subsequent microcycles.

Sources

  1. [1]
  2. [2]