Principle of progressive overload: my thoughts

Reading Stuart McRobert's books made me think and re-think the principle of progressive overload, which seems to be one of the key principles behind weight training. Unfortunately enough this principle seems to have become almost buried under a host of programs and training techniques and marred to an extent where everyone knew that it existed but nobody really cared for it. The essense of the principle is that for a muscle to grow it needs to be stimulated with gradually increasing resistance.

However, looking back at my years of training I realized that except for the first few months of training I never really consciously used the principle - not successfully anyways. In hindsight I realize why it happened the way it did. The thing is that in the initial few months back in 1987 when I first started I didn't really know my body and didn't have the feeling for the weights. However after 6 or so months I apparently was able to build some muscle (although back in those days I didn't really bother weighing myself so I can't even tell how much muscle I actually built) and learned a bit about weights. So after those few months whenever I would start a new program or exercise I would immediately jump into heaviest weights I could handle at the recommended number of reps and go full-bore into training right off the bat. I would follow it religiously burning my muscle and - now I realize - my CNS to a point of overtraining (sometime very severe) very quickly. But I didn't know it was overtraining. I was diligently trying to add pounds to my lifts every time - pretty much grinding every set to failure but to no avail. I didn't know why I wasn't growing, why I was constantly feeling tired and sluggish despite eating everything in sight. There was no one around to knock some senses into me - everyone was working out hard, hard, and harder. There was no internet back then - I was turning to Joe Weider's and Arnold's books for answers - but all I could find was "train more, train harder, train till you puke", shock your body, surprise your body. And I was doing forced reps, cheating, fighting for those last reps like crazy. I couldn't understand why nothing was happening. Except that I was feeling more and more tired and hating the guts of that gym. That seemed to be the only way to do it. I was doing it for 20 years. Up and down with none to marginal growth, I kept pushing and pushing. Madness...

Stuart's books were the first ones that made me realize a few things. First, that it wasn't lack of training that kept me away from the body I wanted. On the contrary, it was TOO much and TOO frequent. For the first time in my life the light came on and I realized that 3-4 times a week with 30 sets done to failure was a road to Hell. Maybe not for Arnold, not for Haney, not for Coleman - but for me it certainly was. My body was trying to tell me, heck, scream at me at the top of its lungs "give me a goddamn break!!" - but I wouldn't listen. Heck, no! I was under a spell. Arnold and Joe and all the glossy magazines he published couldn't be wrong - my body was. I thought. In all my years of training I can count days when I felt energized! If that's not madness, then I don't know what is.

Working to failure. Now I don't believe that working to failure is necessary. Stuart introduced a concept that was new to me: small weekly increments - 1 to 2.5 lbs depending on the exercise. The key is to allow your body to adapt to a point where new increased poundage feels no heavier than the one from last week! That's it!! Instead of forcing your body to lift more through compromised form and cheating how about ALLOWING it to grow into it naturall? Literally! If you can't handle the expected weight without compromising the form, if the weight feels too heavy, it means that your body isn't ready yet. Give it a few more days and let this new weight feel as light as previous one!

Another great eye-opening notion was momentum gaining cycles. Its gist is as follows: when you start a new cycle DO NOT start with the same weight as the one you finished previous cycle with! Drop the weight by 25-30 % and build back gradually. Let the body gain the momentum. That was my most critical mistake all along. Whenever I started a new program I would immediately jump into heaviest weights possible, whatever the target rep was. Ultimately I was always working at a RM level be it 10RM, 8RM or 12RM. That means I was always working against maximum resistance forcing myself to the gym 3-4 times a week.

(...to be continued)