Progression Is Key

Did you start a fitness routine this year or recently? Did you notice continuous results for the first 2 months or so? Are you staying dedicated to the same exercises each week? Lastly, are you still experiencing positive results and noticeable changes in your performance and body? If you answered “yes” to the first few questions and “no” to the last one then it sounds like you are missing a crucial piece to the fitness puzzle.

To continue to get stronger, we have to be thoughtful about our approach.

That piece is called “progressive overload”. The body is great at adapting to new stimulus. Given a new challenge, the body will adapt to become better at that challenge. If you only give the body the same exercises, weights, distances, times etc. week in and week out for months, change will stop occurring. The body will have adapted sufficiently and you will not continue to see increases in your performance or change to your body. This is fine if you wish to maintain your current fitness or physique, but if you want to continue to see positive change then you will need to challenge yourself with something new. If you are a weight lifter it may be time to increase the resistance you use or rotate in some new exercises. If you enjoy running, biking, rowing or swimming then you may need to increase your pace, change the distance you cover or mix in new drills that will help with technique, speed, efficiency etc. Regardless of your exercise choices, what the body will need is something different. This does not mean you need to change exercises daily, or even weekly, but rather every couple of months. If you change your exercises up too much it will be harder to tell if you are making progress. Are you getting stronger, faster or more efficient? It will be hard to tell if you are switching exercises too frequently.

So, do we just continue to get stronger, faster and leaner forever until the end of time? I wish! Small “de load” periods will be needed throughout the year for progression along with progressive overload. This means every few months or so you ease up on the physical activity to let the body recover more fully. Appropriately timed periods of rest, to de load the physical stress of the body, will be necessary to see continuous results.

Lastly, if you have been sticking to your routine for months on end, I want to applaud your efforts. This is no easy feat, especially when the results you saw at the start are no longer happening like they were. If you would like to revitalize your program and your engagement with your fitness routine but do not know where to start, please contact me. We will get you back on track to making progress.