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All about progressive overload

Learn why it’s important to progressively add weights and increase movement difficulty.

Emma Gronholz

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If you’ve ever wondered why our team of Rise coaches is so insistent on having you increase your weights, add a few more inches to your box jumps, or make you sink a little deeper in your squats, it’s all because of one thing: Progressive overload. This is the key to seeing progress and results in the gym. The definition of progressive overload is gradually increasing the demands placed on the body through increased weights, reps, or sets to stimulate muscle growth and development by changing the stimulus applied to the body. 

Although progressive overload can be exciting when you see yourself crush a new PR, it can also be challenging because it requires you to step out of your comfort zone. So, allow me to share some information about progressive overload with you so that you can better understand how and why we use it at Rise.

Why we use progressive overload at Rise

The idea behind progressive overload is that your body adapts to the stress you place on it. So, if you keep doing the same workout with the same intensity, your progress will plateau. To keep making gains, you need to progressively make the exercises more challenging in a controlled and consistent way. Here are just a few of the reasons we use the concept of progressive overload in our personal training programs:

  1. Promotes Growth: By increasing the workload, you force your muscles to adapt and grow. For strength, it means getting stronger over time; for hypertrophy (muscle growth), it promotes muscle fiber recruitment and repair.

  2. Prevents Plateaus: Without progressive overload, the body will adapt to the current workload and stop improving. Continuously challenging the body with greater intensity or volume prevents stagnation and ensures ongoing progress.

  3. Improves Performance: Whether it’s lifting more weight, doing more reps, or running faster, progressive overload helps clients improve their physical performance systematically.

  4. Enhances Motivation: Seeing measurable progress—whether it’s lifting heavier weights or performing more reps—can boost motivation and make workouts feel more rewarding.

Ways we use progressive overload at Rise

There are a few ways you’ll notice progress overload being incorporated into your training plan at Rise:

  • Coaches continually push you to increase the weights that you are lifting

  • Your training plan will reflect a progression of the difficulty of your movements (Example: bodyweight squat to goblet squat to front squat to back squat)

  • Your training plan will change in intensity as you journey through the different phases of training (General physical preparedness, endurance, hypertrophy, strength, power). Here’s a breakdown of those phases:

    • Endurance phase - Lift light to medium weights for high amounts of reps. Build up the body's tolerance to lifting weights and moving. Average of 12-20 reps at lower weights and difficulty to build up a stable base.

    • Hypertrophy phase - Build up muscle mass and size. Increase strength by doing high reps at 67-85% of max effort. Average of 6-12 reps at medium weights and difficulty to focus on muscle size.

    • Strength phase - Lift heavy weights to build muscle strength. Lift fewer reps at 85% or more of max effort for strength. Average of 6 or less reps to allow focus to be on lifting heavy with proper form to build strength.

    • Power phase- Move heavy weights quickly. Build power and explosive movement. 75-90% max weights. Average of 1-5 reps to allow you to lift heavy but quickly. This is where tempos start to be seen more. More time under tension on the way down and use explosive power on the way up.

At Rise, our phases change every 3-5 weeks on average. When there is a change in phase, there is a change in stimulus provided to the muscle. The change in stimulus causes the muscle to grow and adapt the same way your brain does when you are learning a new skill. You’ll often notice an increase in soreness in a new phase because your muscle is not used to moving in the new way yet. 

It’s crucial to implement progressive overload safely. If you increase the intensity too quickly, you risk injury. This is why our coaches are very attentive to finding the right balance for each gym member and making gradual adjustments. If you’re interested in learning more about progressive overload or training in general, we would love to sit down with you! Schedule a free fitness consultation here to meet with one of our expert coaches and see how we can help you in your fitness journey.