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Going Beyond "Progressive Overload"
Progressive Overload is a principle in muscle growth, but what are the actual mechanisms and training variables behind it driving adaptation?
You hear it quite literally every other Instagram fitness reel you see ---> How do I put on mass? Progressive overload! How do I increase strength? Progressive overload!
That's great, and a good starting point of understanding for anyone dipping their toes into the fitness waters. But it leaves out the most important idea, what are the physiological mechanisms actually driving muscle growth?
1. Mechanical Tension
2. Muscle Damage
3. Metabolic Stress
To summarize these 3, mechanical tension produced by force generation or stretch within the muscle is going to induce both muscle damage and metabolic stress within the muscle. Depending on the intensity, volume, duration of the mechanical tension implemented will determine if we do muscle tissue damage or if we apply metabolic stress.
So at the end of the day, I would argue the biggest driver of these 3 is going to be mechanical tension, and it's also the one that you can manipulate and play around with the most. Which then begs the question:
What training variables can I manipulate to maximize muscle hypertrophy and catalyze the physiological mechanisms for growth?
1. Intensity (load) - within intensity/load are more variables - high load, low reps? LOTS of mechanical tension in a short period of time, lots of muscle damage, not a ton of metabolic stress
Low/Moderate reps, low/moderate load? Still going to have adequate mechanical tension to drive a hypertrophy stimulus, but takes a bit longer to meet the muscles minimum viable stimulus threshold particularly if you're a highly trained individual. Still has muscle damage, induces more metabolic stress as we can outside of the Creatine phosphate energy system realm and into more anaerobic/aerobic glycolytic processes.
2. Volume - Defined as the total product of repetitions, sets and load in a training session - I.E. if I do 3 sets of 10 reps on DB Press with 55 lbs, my total volume load for the day is 1650 (55x10x3) "Higher volume, multiple set protocols have consistently proven superior over single set protocols with respect to increased muscle hypertrophy" (Mechanisms of Muscle Hypertrophy and Their Application to Resistance Training"
3. Exercise Selection - "It is a well-accepted fitness tenet that varying exercise parameters (I.E. angle of pull, position of extremities, etc.) can cause different activation patterns within muscle compartments, and making synergists more active or less active"
--> Now, this doesn't mean you swap heavy hitter (main lift) exercises every month, but that every 3-4 months switch out what the main lift is, and rotate accessories as needed
4. Rest Interval - This is playing a bit more into the metabolic stress physiological mechanism of change - but let's say I do 8 reps of Bench press at 135 lbs one week for 3 sets, with 90s of rest - then the next week I do 8 reps of bench press at 135 lbs for 3 sets with 60s of rest ... I can guarantee you the 2nd week will feel more difficult even if the same weight - rest intervals allow your muscles to recharge and replenish with energy substrates, and if we don't let them recharge we are asking the muscle to do the same volume of work in an underfueled state .. adapative response will most likely be muscle hypertrophy.
There's a couple others but that seems a good place to stop for today - So to summarize, yes, progressive overload is a wonderful saying and principle to utilize, but (and especially as you get more and more seasoned in the gym) it takes more of a targeted stimulus to induce the same adaptive effect as it did when you were a fresh minnow in the gym waters.
These 3 adaptive principles provide a more targeted way to increase your muscle size, and offer the ability to give your musculoskeletal system variety in the way you are taxing it.
Let me know if you have any questions, and happy training!
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