Progress is key.
It’s what keeps us going; keeps us motivated; gives us something to look forward to, and to be excited about.
This is especially true when it comes to progressing in the gym.
In fact, one of the main reasons people give up on their fitness/gym goals is because they aren’t seeing any progress.
This could be because they don’t have a good plan of action, or because they simply didn’t stick with it long enough for real progress to occur.
In any case, let’s go over various aspects of progress, things to know, and then different methods of progressing in the gym.
IT’S EASY… AT FIRST
There’s a popular term, newbie gains, which refers to the quick progress a person can make in strength, size, or performance, in a short period of time after starting a workout routine. This can be the first six months, or up to a year or so. Progress just seems to come so easily.
This happens because starting a workout routine that the body isn’t or has never been exposed to before sort of “shocks” it into adapting.
This is great, and you’re riding high, but then..
WHO’S PUMPING THE BREAKS??
Progress starts to slow.
Now instead of adding weight, doing more reps, or improving performance every session or every week, it turns into every month .. or two.
And you can’t figure out why.
But don’t worry, because I’m here to explain to you why this is totally normal.
THE TRUTH ABOUT HOW PROGRESS WORKS
It is true that a good amount of progress can be achieved in a short period of time, but that’s mostly in the beginning or earlier stages of your journey. The reality is that over time, the more progress you make, the slower progress will be.
That’s just the way it is.
Things will never be the same..
Okay anyway,
Progress naturally slows over time. But we can always keep progressing.
This can sometimes get confused with a plateau. You might think you’ve hit a plateau but in reality, progress is taking its sweet ass time.
Knowing this, when progress starts to slow, it does not mean that:
- What you’re doing isn’t working
- You should switch routines or “program hop”
- You should start taking steroids
- You should lose motivation and give up
Instead, focus on mastering whatever level you’re currently at. If you’re not progressing, it must mean that the level you’re at is difficult. So keep at it until it becomes easy.
This brings me to the topic of..
AUTOREGULATION
This term just refers to advancing in your workouts based on your current performance level, rather than trying to advance in a fixed time period such as week to week.
Basically, progressing when you can, not when you want to.
This is a great method of progression to use, especially during times of slowed progress.
Now on to some actionable methods of promoting progress..
METHODS OF PROGRESSION
Here are some of the most common methods of progressing on your workouts/lifts.
I like to play around with each for various exercises, but only focusing on 1 or 2 at a time for a given workout block, or every month or two.
ADDING WEIGHT
Starting out, this could simply be body weight or just a barbell. Or the lightest dumbbells or kettlebells. Any kind of new resistance will result in an adaptation.
As for intermediate to advanced lifters, all it takes is adding just a little weight each session, week, or workout block. It doesn’t need to be a lot. It’s actually more optimal to make smaller bumps in weight than it is to make larger ones. This way, you can minimize overall fatigue, recover better, and make more consistent progress.
DOING MORE REPS
Going from only being able to do 5 reps, to 8 reps, to 10 reps, to 12 reps, with a given weight on a given exercise, is great progress.
A method I like to use for this is, at the beginning of a workout block, for a given exercise, I’ll choose a rep range I’m going to aim for. Let’s say, 6-12.
I’ll then pick a weight that will put me in the lower part of the rep range, around 6, but not maxing out at 6 (we need some room to push for growth, rather than hitting a wall right away).
Then, session by session, or week to week, I’ll aim to increase my number of reps with that weight until I’m able to hit up to 12.
Once that happens, I’ll bump up the weight, rinse and repeat.
REPS IN RESERVE (RIR)
As mentioned earlier, we don’t want to max out right away and hit a wall.
Progress can (and should) be made without maxing out all the time.
The goal is to train hard enough to stimulate adaptation, while still allowing for some room to push and grow over the span of several weeks. By maxing out right away, you can more easily burn out physically and not be able to make consistent steady progress.
This is where the concept of reps in reserve (RIR) comes in.
Research has shown that muscle and strength adaptations can be achieved by not necessarily hitting failure every time, but getting in the range of around 5 reps away from failure.
Wherever you fall in that range during a set, the amount of reps left over that you would have been able to perform with good form before hitting failure would be the RIR.
For example, if I’m performing a given exercise where my max would be 12 reps (13 would be failure), and I do 10, the RIR would be 2.
You can use this each session or week to increase the intensity and to push for the top of a given rep range.
It’s also very much related to, and goes hand-in-hand with, the next topic…
RATE OF PERCEIVED EXERTION (RPE)
Another tool for measuring the intensity of a set.
It’s essentially a 1-10 scale on how hard the set was, or how much you exerted.
10 being your absolute max-out effort, and an RPE of 11 would be failure.
This goes hand-in-hand with RIR because if someone performs a set and leaves, say, 2 reps in reserve, that would mean the RPE was 8, because 2 more reps would have brought them to an RPE of 10, with no reps in reserve, 0 RIR.
Most sets we would want the RPE to be at least around 7-8, hitting 9 or 10 every so often, but that will be dependent on various personal factors.
Either way, use RPE as a way to gradually increase intensity and promote growth. It can also come in handy when you feel stalled.
If you feel like you can’t bump up weight or reps on a given exercise, pay attention to the RPE session to session. If it seems to be going down then you’re adapting!
ADDING MORE SETS
Increasing overall volume, or how much total work the muscles do, measured by sets x reps x weight, is one of the key factors for adaptation and growth.
Adding more sets is a great way to do this. It can also be an easy way to push through plateaus.
If the muscles are used to doing 3 sets per session with a given weight, and suddenly you throw another set or two on top of that, you’ll be pushing the muscles past what they’re used to .. hello growth!
Common volume recommendations:
- Minimal but still adaptable sets: 4-8 per week
- Low to moderate volume: 10-15 sets per week
- High volume: 20+ sets per week (not necessary for most people)
It’s important to know that different ranges work better for different people. And intensity of each set also plays a role. Usually lower volume means more intense sets, while higher volume means more moderately-intense sets.
Either way, adding more sets to an exercise is just another way to promote progress.
INCREASING FREQUENCY
Another option for promoting progress is increasing the frequency, or number of times per week you hit a certain muscle group or lift.
This could mean, for example, you go from hitting a certain muscle group twice per week to three times per week.
You would keep the number of sets and reps the same, just add another session during the week.
Also, to balance total weekly volume, it’s better to keep the volume per session on the moderate to lower side, say, 2 to 4 sets per session, rather than 5 or more. This is to make sure you’re able to recover in time for more frequent workouts.
For example,
Johnny squats on Mondays and Thursdays, doing 4 sets each day. He doesn’t really have time to add in other sets if he still wants to be able to do whatever else his workout calls for so instead of trying to keep adding weight or reps every session, he decides to bump up the frequency and starts squatting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, doing 3 sets each session.
Johnny starts to see progress again.
TIME UNDER TENSION (TUT) & SLOW TEMPOS
Similar to overall volume, time under tension (TUT) refers to the amount of time a muscle spends under tension during a lift. Having a slower tempo, particularly on the eccentric portion of the lift when the muscle is lengthening, increases the intensity and amount of muscle fiber tears.
Tempo recommendations:
Lifting the weight (concentric phase): around 2 seconds
Isometric pause: around 1 second
Lowering the weight (eccentric phase): around 3 seconds; 5 or more for higher intensity
Not that this should be your gold standard for progress. But lifting slower and more controlled leads to better performance and adaptations.
CONSISTENCY
We’ve all heard it, one of the most important aspects of success and making progress is showing up and being consistent.
Putting in the work again, and again. Even when we might not want to, and even if we fall off the wagon for a bit, we get right back on and keep going.
Because again, progress can take time, and therefore, reaching your goals can take time.
But you got this, Johnny did, too.
Thanks for reading!
Those were some of my tips for progressing! If you found this helpful in any way and want to stay up to date on my newest articles, sign up for my email list on my homepage!
And if you’re interested in taking your progress to the next level, or to kickstart your health and fitness journey, I’d love to work with you! Check out my online coaching page for more info!