PROGRESSIVE OVERLOAD? NO: PROGRESSIVE OVERCOME!

It’s funny: when I first discovered the idea of progressive overload, it DID seem like some sort of dark wizardry.  You mean, instead of going to the gym every day and just randomly picking some exercises and seeing what I can do with them, I should have a log and try to do more than I did last time?  And it worked!  …yet, now, I find trainees are confused by this concept I found INCREDIBLY simple.  Frequently, I observe some poor lost soul who is struggling to grasp HOW they will progressively overload their 8kg curls for 3x10 when, upon moving up to the 10kg, they can only do 1 set before it all goes to Hell.  Or they wonder what is to happen when they inevitably reach some sort of plateau and can no longer add more weight to the bar from workout to workout.  And I realize from this that, once again, the messiah pointed to the heavens and man looked at his finger.  Folks: we’re not progressively overLOADING to achieve physical transformation: we’re progressively overCOMING.

Will to Powerlifting...pretty sure I've made that joke before

Let’s to back to the intro: wanna know WHERE I discovered progressive overload?  My University’s weightroom.  Specifically, someone gave me a copy of Pavel Tsastouline’s “Beyond Bodybuilding” and I read about Milo of Croton and the idea of adding reps until I hit rep goals and then adding weight (DOUBLE progression…SUPER Soviet secrets).  Up until that point, I was just being a meathead, coming into the gym like it was a brand new day each time, picking a few pet lifts, going hard, then going home.  I grew from that just fine, but I ALSO grew quite well once I started logging my workouts and actively trying to beat the log book…which, in retrospect, was some sort of periodization now that I look at it.  But anyway, consider this: I discovered this as a University Student…WHY is that relevant?

 

Because I had the luxury of BEING a University student.  I had a fixed schedule, I ate in a dinning hall where someone ELSE made all my meals and cleaned my dishes, I lived in a dorm where I wasn’t paying for electricity and water (directly…oh they get theirs with those dorm fees).  I had a VERY comfortable existence, where my obligation was to spend every day getting smarter so I could eventually graduate.  This REALLY isn’t much different than the existence of the fabled Soviet athletes where we got all those cool studies that Louie Simmons worked alchemy on to come up with Westside Barbell: I was a professional loafer who got to lift weights and eat way too much.  I even went so far as to supplement my dinning hall food intake by befriending several members of the fairer sex who were more than willing to sponsor and up and coming “neverwas” in the world of strength sports by buying me extra meals at the on campus restaurant.  I could NOT have been in a better position to make predictable, fixed, steady increases on my lifts workout to workout.

 

Learn from the pros folks!

Which is WHY progressive overload seemed like magic when I first discovered it: I was THE ideal candidate to employ it.  For those of us living in REALITY (don’t let anyone tell you that full time University student living is reality, that sh-t is magic and you should TREASURE it), we find that “chaos is the plan”.  Some days, we slept for 3 hours because the kid was up all night throwing up and all we had to eat was a handful of Cheerios before we got to the gym, and other times we are fully rested, well fed, and ready.  Are we really going to expect the same, predictable, linear, fixed increases workout to workout when what’s happening OUTSIDE the workout is so chaotic?  Absolutely not!  Sometimes, we are positioned to feast, and other times we famine…which is why we need to look BEYOND mere reps, sets and weight on the bar.

 

We do not “progressively overload”: we progressively overCOME.  What does this mean?  It means: there’s a REASON my pre-University approach WAS “just show up and send it”.  Because that DOES work.  Yes, there are tangible, physical variables we can attempt to control, like reps, sets and weight on the bar, but the OTHER variable we can control is “effort applied to the training”.  And THAT variable is where the REAL magic lives.  These days, it’s legit the ONLY variable I care about.  And yes: I KNOW I just wrote a post about squatting 5x10x405, which is a listing of sets, reps and weight, but appreciate that I picked that specific amalgamation BECAUSE of the degree of effort it necessitated in order to achieve it.  I did not feel that there was anything magical about hitting that specific combination of sets and reps: as though 5x10x400 would have achieved nothing and 5x10x410 would mean a level of muscularity that would put Heracles to shame.  No: it was simply a dragon to chase such that, in the pursuit of it, I would have to continually “progressively overcome”.

You might not ever get it out of the stone, but in trying to do so, you're going to get pretty jacked

 

Because it is the act of overCOMING that results in physical transformation.  When we take on a challenge, suffer through the journey, and come out the other side: we are transformed.  Upon my racking of that 50th rep of 405lbs, I had overcome SO much, and, in turn, I was transformed.  The same is true every week when I finish the “Monument to Non-Existence”, or after every 5 minute session of Armor Building Complexes or 4 minute of “TABEARTA”.  And, in turn, the same is true whenever I show up to a workout NOT ready to perform, wanting to be ANYWHERE else but there, and STILL give it my full effort.  When I tore my tricep recently, I lost my ability to deadlift heavy, so I came up with THIS monstrosity of a workout

 

I genuinely get mad at myself for coming up with these things

 

You’re probably not going to watch 45 minutes of me doing a total of 10x10 axle deadlifts and 10x10 SSB squats, but rest assured: there was a LOT of overcoming that happened through that process.  And, in turn, I grew.  Physically yes, but otherwise too.

 

So let THAT be your guide.  When you go to train, aim to continue to overcome better and harder than you did before.  And you’ll know if you’re meeting the mark or not.  I take on challenges these days that would absolutely have broken my past self, but not just make me bored.  I matched my lifetime PR on Axle Grace after not training it for 6 months, just because I had built such a strong foundation of overcoming that I could just rip the axle off the floor and crush the workout.  I now do TABERTA for 3 complexes per round AFTER getting in 1430 kettlebell swing.  You will surpass your previous self so hard you’ll lap it, so long as you let yourself focus on always striving, in some way, shape or form, to experience the sensation of overcoming the adversity of the situation and coming out the other side transformed.