Overload and Acclimation
There are two forms of progressive weight training. The one that the vast majority of lifters practice is based on the overload principle. Overload is fantastic for quick gains and short term progress. The second form of progressive weight training is based on the principle of acclimation. The acclimation principle is far less understood and far less practiced, but when used correctly, it is a huge key for promoting long term progress.
Overload simply means to improve by adding to your workouts. This may include adding weight, reps, or sets. In contrast, acclimation means that you improve by getting better at repeating the same workout, or the same cycle of different workouts. The weights don’t change, the number of sets do not change, and the reps don’t change. The same workouts become easier over time as strength is gained.
Acclimation doesn’t work if it is the only progressive weight training strategy that you ever use. You can get better and stronger from repeating the same workouts for a while, but sooner or later, you will need to add weight, reps, or sets to improve.
In the same way that acclimating to the same workouts doesn’t work by itself forever, you will find that overload does not work very well if it is the one and only progressive weight training strategy that you use on an eternal basis. Constant overload can work if you know the correct way to vary the amount reps in the tank as weight is added from week to week. However, if you don’t do this correctly, then constant overload will lead to overtraining. Overload and acclimation tend to work better when used together. Give your body time to improve from repeating the same workouts by using the acclimation principle. After the improvements take place, overload by adding to the workout.
Constant Performance: A Costly Error
One of the reasons that lifters get stuck after a few years of progressive weight training is that they think that maximum performance leads to maximum progress, but this mindset will usually hinder future improvement. Performance is based on doing your best today in your current workout. You lift as much weight for as many reps as possible with the belief that the better you perform in your current workout, the better you will do in your future workouts. This mindset is faulty and inevitably leads to a never-ending sticking point. A different mindset is needed for long term progress.
Today’s Workout Must Lead to Future Progress
A mindset that has a correct view point of long term progress understands that today’s workout must be designed in a manner that leads to future progress. If you err on this point and spend all of your energy on performing the best you can today, it may undermine how well you can perform in your next workout. More importantly, a constant performance mindset will undermine what you can do a month from now, three months from now, and a year from now. If you always go all out, you never leave enough in reserve to make future progress.
Money In The Bank and Gas In the Tank
If you want to earn interest from a bank account, you can’t spend all that you have and expect to get something back. You must leave money in the bank and then you’ll get something back. If you are driving a car and you don’t want to stall out, you must always have gas in the tank. If you deplete your nervous system with a constant all-out performance mindset, it’s a lot like having an empty bank account and an empty gas tank. You won’t get anything back for your efforts and you’ll stall out.
The constant application of maximum intensity sends a negative message to your body. The negative message being sent is that strength gains will always lead to an immediate increase in stress in your next workout through the addition of more weight, or reps, or sets. Your body sees no benefit in gaining strength if it always makes life harder by leading to more and more stress. Consider a different strategy where strength gains will make it easier to lift the same weight, which is what your body is trying to accomplish when it gains strength.
Think about a strategy in which you place enough of a training stress on your body to stimulate strength, but not so much that it would be threatened if more weight, reps, or sets were added. Some guidance for how to do this would help, so I would suggest starting with the following two guidelines:
Guideline 1
You don’t need to push for max reps to failure to stimulate strength gains. If you stop a set when you can no longer maintain a steady even rep pace, you are pushing your sets hard enough to gain strength.
Guideline 2
You don’t need to do a ton of sets to stimulate strength gains. If you repeat sets for a muscle group until you reach a set where you start to weaken, you are doing enough sets to gain strength.
It could be that you follow the guidelines listed above and it doesn’t amount to enough stimulation. If this is the case, don’t work out harder or longer, work out more often. Doing more workouts in an optimum training state is better than doing more work in a suboptimal state within the same workout.
When you work out correctly, you can repeat the same workout or the same cycle of workouts until they get a little easier. When the workouts get easier, add a little weight. Repeating workouts until they get easier is the acclimation process. Adding weight after the workouts become easier is the overload process. If you use acclimation and overload together with the correct amount of volume, intensity, and frequency that were stated in the guidelines, you can make long term progress. In contrast, if you get in a hurry and get stuck in performance mode, you may make some quick gains, but those quick gains will be followed by no gains.
Are you constantly trying to outperform your previous best every week or in every workout? Is overload your only mode? It’s not a problem if it is working for you, but if you reach a sticking point, think “progress” instead of “performance.” Leave some money the bank if you want to collect interest on your training efforts, and leave some gas in the tank if you want to keep moving forward with more strength gains. Best of training to you.