Progressive overload means gradually increasing the stress placed on the body during training over time.  If you do the same weight and reps week after week, your body will eventually stop growing and adapting.  If you want to continue to build strength and muscle, your workouts needs to become more challenging over time. This can be done in a variety of ways.   Increasing the weight   The most obvious way to make an exercise harder is to make it heavier. I recommend only inc

Last week we talked about how hard you should be training . Now let’s talk about how much you should be doing Reps Your rep range, just like weight, is largely determined by your goal. Pure strength training is generally performed with lower reps (<6) and heavy weight. Power is the lowest amount of reps per set, and often performed as singular maximal or near maximal efforts. The combo of high speeds and heavy weights is highly taxing on both the muscles and nervous system. Y

One of the most common mistakes I see in training programs isn’t exercise selection, its training intensity. When I say training intensity, I mean how hard you are training. More specifically, how close you are getting to muscular failure. There are several ways to measure intensity, each with pros and cons. One Rep Max (1RM) This is the maximal weight you can lift for one rep. Any more weight and you wouldn't be able to do it. You determine your 1RM by gradually the weight

I’ve had this question since I first started lifting. If I’m still a bit sore but want to work out, what should I do? In physical therapy school, I learned about something called the soreness rules , which help guide this decision. The soreness rules were originally developed to guide exercise progression during late-stage ACL reconstruction rehabilitation . 1 Your level of soreness helps determine whether you should progress, maintain, or back off your training .   If you a

Strength training is one of the most effective ways to build muscle, improve health, and become more resilient to injury. However, many people struggle to see progress in the gym.   Here are four mistakes I commonly see and how to fix them.   1. Too Many Exercises Very often I hear people say they are doing every single leg exercise on leg day, or five different chest presses on chest day. More exercises does not necessarily mean better results. Focusing on just 1–2 exercises