The Principle of Overload
“I keep working out but I’ve stopped seeing results”
The most likely culprit to a stagnant training program is a lack of overload in your workouts.
Overload is simply exerting a greater stress on your body than normal to stimulate its natural adaptive process (results). If you continue to do the same workouts, you will begin to see diminishing returns for your investment. This statement is true regardless of your goals– fat loss, increase power, gain muscle, increase endurance, etc.
You have four options to overload your body effectively:
- Frequency – Increase the number of times you workout in a week. Start slowly by adding one additional workout in per week and progress from there.
- Intensity – Increase the amount of effort during your workouts. This can be accomplished by running faster, lifting more weight, lifting weight for more repetitions, etc.
- Time – Increase the duration of your workouts. This doesn’t mean spend more idle time in the gym or at the track, but instead increasing the active time or number of total sets for a workout.
- Type – Change the style of your workouts to “shock” your body. This includes adding new and more difficult training methodologies, exercises, or workouts to make every session more challenging.
The most important concept here is that you must constantly change up your workouts (overload) to see results.