75. Your Guide to Understanding and Implementing Progressive Overload

So there's a lot of talk about progressive overload right now on and what I see on Instagram , what comes across my social media channels whatever you want to call them maybe different than what's coming across yours , but I know , in general , right now , I'm getting a lot of questions about progressive overload . I've talked about it in previous episodes .

Some of my programs do implement progressive overload and some of them do not , and that is for a reason because it depends on where you're at in your journey and what your goals are .

Sometimes I implement progressive overload in my own workouts and with my own goals , and sometimes I do not , so it's one of those things , though , that you can see on social media .

You can see a trainer talking about , or you can hear anyone talking about , and it makes you stop and think right , like you hear a term or you hear something like that and you're like , oh , maybe that's why I'm not seeing results .

Maybe that's something I need to focus on , and it can very quickly become something else that you maybe don't understand fully , and so it scares you and you don't know how to implement it , even if you should , and sometimes you could be implementing it when you don't need to , or it's something you're stressed about when you don't need to be .

And so , again , just another reason to honestly have a coach have someone that you trust in your life . And I kind of paused saying that , because even if you have a coach , it could be the wrong one , and even if you have someone in your life that you trust , they could be giving you false advice .

So as I'm saying this , I realize how fucking hard it is to find someone to trust , and oh , that drives me crazy . It shouldn't be that way . It's frustrating . But I have , you know , clients come to me all the time that are like I just finished , you know , this certain program and we were doing X , y and Z .

But then I talked to a friend and they said I should be doing , you know , progressive overload with the same workouts for six weeks in a row , and the program I was doing wasn't you know , I wasn't doing that at all . So what is the right way ? Like it's so hard .

But I just want to give you a little bit of information , I guess , in this episode , about whether or not you need to be focused on progressive overload . You can certainly make progress towards your goals without it . There were years . I mean , the term progressive overload to me didn't really even appear until I don't even know , maybe two , three years ago .

Now that's not to say that I wasn't doing progressive overload , because I've been following programs in the past where I , week to week , was trying to get stronger and like the program would say , like your goal is to lift , you know , every two weeks , try to up your weights or whatever , and so I was doing or implementing progressive overload .

I just didn't know that's what I was doing . It didn't have a name , and so it's not something that like , oh my God , if you're not implementing progressive overload you're failing or doing something wrong . That's not the case at all . But let's dive in here , even though I kind of already have dove in there .

Like I said , there is a lot of talk about this and I just want to kind of clear it up and let you know whether you should or shouldn't be focusing on it and , as usual , if you have any thoughts after the episode , feel free to reach out to me in the DMs on on Instagram is where I usually have most of the messages coming to me , so feel free to

reach out and ask anything and everything about all of this . So what is progressive overloads ? Maybe you haven't listened to my previous episode , maybe you've never even heard of the term progressive overload and I'm stressing you out with the thought of it at the moment . Hopefully not , but progressive overload is when it comes to workouts .

It is gradually increasing the level of difficulty or the level of stress upon your body while doing a particular exercise , so that you can get better . You can get faster and stronger over time . So examples in resistance training would be increasing your load so you can differentiate your load of weight .

That means increasing the weight lifted over time , getting stronger in that movement and by increasing the weight . So if you start doing bicep curls with , you know five pounds and in a few weeks you should be increasing to eight pounds and then you should increase to 10 pounds , right , you don't want to be doing five pound bicep curls for 15 years Like that's .

That's not going to challenge your weight so or your muscle . The goal is to keep challenging your muscle . So load is one of those examples .

Volume you can increase the weight , you can increase the reps , you can increase the sets , so the volume in which you are lifting it doesn't have to be necessarily the way it can be , but you can also just increase the reps that you're doing or increase the amount of sets that you are doing to be lifting more .

And you can also implement progressive overload by tempo , the tempo that you use in your workouts . You can slow down your reps or you can add pauses to your reps to keep that time under tension , as the longer your muscle is under tension , aka working hard , the more challenged it is , and that's the overall goal . So there's not .

It's not when you think of progressive overload . I think most people think I need to be picking up a heavier weight every single week , or pretty often anyway , to be seeing that progressive overload Like you have to be lifting a heavier weight , and that's not true .

You can slow down the tempo , you can speed up the tempo of certain things as well and that would , you know , make you work harder . Essentially , you can add pauses , you can , like I said , add sets , you can add reps if you're not tired enough at the end you and then you can also increase weight .

So there are different ways of doing that , but essentially it's a way it's . I mean , it is a fancy term and it's it's , it's a term , but also it just is like how do you get better at running ? You run more right , you run longer , you run harder , you try to run faster . It's the same thing with doing different moves .

If you're doing yoga and you want to get deeper in a position or hold it longer , those are ways that you do that . You challenge yourself by showing up and continuing to go to yoga first of all , and then you work on getting deeper and your squats or your positions or holding them longer . So it's that time under tension and really pushing yourself .

Essentially it's pushing yourself . So the difference between progressive overload and like the workouts that that would look like is right .

If you're just doing , let's say , a program where it has a different workout every single day of the week , week after week after week , let's say , like you never even do the same workout twice , which I think some people think is great , like I've had people say , like I've been doing these workouts or they'll do my shred program , especially in the beginning of

my journey , I think , with personal training . People were very , very used to doing videos and coming off of these programs where they never did a workout twice and every day was fun and exciting and new .

And that was kind of the thing that programs advertised and like yes , I'm , you know I'm up for keeping it fun and different and exciting , but you have to also be doing that and see results .

And this is where a lot of people feel like I've been working out and working out and working out for years and years but I don't look like I work out right , like I eat healthy and I work out , but physically , if someone were to look at me , I don't look like I work out .

That's why because you are changing up your workouts too much and so essentially , progressive overload is just doing a program where you do certain workouts over and over again . So the goal with progressive overload like what that looks like is you have to be repeating exercises , not the same workout , but you have to be repeating exercises week after week .

This allows you to be able to tell if you're getting stronger .

So there are some programs that I have and that are out there where , essentially , if your goal is only to build muscle , to get stronger , yes , you do need to be doing the exact same workout every Monday and then a different workout , or a same workout every Tuesday and a different workout , but the same workout every Wednesday .

So you need to be following a schedule five days a week and you do those five workouts for four to six weeks on repeat , and the goal is to get stronger every single week by doing a certain movement . Every single week , you can tell if it's becoming easier . You can tell if you're becoming stronger , you can track your weight and make sure you are going up .

You're comparing apples to apples because you're doing the same movements . You can also do this in different ways , though , not having to do the same workouts every single week for six weeks , and be a little bored with it . There's nothing wrong with being bored . Let me clarify that it's okay to be bored in your workouts . That's not bad .

In fact , it's necessary to kind of push yourself and be bored and get stronger . That's a necessary thing . But I also have programs and have been a part of many programs for myself . I work a little better when I don't have to do the same workouts for six weeks straight .

That gets a little boring and I do need to keep it fun for myself most of the time , but doing the same exercise as week after week , implementing those same basic movements , but doing them a few times a week , of course , and of course , week after week , but in different workouts , so that you're still able to track your progress and still able to see in that

particular movement , in my squats , at week after week , am I feeling better ? Is my form getting better ? Am I lifting more With my chest press , my bench press ? Am I lifting more With my shoulder press ? Am I lifting more With my hip thrust ? Am I lifting more ?

Doesn't have to be on the exact same day in the exact same workout , but you do have to do the same exercises over and over if your goal is to get stronger and if you want to implement progressive overload .

Let me also say that as you go along in your fitness journey this may be my opinion , but you should have a goal of getting stronger , of building muscle over time as the years go on . That should be your goal most of the time if you do want to see your body change , if you do want to have change your body composition .

If you do want to really see that body re-comp , if you want to see fat loss and muscle gain at a rate where you are changing your body , if you want to be someone who works out and actually looks like they work out , you do have to be following a progressive overload program or at least be doing those same movements on repeat often enough that you are

getting stronger . The only way you will grow muscle and look like you work out is to lift heavier , not every single week , but over time , literally . If you don't lift any heavier or do more reps or do more sets or push yourself , you will not look stronger Period .

If you're only doing a program where you do different moves every day and every week is a brand new workout and you've never repeated things and there's funky moves and they're always challenging and you never feel like you can get the movement down and your body is always guessing that's not good , no matter who tells you that it's not good .

Your body should be able to do a squat after a few weeks with really good form and your body should have mind to muscle progression and you should have that mind to muscle memory and you should be doing these movements on repeat . The goal is to be better at them .

Now , yes , you should be doing different movements , you should always be challenging yourself , but you don't always need to be jumping around and doing combination movements Not always , anyways . Combination movements are fine .

I actually love them , and I know there's a lot of hate on the internet right now on combination movements , but maybe I'll save that for another day . I love combination movements .

I think they're good for mobility , they're good for mixing things up , they're good for making your muscles guess every once in a while , like when you are used to just doing a deadlift week after week after week , maybe even two , three times a week , and then you do a deadlift with a different amount of weight and then you turn it into a bicep curl right

after . Your brain is like wait , what is happening ? We have to figure this out , and that's good . Is that gonna cause you to gain a shit ton of muscle ? No , but it does have other benefits . So that's a whole another topic . But here's the thing about progressive overload .

While it is great , while it is something you , over time , should most definitely be focused on , it should be a goal to get stronger , to look muscular , to actually be muscular , to have muscle on your body , to be muscular , to be fucking strong , is actually a good thing . Not just like you look strong , but also you want to be strong .

That helps you with having a strong body , with not being injured every time you sleep wrong , every time you bend over to pick something up , every time you right like . You hear those things and there are ways to combat against that . No , being strong won't help with you know , fight off every single injury that you'll ever have in your life .

But if you are a strong person , generally , you will be healthier and withstand injuries more so than someone who is weak and has no muscle on their body . So there are different reasons that you should be focused on progressive overload 100% . However , you should not be focused on progressive overload if you aren't consistent with exercise to begin with .

I do have a lot of people that haven't worked out in , like they just had a baby and they haven't worked out in , not even just had a baby . Right , they had a baby and they haven't worked out consistently in three years .

Well then , there is absolutely no point and you coming on and starting a program where you have to lift heavier every single week , because your body , yes , will benefit from that and , yes , you will see some results . But until you are consistent with your workout routine there , there is no point in focusing on progressive overload .

It will just be something that you're stressed out about for no reason .

So if you are someone who just needs to get back into the swing of things and you just need to kind of restart and honestly this is me a couple , I would say , probably in July I was just like , oh my god , screw it , like I'm just gonna start building , I'm just gonna get back to the basics and just do these basic workouts and do the same workouts you

know , for four weeks straight and start getting stronger . And I actually had to have the same conversation with myself and I was like Christy , you have not worked out consistently in quite a while Now .

Yes , I do show up for myself at least four times a week to work out , and most people would think that that's consistent and it is , and it is most definitely consistent for a lot of people , for me , that I was consistently showing up , but I wasn't consistently working certain muscle groups or consistently doing what I needed to be doing .

I needed to start showing up on purpose , with a reason , like for a purpose , with my mind right for six to 12 weeks , and be consistent with that , to show myself that I can , to show myself that I am dedicated , and it took me a while to even get on track with that . Now that I have been consistent again , my mind is right better in that .

In that sense I'm ready to start progressively overloading again , but literally that was like as of this week , as of today , and I'm still not implementing progressive overload . I'm going to start with these basic workouts for the next two weeks . After that I will start progressive overload .

So I just say that to relate to you , because you have to become consistent before you start working on progressive overload or before it's even a thought in your brain and yes , you can make progress , yes , you can gain muscle , yes , you can lose fat . And I think 12 weeks is great .

I think when people start with my 12 week , my shred program , that is the perfect workout program for getting back into the swing of things . You are doing the same workouts consistently every few days , definitely every week , so you are getting consistent with the movements .

They are fun , they are changing as far as the workouts , they're on different days of the week . So it's enough stimulation where you think it's fun . You can't wait to get out there and work out . It's still exciting , you're still progressing , but it's not in such a boring format and I don't mean that in a bad way . It's just .

It is a little more exciting for , especially when you're first starting out , if you finish my shred program or any other 12 week program you're doing and you don't have to be perfect , but if you were consistent and you enjoyed it , you've seen progress . You showed up for yourself and showed yourself that yeah , you're back , you can do this .

You've got the time , you've got the consistency . You've got that . What am I trying to say ? You've got that confidence back . Then you can start going into progressive overload . If not , it's just going to be another thing that you overanalyze and it can lead you to stop and do nothing because you'll feel like I missed a workout , I wasn't consistent enough .

If I missed a workout , then I didn't up my weights that week . So then do I not up my weights in every other exercise this week ? Do I stay the same ? Am I a failure ? Oh my God . So you first just need to start showing up consistently , and 12 weeks , I think , is a great amount of time to be able to do that .

I don't even care what consistency looks like when it comes to the actual workout , just get consistent . Even if you're just starting to go for a walk for the first four weeks and then you start adding in workouts , it's fine . So if you want to start with group fitness , perfect . Just sign up for a group fitness class and get consistent with it .

Get your body going , get in there . If you want to start with homework outs , like I do , well , I have it at home gym . But if you just want to start with homework outs , like I have on my app , perfect . Just get consistent with that for 12 weeks . If you want to do yoga , if you want to do Pilates , I don't care .

Just start getting consistent with something . Consistency is your foundation and without that foundation , there's no reason for you to start progressive overload . And actually , if you start progressive overload too soon , you won't see the results that you're wanting to see and that can be very discouraging .

So overthinking these things is what causes most people to say like I can't do that , before you even show up , when you see a bunch of things that are like progressive overload and here's what you should be doing and here's the movements .

It's kind of intimidating and then it feels like a different mindset , it feels like a different approach and you feel like I'm not qualified for that . I don't know . Progressive overload means I don't understand it , so I shouldn't work out like that . That's not true . You just need to kind of do it in the right space , the right mindset , if that makes sense .

So in my own training past , in my own training experience with myself and with other clients , progressive overload is not for beginners . I would absolutely not schedule progressive overload for a beginner or for someone who is starting over . If someone is brand new , I would tell you to set a realistic number of days that you can work out , get your form right .

So establish really , really good form . Go slow , videotape yourself , watch the progress . But you want to be progressive overloading in a movement that you're not doing correctly . I mean that defeats the whole purpose , which is why you shouldn't just kind of take this advice at verbatim and see like progressive overload , that needs .

That's something I need to be doing . No , you need to be establishing good form . You need to be establishing a good range of motion first . So like progressing in these movements that you start out doing and get pretty good at them before you start to do progressive overload , and you need to be picking weights that challenge you .

So a few weeks we talked about stretching before and after a workout and picking weights that are right for you and like your post workout meals and your pre workout meals , and those things need to be also in place before you establish some progressive overload .

So that's what I really want you to take away from this is , if you are be , if you are a beginner and you feel like you really want to just get started and establish some consistency and get your confidence back and kind of understand macros , understand workouts , I do not recommend you start with progressive overload .

In fact , I recommend you absolutely do not start with progressive overload . I think you should definitely spend some time working on your good form , working on your range of motion , working on doing some stretching before and after . Start picking , so you're familiar with the weights that you should be using .

Start picking a weight that really challenges you but also allows you to have good form . Those are things you want to be working on in the first 12 weeks to really get consistent with that . Speaking of , I actually shared just a little bit ago on my stories , I picked up a weight this morning .

It was barbell and I threw some 25s on each side and for me that used to be like my warm up weight and today it was like my working set weight , and so that's just an example of me getting back to the basics . I need to pick a weight that challenges me .

I need to spend the next two weeks figuring out what weights are good for me right now that are challenging , because they're not what they were this time last year . I'll tell you that right now , I was a lot stronger last year than I am at this time this year , so that's exactly what I'm doing . Are these exact same things that I'm telling you ?

Realistic number of days for me to work out is five . I need to work on my form . Again , I need to figure out what weights I'm like quote unquote starting with in this progressive overload program I'll be doing . I need to have . My range of motion wasn't anywhere near what it used to be , so I need to do some stretching .

So these are actually things that I'm talking about to you . These are things that I do , and after I've gone through you know the time where I feel like my form , my range of motion , my weights are good , my eating is much better . I'm tracking my macros again this week just to kind of get a baseline of where I'm at . I'm doing really well with protein .

Everything else I need to kind of cut back on the snacks , but just getting my mindset right , and after I do that for long enough for anyone brand new or just starting , I would say 12 weeks for me it's not going to be that long , but that's what I would suggest for someone like that , but like you , if that's you and after that , when you're consistent and

you feeling really good , then I would move you into like something like my body recomp or I'm going to be having a program this fall and winter . Last year I called it body boss . I'm not sure what I'm going to be calling it this year Maybe the same thing .

It will essentially be a build program where you build through the fall and the winter and then you will start to be shredding again in the spring and summer and that's just kind of how I work my own workouts .

I've talked about that in previous episodes as well , and so that's something that you can definitely start with , but I would definitely spend a solid six to 12 weeks getting in the groove , like there's nothing wrong with starting my shred program right now and , you know , getting you through these next three months and then starting a little bit of a build process

or a recomp to get ready for next year . That's what I'm here for is to kind of guide you through that , but I hope this was really helpful . Again , progressive overload is one of those things you see and you hear about on the internet and people are like you should be practicing or you should be implementing progressive overload in your workouts .

This is why you don't look like you work out and this is why you're not seeing the results that you're seeing and that's absolutely true after you have a good foundation . A lot of people leave out the most important parts of working out when they say things like that , like you should be doing deep core work .

If you want to see X , y and Z , well , yeah , you should , but if you do deep core work and your form is off , absolutely no point . Same with progressive overload If you are increasing your weights every single week but you don't have a good foundation and you're doing the form . Your form is off and it's terrible . You're going to hurt yourself .

So there's no point in doing that . There's no point in adding a lot of the things that you see on the internet on reels and all this stuff . It's all for show , it's all for your attention , it's all to I don't . I sometimes I don't even know what the point is , because I don't get it . All it does is confuse you .

It confuses me and I know what I'm talking about , so I know it confuses you , but this is just the reality of it , unless you have the foundation set in place and you have consistency . Unless you have consistency and good form and good habits in place , progressive overload is absolutely useless . There's a time and a place for it , but it's not for everyone .

So I hope this helps . If you are feeling like a beginner and you're just like I just need to get started , get started with something like my shred program . You don't need to do progressive overload after the shred program . If you're on my app and I'm your coach fantastic . Reach out to me and say hey , just completed shred , I'm ready to move on .

What's next ?

You're going to progress of overload program and you can start trucking along with that and then , honestly , when you get sick of doing progressive overload and you're like , okay , I'm sick and tired of these workouts , they're kind of boring , I need to mix it up again , or whatever the reason is , you can go back to shred and do that and kind of refresh your

mind , refresh your body , change things up a little bit and then go back to progressive overload when that's feeling a little more stagnant as well . This is how you mix things up . This is why I've talked about before like I do my build fall and winter , I do my shreds spring and summer , and that's it .

Like I mix it up and about the time I get bored with it , it's about time to change anyways . So , again , I hope this was helpful . If you have any questions , of course , reach out to me at Christy Castillo fit on Instagram . If you're not already following me at Christy Castillo fit on Instagram , please do that . Also .

Thank you so much for your ratings and your reviews on Spotify , apple . Wherever you are listening , I appreciate them so much as always , reach out and say hi , I love talking to you and I will talk to you next week .