Help understanding progressive overload

[manycoloured]

Hi, so I am on my 5th year of training now and I had a very basic understanding of progressive overload, and that understanding was that you have a target weight x sets x reps, E.G. 100kg bench for 4 sets of 8 reps. This means that your likely to go to failure on atleast your 3rd and 4th sets until you eventually get strong enough to hit your 4x8 at which point you go up in weight and tada that's progressive overload. This concept has been a cornerstone of my training for the last 3 years and while progress has now slowed, I understand that's to be expected and I am still progressing.

I've recently been given a new definition of it, which is you artificially overload yourself by increasing intensity each week via RiR. Weeks 1 - 6 on a 6 week block you go RiR 3/2/2/1/0/Deload. The logic behind this, as I understand it is this allows you to "put weight on the bar" every week and that weekly increase creates a physiological response that leads to muscle stimulus. The other logic to this is that people can't recover from going to failure on some of there sets every week.

Now, the fatigue managment I get. If your so insanely advanced and strong than even taking 1 set to failure just blows you out then yeah you need to train with RiR. But otherwise, your just spending over half your training time with a low proximity to failure and I just have a hard time believing that'll stimulate muscle growth more than training to the limit in which you can recover from.

Is there some truth behind this RiR training, or is it just something for super advanced lifters to use to push past a plataeu? And if there is, how do drop sets and other beyond failure training styles play into this, do you only do drop sets in the final week?

 

[mayacruz1708]

@manycoloured I think what you are describing is Periodization not progressive overload. (Although part of the Periodization is progressive overload).

(Btw - 5 years is hardly beginner! )

Progressive Overload can be done a few different ways - adding reps, sets, weight or even just making it harder to move the weight by slowing reps down.

Periodization generally works on the basis of building up the intensity over a period of weeks to a final week of balls to the wall training then a deload to help recover. Then start the cycle again.

It has been pretty much proven that you can still make optimal gains by getting very close to failure - the principle being that you're probably going to be less fatigued and have better recovery.

If you enjoy training to failure (I do) and are recovering okay, I don't see any harm in doing it.

 

[manycoloured]

@mayacruz1708 See, this is what I thought to. ~3 years ago when I googled Progressive Overload it explained exactly how I do it but now if you google it almost every explaination is RiR training. I tried asking this question elsewhere but I just got people telling me RiR is better because it's better, and there argument tended to break down when you actually asked them questions and they couldn't provide any answers.

What your saying here rings true with what I believe but I do worry I am just looking for confirmation bias. I just haven't seen anyone give a good argument for not training close to failure on some sets every session if you can recover from it.

What I found crazy to, is people saying you should have this approach to every movement. I can understand wanting more RiR for say deadlifts. But chest flies? Cable curls? I just can't see a world where I need to do 3rir cable curls to manage fatigue, those are movments I go to stretched partials with to go beyond failure.

I'll watch the video you linked later btw, thanks .

 

[mayacruz1708]

@manycoloured The explanations have probably changed as the science changes. Similarly, people used to focus on the contraction and now it's all about the stretch and even sometimes just doing partials instead of full ROM.

It's easy to get too wrapped up in the minutiae of all the science doo-dad (I definitely do because I study it just out of avid, nerdy science interest). But the reality is just do what works for you and probably more importantly (unless you're a competitive bodybuilder) - what you enjoy the most.
As long as you are still progressing, can just keep doing what you're doing.

After 5 years lifting, you may well now be finding it more difficult to make gains and if so (and you want to make more) it might be worth looking at some different options like Periodization and see if it works. Part of it is about specificity - so adapting your routine for a period of weeks to work those muscles you may feel are lagging. You may already be doing this anyway.

Other reasons for RIR are that you recover more quickly and so can keep going more long term by managing fatigue and injury risk. I.e. helps prevent overtraining. As RIR has been shown to promote basically as much growth as training to failure, there's an obvious perceived benefit.

I don't think RIR applies as much to isolations - especially those you recover from quickly. Things like lateral raises - I'm currently doing myoreps into dropsets until my shoulders are on fire. (I usually find a spot where the yoga mats and little dumbbells are and so get a few funny looks as I'm almost screaming my through it in the corner )

The compounds are obviously the ones that may bring more systemic fatigue. I do leave reps in the tank on squats and deadlifts - more for safety reasons and making sure I am still able to climb the stairs out of the gym after leg day.

 

[mayacruz1708]

@manycoloured The explanations have probably changed as the science changes. Similarly, people used to focus on the contraction and now it's all about the stretch and even sometimes just doing partials instead of full ROM.

It's easy to get too wrapped up in the minutiae of all the science doo-dad (I definitely do because I study it just out of avid, nerdy science interest). But the reality is just do what works for you and probably more importantly (unless you're a competitive bodybuilder) - what you enjoy the most.
As long as you are still progressing, can just keep doing what you're doing.

After 5 years lifting, you may well now be finding it more difficult to make gains and if so (and you want to make more) it might be worth looking at some different options like Periodization and see if it works. Part of it is about specificity - so adapting your routine for a period of weeks to work those muscles you may feel are lagging. You may already be doing this anyway.

Other reasons for RIR are that you recover more quickly and so can keep going more long term by managing fatigue and injury risk. I.e. helps prevent overtraining. As RIR has been shown to promote basically as much growth as training to failure, there's an obvious perceived benefit.

I don't think RIR applies as much to isolations - especially those you recover from quickly. Things like lateral raises - I'm currently doing myoreps into dropsets until my shoulders are on fire. (I usually find a spot where the yoga mats and little dumbbells are and so get a few funny looks as I'm almost screaming my through it in the corner )

The compounds are obviously the ones that may bring more overall fatigue. I do leave reps in the tank on squats and deadlifts - more for safety reasons and making sure I am still able to climb the stairs out of the gym after leg day.

 

[mayacruz1708]

@manycoloured Here's a video about Periodization that explains it better than I did.

 

[cfitz]

@mayacruz1708 Thanks for the video. Very informative.

 

[dawn16]

@manycoloured Progressive overload is just increasing weight over time. You've given two examples of it but one isn't more progressive overload than the other.

 

[mommajulesberry]

@manycoloured so rir progression is largely a dr mike thing where i see some merits and some downsides.

pros.

- you just train to failure before you deload so who cares about the fatigue and you get the learning benefit of realizing you are not bullshitting your rir

cons.

- i personally think 3rir is a little bit easy and would rather just stick with 1-2rir 99% of the time

- feeling an arbitrary need to put weight on the bar as an advanced lifter is missing the chicken and egg part of progressive overload where PO is what you should be seeing as a result of sufficient stimulus (mech tension from sets close to failure) and recovery whereby as a noob it might be a helpful white lie to say that adding 5lbs is by itself a game changer

as per failure training itself:

- some say its slightly less important with heavier loads eg 6 reps @1-2rir is closer to 6 @fail compared to 15 @1-2rir and 15 @fail

- the fatigue and “cant recover” stuff can just be obviated by modifying set volume.

- again teaching tool for noobs whose 2rir is bullshit

 

[manycoloured]

@mommajulesberry Yeah which is kind of what I do but it's auto-regulated. If I go for a 4x8 then at some point my 1st, 2nd and 3rd set will be 2 or 3 rir but my final set of a specific movement will always be a 0rir set. I almost feel like a lot of rir training is people on certain substances and are so strong that going to failure causes so much fatigue/injury that it's just not something they can do every session.

 

[mommajulesberry]

@manycoloured i mean thats coming back to what RIR range seems like the best stimulus to fatigue

dbol mctrenface could train to failure every day but he would probably not be able to do optimal volume as a trade off.

i imagine genetics and the particular exercise (ie the degree to which you can naturally recruit every single muscle fibre and what could go wrong if you fail a rep) alters how failure training compares to lets say 1rir with a little bit more volume

 

[manycoloured]

@mommajulesberry Yeah, I've just seen a lot of people talking as if RiR is objectively better and builds more muscle because of some physiological response to adding weight to the bar when in reality it's just a fatigue managment tool for those who are absurdly jacked.

Thanks to you and others for reaffirming my opinion that you want to just train as hard as you can within your own fatigue limits.