In my recent conversation with Ali Malik, Personal Trainer & Founder of Fit Labs Kensington, we delved into strategies for advancing your workout routine in ways that not only build strength but also benefit you both inside and outside the gym.
Progressing exercises donโt have to be adding weight to a bar, or holding a heavier dumbbell. There are a number of ways to progress your workouts, but doing things like changing the way you hold the equipment, altering your stance or starting position, add another component to the exercise, and so more.
This means that we’re training our muscles AND our nervous systems to adapt quickly, hold awkward items of varied weights, move in all planes of motion, and to be able to react quickly.
Just think about all the movement you do to bring a bag of groceries in from the car. First, you have to bend and reach for weight that is out in front of you – If itโs a light bag, you pick it up with one arm.
Sometimes itโs stuck or in a weird position so youโve gotta rotate or twist your body a little bit to grab it. When itโs in your hand, you ask the side of your body that isnโt holding onto additional weight to help stabilize you.
And maybe, youโre doing all of this with a child on your other hip. Thereโs a lot going on,and youโre probably not even aware of the movement youโre doing.
Itโs maybe a tertiary focus, if itโs conscious at all. Most injuries happen outside of the gym just like this. Grabbing a bag of groceries, bending to get something on the groundโฆ when we do things without thinking a lot about them. These are the moments weโre training for.
If youโve trained for any sport or activity before, you may have heard the idea of โprogressive overloadโ. Itโs the most important and foundational strength and fitness principle.
Unfortunately, when you ask most fitness pros what it means, theyโll say it means to get stronger, you must increase the amount of weight you add to an exercise incrementally over time.
โWhile load is an aspect of progressive overload, that isnโt what the term means. Instead, progressive overload is about adding STRESS to the body thatโs greater than before.โ
Ten variables that make upmeans of using progressive overload:
- Load
- Volume
- Density
- Range of Motion
- Speed
- Planes of Motion
- Body Position
- Load Position
- Direction of Force
- Stability of Implement
Instead of just lifting heavier and heavier over time (usually you progress quickly in the beginning, but also plateau quickly), we can add smaller, sometimes subtler challenges to other aspects of the exercise.
That way the strength we gain over time is totally functional and multi-faceted. You have the strength itself, plus your body knows how to access it and use it to move and interact with the world around you. Itโs hardwired and translates to all of your movement outside of the gym.