Dr Mel Siff Blog

The Principle of Progressive (Gradual) Overload has been part of training
methodology at least since the young Milo of Crotona was reputed to have
increased his strength by lifting a young bull that increased in weight as he
and Milo both grew older and heavier.

This simple principle means that you will gain strength if you gradually
increase the load with which you train. This sound all very well until we
analyse it in a little more depth. What this means is that you train with a
load that is your maximum for a few days or weeks, somehow that maximum will
increase over time. How is it possible to overload if you are limited to a
certain maximum now? You cannot train with a heavier load now, so how do
you progressively overload? You just have to wait until miraculously you can
lift a new maximum.

This certainly sounds paradoxical and illogical, but we know from experience
that this is exactly what happens – you train with your current 1 rep maximum
(1RM) or , say, your 5RM for a while and lo and behold, one day you enter the
gym and you can achieve a new 1RM or new 5RM!

Assuming that you are not using supramaximal efforts over a limited range or
with eccentric movements to achieve overload, how does one explain or prove
the correctness of the Progressive Gradual Overload Principle. We know that
it works, but how? How and why does training a few times a week with a
given maximum load (or even less) produce adaptation to a higher level of
loading?

Maybe we shall call this the Supercompensation or Superadaptation Phenomenon
and proclaim that our bodily systems do not simply adapt to the level of the
current stressor, but “overadapt” or “supercompensate” to a higher level
because the body somehow ‘anticipates’ that you are going to load it further.
Thus, the cells of the body must have developed adaptive mechanisms which
decree that they generally will never adapt to a level which exactly copes
with the current loading. Instead, like a well-designed engineering system,
the body ‘overdesigns’ so that it displays a certain ’safety factor’ which
allows it to cope with a load that is always greater than the one to which
you are currently exposing yourself. Can anyone offer a better explanation?

Of course, this means that, if you continue to use the Principle of
Progressive Overload for many years, you will continue to supercompensate to
higher levels of performance, albeit that your rate of adaptation will not be
linear and will tend to slow down. Theoretically – at least until natural
ageing or injury upsets your ability to adapt adequately – an athlete should
be able to improve for many years. However, very few athletes continue to
improve in this manner over most of their non-geriatric lives. Does this
suggest that it is not really physiological limitations which halt or reverse
progress, but other factors like loss of motivation or other daily life
pressures which do so?

Do you think that the Principle of Progressive Gradual Overload and the
Theory of Supercompensation require some modification?

Dr Mel C Siff

For more information on Facts and Fallacies of Fitness by Dr Mel Siff please click here

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