Increase Strength With Double Progression
In the 6th century, there was a famous Croton wrestler known for his strength and size. As the story goes, Milo lifted a calf onto his shoulders every day. As the calf grew, so did Milo’s strength and size. The once small calf was now a full-grown bull, and the skinny boy was now a jacked dude carrying around this massive beast. Believe it or not, there is a technical term for this type of training; it’s called “Progressive Overload.”
In short, by increasing the weight and the demand on your muscular-skeletal system, you will increase your gains in muscle size, strength, and endurance. So all you need to do is keep upping your weight and upping your reps. And in no time you’ll be as jacked as Milo...right?
Well, it’s not quite that simple. If you were able to increase your overall strength every time you lifted heavier weights, you’d have hulk-like power by now. I’m guessing you haven’t lifted any cars over your head lately, so let’s dive a little deeper and take a journey back to my early days of strength training.
Baby Erik
In the 8tth grade, I was your typical skinny, athletic guy. Despite playing sports and doing the occasional set of push-ups, I had yet to lift any weights. That all changed the following summer when I joined the gym with my oldest brother. I fell in love with the gym and lifted every day that summer.
At this point, I didn't have a structured training program, but I was increasing the weights and workload daily. In three short months, I went from being a scrawny kid to a jacked bro being accused of taking steroids! Those early days are still some of my fondest memories in my strength training journey. Sadly, this type of rapid growth will likely only happen once or twice in a lifter’s career due to the law of diminishing returns.
Although progress may come very quickly for beginners, that’s not going to be the case for everyone. Results will come in waves. We will often face plateaus and periods of stagnation. The best way to bypass this phenomenon is to implement an exercise program based on a method called “double progression.”
Double Progression
Chances are you aren’t going to up your loads every workout, but you may very well be able to squeeze out additional reps at the same weight. This is why I’m a big proponent of the double progression model. It allows you to experience small wins that may have been missed if you just focused on weight alone.
For example, if an exercise called for three sets by five to seven reps. You should start on week one with a weight that is challenging for five reps. Once you can do three sets by five reps, you increase the reps until you can hit three sets by seven reps. After achieving all the sets and reps, you increase the weight and go back to five reps. Repeat the process over and over again until your program changes. Remember, if you can do more work in sets and reps, you have checked off the progressive overload box.
Patience Is A Virtue
Of course, we all wish gains were as easy as making a tasty microwaved meal from Trader Joe’s. Man, do I love some of their foolproof meals; chicken masala in six minutes?
Yes, please!
Unfortunately, making long-lasting progress is pretty much the opposite. In my experience, the two main limiting factors to increasing strength and muscle mass are effort and consistency. The antidote is high effort paired with a well-written training program based on progressive overload and double progression.
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