How Progressive Overload Fits Into a Physical Practice

Progressive overload has come up a few times this week — in calls, messages, and check-ins — so I figured it’s worth sharing how I see it, live it, and coach it within a physical practice.

More Weight Isn’t the Whole Story

You’ve probably heard this one before: If you’re not adding weight, you’re not making gains.

It’s the mantra of the young, the eager, the forever sore — and the perpetually injured.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s truth in it. Your body doesn’t change without stress. Muscles don’t grow because you wish them to. Bones don’t stay dense because you bought the gym membership. Progress demands challenge.

But here’s the thing: It’s not just about piling more plates on the bar, week after week, until your joints rebel or your back decides it’s had enough.

That’s not a practice — that’s a chase. And chases burn people out.

The real art — the reason progressive overload even works — is because it’s progressive. Small, strategic, sustainable steps forward. Enough to coax your body to adapt. Not so much it pushes you off a cliff.

So if you’ve ever wondered how to make gains when your goal isn’t to break records but to stay strong, capable, and confident for decades — read on.

What Progressive Overload Really Means

Let’s start simple.

Progressive overload is exactly what it sounds like: progressively overloading the body with a little more than it’s used to, so it has to adapt.

Lift a weight you can handle → your body figures out how to handle it → next time, that same weight feels easier → add a little more weight, or a few more reps → repeat.

This is the cycle that makes your muscles grow, your bones strengthen, your tendons more resilient. It’s how your cardiovascular system expands its capacity, how your connective tissues toughen up.

Without progressive overload, you don’t change. Do the same thing forever, and your body gets good at exactly that — and nothing more.

But the piece people forget? More isn’t always better. More is only better if you can recover from it. More is only better if you can repeat it — over months, years, decades.

Too much, too fast — your body revolts. Overload turns into overtraining. Injury steps in. The practice stops.

So the art of overload isn’t about always pushing. It’s about finding your edge, touching it — then stepping back so you can come back tomorrow.

Showing Up Is Progressive Overload — At First

Here’s where I break from the old-school hammer-and-tongs approach.

If you’re just getting back into the game — maybe you’ve been off for a year, five, twenty — progressive overload looks a lot simpler than a percentage chart or a max lift PR.

At first, the overload is just showing up.

Think about it: if your body’s been mostly sitting — at the desk, in the car, on the couch — then getting up, moving your joints through a full range, picking up something slightly heavy and putting it back down… that’s already a novel stimulus.

Your nervous system wakes up. Your muscles remember how to contract under load. Your bones have a reason to hold onto density. Your heart rate picks up. Your lungs expand.

It’s easy to miss this because fitness culture loves to glorify the extreme. But real, sustainable gains? They’re made in the mundane.

Showing up two to three times a week — that’s progressive overload for the beginner.

Walking an extra five minutes. Doing a second set instead of one. Adding one good form push-up when you couldn’t do any last month.

That’s where you start. That’s how you earn the right to push a little more later.

The Hidden Levers: More Than Just Weight on the Bar

I wish I could put this next part on a billboard: Progressive overload isn’t just about weight.

If you think you have to lift heavier every week forever, your body will prove you wrong — painfully.

Your body doesn’t care what the plates say. It cares about stress. And you can create stress in many ways besides slapping on more iron.

Here are a few that matter:

More reps or sets — Doing eight to ten reps instead of five with the same weight is overload. Adding a third set when you’ve only done two? Same thing.

Better technique — Moving the same weight with better form makes the lift harder. Why? Because you’re no longer leaking energy through sloppy movement patterns. Your muscles carry the whole load — no cheating, no shortcuts.

Tempo — Slow it down. Or speed it up. Pause at the bottom. Control the negative. A five-second lower on a squat makes your body work in ways bouncing out of the hole never will.

Range of motion — Take that push-up deeper. Get the chest all the way down. Squat to parallel? Great. Next step — full depth, if your body allows.

Rest — Less rest between sets means more fatigue. More fatigue means more challenge. More challenge means adaptation — if you recover well. You can also flip this. Add more rest between sets. This allows for greater recovery, and you’ll feel fresher for the next set to do a little more.

Complexity — Try a single-leg (or arm) version of a movement you’ve mastered on two. Shift the balance, change the angle, and make your body figure out something new.

Same weight, a brand new result.

This is why strength training stays interesting — and effective — for a lifetime. There’s always another lever to pull that doesn’t require you to ruin your joints chasing the biggest dumbbell in the rack.

Finding the Right Dose

This is where most people get it wrong.

Progressive overload isn’t a green light for reckless intensity. It’s not a permission slip to smash yourself every session.

It’s a tool. It works because of the dose.

The right dose is enough stress to make your body adapt. Not so much that you can’t recover before you do it again.

This is the heartbeat of a physical practice — and the part so many people miss.

If you’re a driven, high-achieving type, you probably think more is better—more weight, more sessions, more volume.

Here’s the truth: Better is better.

You can only adapt to what you can recover from. The best training plan in the world fails if your sleep, nutrition, stress, and schedule don’t support it.

So the question isn’t: Can I do more?

The question is: What’s the right dose for me, right now?

It’s seasonal. It’s individual. It shifts with your life. A physical practice honors that. A workout plan? Not so much.

Progressive Overload Inside a Physical Practice

A workout is an event. A practice is a container.

Progressive overload is just one ingredient inside that container — a spice, not the whole meal.

A physical practice isn’t about chasing your maxes every week. It’s about building capacity that sticks. It’s about cultivating skill, resilience, and strength you can call on for the rest of your life.

Overload shows up — but so do recovery, rhythm, and regeneration. You’re not training to beat your body. You’re training to trust it. To know it. To expand what it can handle — on your timeline, not some cookie-cutter calendar someone else created that doesn’t know you.

Inside a physical practice, progressive overload looks like:

• Moving from basic to complex.
  

• Lifting a bit more when your body’s ready — not because your ego is yelling.
  

• Holding back when life demands more recovery.
  

• Listening, adjusting, flowing.

It’s why I teach and coach to practice strength, not just train it.

A practice doesn’t break when you miss a week. A practice adapts.

How to Apply This Right Now

So, how does this look in real life?

Here’s the piece nobody wants to hear: It’s not sexy. It’s not Instagram-worthy. And it works.

You don’t need to overhaul your program tomorrow. You don’t need to max out your deadlift by Friday.

You need to find one lever you can pull, gently, that nudges your edge a little bit further.

• Add one rep to the movement that feels solid.
  

• Create more tension in your plank.
  

• Walk your usual loop, then add a hill to the mix.
  

• Slow your push-ups down and pause at the bottom.
  

One small progression. One tiny overload. Done consistently, it compounds.

Your body notices. It adapts.

And so do you.

Stronger, Longer — Not Just Stronger, Faster

At the end of the day, progressively overloading the body is a main ingredient behind a strong and capable body.

But the ones who keep it? Who still squat in their seventies, hike mountains in their eighties, and play with grandkids in their nineties?

They didn’t just chase numbers. They built a practice. They found the dose. They let their strength meet them where they were — and grow with them as they changed.

That’s what I want for you.

Don’t get lost in the noise. Don’t fall for the myth that it’s all about more. More is easy to chase — and easy to lose.

Better is built. Slowly. Thoughtfully. On purpose.

A little more/different than yesterday.

That’s how you get stronger — and stay stronger for the second half of life.

Let’s Go!

Jeff

PS

Progressive overload isn’t about punishing your body — it’s about respecting it enough to give it the right stress, at the right time, for the right reason. That’s what makes it fit inside a practice that lasts. Keep showing up, keep adjusting, keep listening. That’s how you stay stronger — not just now, but for life.