28 Feb Strength Training & Progressive Overload by Kyle Wisner
Should I lift weights?
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What is Progressive Overload?
For your body to adapt, develop strength, and make new gains, you need to keep your body sufficiently challenged. This can be achieved by continuously increasing the stimulus of the exercise. This can be done several ways – adjusting volume,increasing frequency, adding more weight, and/or increasing time under tension. This is known as “Progressive Overload.”
The Legend of Milo
A long time ago, in a land far away (unless you live in Greece), there was a wrestler named Milo of Croton. Most historians believe he really existed.
Milo was thin but determined to become strong, and he had a plan for how to do it. Every second morning, he would carry a calf up the hill.
On the first day, the calf only weighed sixty pounds, but Milo was still a beginner, and that was enough to challenge his small muscles. When he got to the top of the hill, his upper back was beginning to round, his traps were burning, and his biceps were shaking like a palm tree in a hurricane.When Milo set the calf down, he collapsed on the ground, breathing fast and hard. When he stopped feeling nauseous, he went home, ate all the food he could find, and then went to bed early.
Two days later, his muscles had grown ever-so-slightly bigger. He dragged his aching body out of bed, returned to the hills, and carried the calf up the hill again. Milo’s muscles were bigger, but so was the calf. It had gained two pounds. When he reached the top of the hill, his muscles weren’t shaking anymore, but he was just as spent as before. He collapsed on his back again, hyperventilating.
Every two days, Milo used his bigger muscles to carry the growing calf.The trek up the hill never got easier, but his spine stopped rounding, his biceps stopped quivering, and he stopped feeling so sore afterwards.Over the next two years, the calf grew into a bull, and Milo became the strongest man in Greece.
