Fitness Goal Success

Everybody has fitness goals, whether it's to lose weight, run a 5k, increase their strength, improve performance in their sport, etc. Unfortunately, unless you're working with a certified and knowledgeable trainer you're likely going about it all the wrong way...

Research has shown that "progressive overload" is the best way to achieve those goals. This system progressivly increases the weight in an exercise, or time doing an exercise, while combining lower intensity periods to help with recovery. If you've been doing the same routine week after week or if you've been increasing intensity every week but not seeing results (or seeing little results) then stop what you're doing, give this a try, and rest easy knowing you're on your way to achieving your goals.

Progressive Overload (based on 8 week cycle):

• Week 1: base (whatever you're doing currently)
• Week 2: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 3: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 4: decrease weight/time by 25%
• Week 5: base (what you did in week 3)
• Week 6: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 7: increase weight/time by 5-10%
• Week 8: decrease weight/time by 25%

As you can see, each is broken down into a 4 week cycle with the first week being a "base" week, 2 weeks of increasing intensity (overload), then a week of lower intensity (recovery). You simply repeat that 4 week cycle for as long as you would like. The lower intesntiy week actually helps your body to better recover so you can continue to make improvements. If you're constantly increasing the intensity each week then you're not giving your body a chance to recover, which leads to overtraining (side effects: decreased desire to workout, lower energy, strength or endurance actually DEcreasing, and injury).

If you want to increase your running time, for example, here's how it would look (assuming you can run 20 consecutive minutes as your base):

• Week 1: 20 min
• Week 2: 22 min
• Week 3: 24 min (rounded down)
• Week 4: 18 min
• Week 5: 24 min
• Week 6: 27 min (rounded up)
• Week 7: 30 min (rounded up)
• Week 8: 22 min (rounded down)

Again, you can strucure it for as many 4 week cycles as you would like. I personally prefer increases of 5% when using it for weight exercises or 10% when using it for cardio exercises. I also use it in 13 week cycles where I do 3 - 4 week cycles and take week 13 completely off to further allow my body to recover. And I only complete 2 of these cycles per year and use the other 26 weeks of the year to maintain the increased base I've attained.

Everybody starts with a different base and different goals so there's not one set program for everybody, but what's great about this structure is that no matter where you start, what your goals are, or if you enjoy doing a certain workout routine and want to keep doing it you can use this program to achieve your goals. 

If you have questions about how you can apply this to achieving your goals please don't hesitate to contact me. I wish you all the best in the pursuit of your goals!