Progressive Overload: The Secret to Building Muscle Strength
August 21, 2025

If you’ve ever lifted weights, you know starting light is the smart move. But if you want to get stronger and see real progress, you’ll need to slowly ramp up the weight, reps, and intensity over time. The principle is known as progressive overload.
“If the goal is to continue to gain strength, and you do the same movement pattern with the same amount of weight consistently over a long duration of time, eventually your body will adapt and that weight will no longer be challenging,” says performance coach Collin Taylor of T3 Performance at University Hospitals Drusinsky Sports Medicine Institute.
What Is Progressive Overload?
Strength training is good for overall health and becomes more important as you age. Progressive overload keeps muscles challenged across the lifespan. There are different way to do it – you can increase weight, reps, sets and workout frequency, or decrease rest time between sets.
“People tend to do a combination of variations, but it depends on your goals,” says University Hospitals physical therapist Zachary Bires, PT, who also works with T3 Performance. “If the goal is to get stronger, normally we increase intensity with weight while decreasing reps. When looking to grow muscle, we tend to keep reps the same and increase weight. When we’re trying to build endurance, we increase reps.”
Progressive overload is usually associated with weightlifting, but the principle can apply to any exercise routine or fitness goal. With running, for instance, you can slowly increase mileage, speed, incline or frequency. Yoga practitioners can advance to more challenging routines for strength, balance and flexibility.
“In the weight room, it’s sets, reps and weight load. In yoga, it’s degree of difficulty in the positions, duration of time you’re holding the positions and range of motion,” says Taylor. “There are plenty of variables you can manipulate.”
Slow and Steady
The key to successfully building strength and endurance is to take it slow and maintain a regular schedule, Taylor and Bires say. “I tell people the best way to start is to try everything, whether it’s machines, free weights or going to classes,” Bires says. “Do whatever gets you excited to wake up in the morning and put on your workout clothes.”
People who are new to weight training or who haven’t exercised in a while should start out at about half of their maximum intensity for both weight and reps, Bires says. You should increase weight 10 percent or less each week, as a general rule. Some weeks it’s ok not to increase at all, or to ease up if your body needs rest. Too much too soon can lead to injury.
“When we’re thinking about fitness, we’re thinking about a slow cooker not a pressure cooker,” says Bires. An exercise novice will typically overload quicker than someone who has adapted to progressive overload through regular weightlifting.
“It might take someone who’s new to exercise two to four weeks before they need to start progressively overloading their movements,” says Taylor. “But eventually they can make progress faster, getting to a point where you can add 5 pounds to your routine every week.”
Tips for Success
- Proper warm-ups. You should be sweating after a warm-up.
- Proper form / technique. A personal trainer is helpful for technique and other aspects of progressive overload. Videotaping your workout technique is also helpful.
- Track your progress. Use a smartwatch, fitness tracker or notebook to track your weights and reps over time.
- Rest between workouts. A rule of thumb is 48 hours rest between working the same muscle group.
- Listen to your body. Back off on adding weight, reps and intensity when your body feels worn out.
Topping Out
You can’t increase weight, reps and intensity forever. Even experienced weightlifters will have to decrease weights, usually starting in their 40s. So, how do you keep your body challenged and maintain strength as an older adult?
The key to challenging your body over the years is setting different goals and adapting variations, says Taylor. You can start working another part of your body, such as moving from upper body strength to lower body strength. You can incorporate variations of frequency, reps, or load, or add activities such as swimming, yoga or resistance bands.
“Exercise is a lifelong pursuit,” Taylor says. “You always want to have physical training in your life because it makes everything else you do easier. People can train well into their 70s and 80s.”
One mistake he sees as people get older is not knowing when to stop pushing to lift their maximum weight. Older adults can safely train at a 6 out of 10 effort without injuring themselves, Taylor says.
Bires agrees. “Older adults usually don’t want to build intensity. A person in their 60s might keep 4 or 5 reps in reserve, meaning if you are doing 10 reps of an exercise, you shouldn’t be able to do more than 15. They might try heavier weight with fewer reps to change it around.”
“You have to understand the reason you’re doing it,” Taylor says. “If you’re doing it because you want to be strong and healthy and play with your grandkids, you probably should be challenging your body enough to pick things up off the ground and be able to sit down and stand up without using your hands, and be able to reach up and grab something from above your head without pain.”
“The way to develop a body that’s capable and resilient to those movements is training through full ranges of motion on a consistent basis.”
Related Links
University Hospitals Drusinsky Sports Medicine Institute partners with T3 Performance to provide world-class care and training for athletes.
Tags: Sports Medicine, Zachary Bires, PT