“Where there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Frederick Douglas.

You want to see progress. You put time and effort into the gym. You’re consistent for a while. You don’t see the results you want. 

Most follow the same workout routine for weeks. They perform the same sets and reps with the same weight. Eventually, they stop due to boredom or lack of results. All programs work, but the best progress over time. 

How do you make progress with your fitness? The body adapts to stress by becoming more resilient. Muscles grow back stronger, bone density increases, and ligaments and tendons strengthen.

Your workouts must become more challenging over time. As your technique and strength increase, so too should your training variables such as sets, reps, or weight. Examples will follow later.

Measuring Progress

Tracking your training is a must. Your goal will determine what you track. If your goal is to look and feel better, there are many options to monitor progress: 

• Objective

  • Inches lost

  • Body fat % measurement

  • How your clothes fit

  • Increases in strength with lifts

• Subjective

  • Energy levels

  • Better quality sleep

  • Reduced stress/depression/anxiety

Pick the ones that matter to you. Track them in a journal weekly or monthly. Pick at least one that is objective (inches lost) and one that is subjective (sleep). 

Avoid or limit tracking progress with these methods:

Sweating

Soreness

How hard a workout is

The scale

Sweating, soreness, and workout difficulty are side effects of training. They are not indicators of how “good” or productive a workout is. You can sweat by turning up your thermostat. Soreness happens when someone is either new to training or does something they’ve never done before. 

The scale can be useful, but it doesn’t tell you the entire story. Use it on a weekly basis instead of daily. Include other objective measurements from above to get a bigger picture. Weight can fluctuate several pounds in a day depending on your carbohydrate and sodium intake. These food sources cause your body to retain water, showing a sudden increase in weight that will leave just as quickly. Three to four pounds lost in a month is healthy, sustainable weight loss. 

Progress By The Numbers

Increases in strength is another way to track progress for looking and feeling better. Lifting weights is an effective way to lose body fat and boost your mood. The details of this require a separate article. 

A powerful shift in mindset comes when you go from focusing on your bodyweight, to your performance in the gym. This doesn’t mean you lose sight of a fat loss goal. This shift can take stress off you when fat loss slows or stops (normal parts of fat loss). Seeing your technique, strength, or endurance improve is motivating. When you focus on these other positive outcomes, fat loss and muscle tone come as a byproduct.

Below are examples of strategies commonly used in lifting to steadily help you make progress.

Increasing Weight

Getting stronger is a good way to gauge if you’re building muscle. The best way to do this is to increase the weights you use.

If you’re a novice lifter, you have the potential to go up in weight each time you train. This will only last so long. If you’re doing a program that uses the power lifts (barbell squat, bench press and deadlift) you could try adding 2.5-5 pounds to the bar each session. 

For example, if you’re lifting twice per week you could progress your squat like this:

• Week 1

  • Day 1 - 3x5 w/ 45lbs.

  • Day 2 3x5 w/ 50lbs.

• Week 2

  • Day 1- 3x5 w/ 55lbs.

  • Day 2- 3x5 w/ 60lbs.  

In this example you would keep the sets and reps the same (I recommend 3X5) and only change the weight you lift. Adding five pounds or less may not seem like you’re making much progress, but if you look at it over the course of a month (lifting just twice per week), you add 40 pounds to your lift. 

Eventually this approach will run its course because no one can add weight at this pace forever. Other methods will need to be used to continue growth.

Increasing Reps

A more conservative approach to progress is step loading. The above example can provide faster results, but may be too fast for a new lifter still learning the ropes. Step loading uses the same weight for a longer period before jumping up. 

• Week 1

  • Day 1- 3x5 w/45lbs.

  • Day 2- 3x6 w/ 45lbs.

• Week 2

  • Day 1- 3x7 w/ 45lbs.

  • Day 2- 3x8 w/ 45lbs.

• Week 3

  • Day 1- 3x9 w/ 45lbs.

  • Day 2 3x10 w/ 45lbs.

• Week 4

  • Day 1- 3x5 w/ 55lbs.

  • Day 2- 3x6 w/ 55lbs.

Notice when the jump in weight occurs it is larger. You could do it this way, or make a more modest jump if you feel you’re not ready. If the weight you’re using is easy before reaching sets of ten, increase it and reset the reps to five before starting the process over. 

You can approach this strategy in different ways. As you get stronger, the jumps in weight will become smaller and farther between. The goal is for the weight to feel easy before increasing and resetting the reps. 

This can also work well for dumbbell and kettlebell lifts which don’t progress the same way as barbell lifts.

Increasing Sets

This strategy is more aggressive than the previous one. If you are a beginner, use one of the first two options for 3-6 months before trying this. Adding a set rapidly increases the volume of your workout causing more fatigue in a short period of time. Recovery must be prioritized.

• Week 1

  • 2x10

• Week 2

  • 3x10

• Week 3

  • 4x10

• Week 4

  • 2x10 (deload/recover)

• Week 5

  • 3x10

• Week 6

  • 4x10

This is called the wave method. Waves allow fatigue to build, but not overwhelm the body. Once the three week cycle has ended, you will reset to the beginning to give your body a break. You can also increase the weight a small amount at the start of the next wave. You can run this cycle for up to 12 weeks at a time.

Altering The Rest Period

Rest is the most undervalued variable of casual lifters. Most turn lifting routines into cardio. They lack the understanding that building strength and muscle require recovery to perform quality sets.

Phases of hypertrophy (muscle building/toning) typically have short rest periods. If you're doing sets of 8-12 (typical muscle building range), you may only need 1-2 minutes to recover. This is a short rest for you cardio junkies. 

If your goal is to increase your strength, longer rest periods will allow you to lift heavier weights for the duration of the workout. To train strength the reps need to be five or less. As the reps decrease the weight increases.

More weight means more stress on the body despite the lower reps. This requires a longer rest of two to three minutes before the next set. As the weight continues to increase, so too does the recovery. As much as five minutes of rest is taken between sets for strength work. 

Note: muscle toning and strength training approaches complement each other well. For example: If you have hit a plateau with your physique goals, try taking time off from your normal routine and do strength training for a few months. Once you return to your “normal” routine, your new found strength will allow you to lift heavier weights and you will make more progress. 

Perform A Different Variation Of An Exercise

As a beginner, mastering basic movements should be the priority. Developing basic skills of a few movement patterns will translate to others, so stick to some staple exercises initially. Trying new and/or more advanced exercises will continue progress later on. 

This is called a novel stimulus. Anytime you introduce something new that challenges your body, it must adapt. Any of the above strategies could be a novel stimulus. For example, if you spend months doing high rep training (10 or more reps), it will stop working at some point. If you then change your training to a strength program (five reps and under), progress will start again because your body is forced to adapt to a stressor it has not encountered.

Performing a new variation of a lift can also break up the monotony of the same old movements. This is also an opportunity to work on weak areas. 

Something as simple as switching from back squats to front squats or regular bicep curls to hammer curls will stimulate the body to improve by recruiting different muscles or the same muscles in a different way. 

Below are variations of some of the most popular movements in the gym. Every 3-6 months, mix in some you don’t normally include.

• “Beginner”

  • Bodyweight squat

  • Assisted push-up

  • Kettlebell deadlift

  • Seated Overhead press

  • Dumbbell single arm row

  • Box step up

• “Intermediate”

  • Goblet squat

  • Dumbbell bench press

  • Romanian deadlift

  • Barbell overhead press

  • Barbell Bent Row

  • Lunge Return

• “Advanced”

  • Back squat

  • Barbell bench press

  • Conventional deadlift

  • Push-press

  • Pendlay Row

  • Walking Lunges
    

Note: I put quotation marks next to the level of exercise. I’ve had many beginners over the years start with some of the “advanced” movements on day one. You may find the same for yourself.

If you have no experience and you need the most basic exercises to get started, check out my two part series “The Most Accessible Exercises For Beginners.” Part 1 & Part 2. 

Training Frequency

The more often you train, the more you can spread the stress out in a week. In terms of toning muscle, it has been proven that doing three sets of a muscle group three times per week is more effective than doing nine sets in one session. This is due to the recovery that takes place between the workouts and having more energy to do quality sets. 

For example, a classic approach to training is doing a muscle group once per week (chest day, leg day ect.). Many sets are done in one session, leaving the target muscles highly stressed. Instead of using this model, you could spread the stress out as follows:

• Day 1

  • Bicep curl 3x10

• Day 2

  • Incline Hammer Curl 3x10

• Day 3

  • Zotman Curl 3x10

For better long-term results, look to put in a 6-7 out of 10 effort the majority of the time. This reduces soreness if you’re new to lifting. Give a 9-10 effort on occasion for competitions or pushing through plateaus. 

Increasing frequency can also be useful for improving strength and/or technique in a particular lift. For example, if you want to get better at the bench press, and you do it once per week, you could add a second day with lighter weight. This second day is typically done at a different threshold, meaning a different rep range, rest period etc. 

• Day 1 (Strength day)

  • Bench press 3x5 w/85lbs.

• Day 2 (Technique day)

  • Bench press 3x10 w/55lbs.

Think about spreading the work over the week or a month instead of one session. One workout will not change everything. It’s the ability to string together dozens and hundreds of them that counts. Leave the gym with energy left for other important things like your family. 

Our workouts should give us more than they take. 

Tempo

The pace at which you lift can change how your body responds. Beginners tend to move too fast. Moving with intention gives you a chance to focus on technique and connect to your muscles. Slowing the tempo will help with targeting weak muscles or with toning them more effectively. This is referred to as the “mind-muscle connection.” 

Slow your pace down by assigning a length of time to each portion of the lift. Each lift has a phase when the muscles stretch/lengthen, shorten, and pause. Below are examples of common tempos used by lifters:

3/1/0

3/2/0

3/0/3

The first number is the stretch/lengthening phase of the lift, commonly referred to as the “negative.” Examples of this include the lowering portion of a squat or bicep curl. The second number is the pause or isometric hold. This represents a pause at the bottom of a squat or any portion of a movement. The last number shows the phase when the muscles shorten. The upward portion of a bench press or row are examples. 

This is a good approach for beginners to learn technique, but also a way to introduce a new challenge for an experienced lifter. Many casual lifters go through the motions of their lifts. If they took the time to slow the tempo and move with intent, they would get better results.

Where Do You Go From Here?

The above methods have been proven to work. There is much to digest and it may seem overwhelming. If you’re a beginner, here are my recommendations:

• Stick with a handful of movements

• Pick one or two variations of the following movements: squat, hinge, push, pull. Focus on developing good technique. 

• Limit the variables you change

• In the “Increasing Weight” section, the weight changes and the sets and reps remain static.

• In the “Increasing Reps” section, the weight was static and the reps slowly increased. 

• Choose one of these methods and build your foundation

• Keep your effort at a moderate level

• Avoid going ”all out” or training to failure. Build skill in your lifts first.

If you have been lifting consistently for six months to a year choose one of the following options:

• The wave method from the “Increasing Sets” section will provide a new challenge without burning you out. 

• If you are having difficulty with a particular lift, consider increasing the frequency of training it with the example from that section. 

• Cyle in a new variation of a lift you haven’t tried before. 

• Mix in tempo work for eight to 12 weeks 

You can continue to get results by doing the basics for years. Add variety to keep yourself engaged, but stick to what works. Variety may look like a new variation of a lift , or a new way of making progress. Give each new movement or progression strategy at least 12 weeks to show results. Avoid jumping to the new, shiny object too frequently.

When Growth Is Hard

The Chinese bamboo tree takes five years to sprout from the earth. That’s five years of watering and fertilizing it. Five years of wondering if your effort is even worth it. Once it breaks through the surface, it grows a whopping 90 feet in six weeks. Did the tree grow that fast in six weeks? Or five years and six weeks?

There will be aspects of your training that take longer to improve than others. A lift that doesn’t feel natural to you, your body fat refusing to budge, or a lack of consistency. Progress will not be a straight path.  

If you’re starting with no experience read my other article Get Moving: Everything You Need To Know About Sticking To A Fitness Program. 

Get strong, live long! 

-Coach Ren