Tag: weightlifting

Do you want to make sure you are making progress in the gym from week to week? Tracking your performance is one of the most important factors regarding our previous article: “How to Train for Muscle Growth” where we discussed the proper implementation of progressive overload.

For a quick recap, progressive overload refers to us progressing the difficulty of our training from one week to the next to continue to challenge our bodies. Without a continuous increase in difficulty, there is no need for our bodies to adapt any further. This increase in difficulty can come in many forms, from increasing the weight, to reducing rest periods, to changing our repetition range, the list goes on. The bottom line is that if we do not continue to challenge ourselves, we will not continue to make progress.

With progressive overload in mind, we want to make sure we are not pushing ourselves too hard from week to week. Pushing too hard can cause us to become overtrained and unable to recover before the next time we train that muscle group.  You could actually be continuing to make strength improvements when overtrained but are unable to increase weight room performance week to week because our fatigue is masking our progress.

Being overtrained also puts us at a significantly higher risk for injuries while training. When the muscles we are trying to train are fatigued, we begin to incorporate other muscles into our movements in what we call “compensation patterns”. For example, if our legs are overtrained heading into a leg day and we start with deadlifts; due to fatigue, our legs will be unable to produce the same force they were last week so when we try to lift the same weight, we could be using more of our low back muscles than usual which increases our risk for back injuries.

The two most important aspects of this article are that we need to increase the difficulty of our training from week to week and we need to make sure we are not overtraining ourselves. The implementation of these two aspects becomes significantly easier when we begin recording the performance of our training.

Without recording our performance, it can be very difficult to remember what we did each set the previous week. If we can’t remember what we did the week before, we could choose a difficulty that is either too hard (which makes us overtrained) or too easy (where we could make more progress). Recording our performance eliminates any guess work and will keep us increasing the difficulty and getting stronger week to week.

Of the many ways you can track your progress, we recommend using an app like “GymBook” or using the old-fashioned method of writing it into a notebook or the notes app on your phone. You can’t go wrong with the notes app or a notebook, but apps like “GymBook” are great because they automatically chart your performance of each set on a line graph so you can see an accurate visualization of your progress.

Here at PTS, all of our Strength and Conditioning Coaches track your performance of every rep of every set, in order to ensure that we are safely and effectively implementing progressive overload to your training.

Give us a call (312-666-7147) or send us an email (info@performancetrainingsystems.com) and one of our many qualified professionals will be able to discuss any questions you may have.