[6-min read]

For training to be effective, it needs to provide the individual with enough of a training stimulus to drive a positive adaptation. This doesn’t mean that every session needs to be high-intensity and push your clients and athletes far beyond their limits, but a training program must include enough of an overload to ensure progress is made. In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of the Overload Principle and how you can apply it to your training programs to maximize your client’s and athlete’s progress.

What is the Overload Principle?

The Overload Principle involves the intentional overloading of the body beyond its current limits in order to improve the body’s ability to perform a particular task – eg. increase strength or power, improve aerobic fitness or endurance, increase speed, gain muscle, improve resiliency, etc. Without overload, the body will not come under enough stress to force a positive adaptation.

Progressive Overload

Overload is the amount of stimulus applied in an individual workout to force an adaptation. If you want to continue driving progress over an extended period, it is necessary to design workouts to progressively overload the body over an extended time period. Without progressive overload, the individual will eventually adapt to the stress of the workout and plateau, so no more adaptations will occur.

How do I apply the Overload Principle to my training programs?

Progressive overload is achieved by steadily increasing workload over time. This can be done by changing the workout variables such as:

• Frequency / how often the workout is completed. For example, increasing from 2 workouts/week to 3 workouts/week.
• Intensity / how hard the individual is working during the workout. This can be achieved by increasing the number of sets, reps, or the weight lifted if it is a resistance exercise. You can also vary tempos and reduce rest times to increase training intensity.
• Duration / the duration of the training can be increased for example in endurance training.
• Exercises / exercises can be varied to overload specific muscle groups or systems.

Risks Associated with the Overload Principle

Achieving the correct progressive overload is a balancing act. You want to provide enough of an overload to force positive adaptations while at the same time not going too far which can have negative outcomes for your clients and athletes like performance declines, overtraining, burnout, and injury. Here are some guidelines to help you apply the Overload Principle correctly and safely:

Understand baselines

It is very important to understand your client’s and athlete’s baselines so that you can design their program with a suitable progressive overload. A full assessment of relevant tests should be carried out as well as gathering information on the client’s and athlete’s injury history and training age.

Gradual increases

Too much overload too soon can put your clients and athletes at risk of injury. Especially at the beginning of a program or when working with clients and athletes who have a low training age you should be conscious of introducing exercises or workloads that are too demanding. In order to optimize adaptations and reduce the risk of injury, it’s advised that you gradually increase overload over time and only introduce weight when your clients and athletes have mastered the movement.

Allow for adequate recovery time

Your clients and athletes need adequate time to recuperate because it’s not until after training stresses are placed on our bodies’ that adaptations occur. Therefore, the time you allow for recovery is critical to your client’s and athlete’s progress. If training intensity is too high and sufficient recovery time is not allowed for, performance declines, and the risk of illness, burnout, and injury increases due to overtraining. Read more on the importance of recovery and strategies to help your clients and athletes recover more effectively here.

Monitor and individualize

Each individual is physiologically unique and has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, along with a different context, and therefore will react differently to the same stresses and overload applied in their training programs. It is very important to monitor each individual’s response to their program using training load monitoring tools like sRPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion), well-being questionnaires, HRV (Heart Rate Variability), etc.

Developments in technology have simplified the collection of this data so you can make interventions where necessary to decrease the intensity and reduce the risk of overtraining, burnout, and injury. Or to increase the intensity and optimize adaptations in the event where the overload applied was not sufficient. Read more about the importance of individualization and how you can apply it to your programs here.

Summary

In order to drive a positive adaptation and improve the body’s ability to perform a specific task, a training program must overload the body beyond its current limits. When this is applied over time, a progressive overload will continue to drive progress and prevent ‘plateauing’ so your clients and athletes get the most from their training.

Overload can be achieved by changing various workout variables to steadily increase workload over time. Applying the Overload Principle is a balancing act, however. It is important to know each individual’s baselines and be careful to gradually increase workloads while allowing for adequate recovery time. Monitoring each individual’s response to their training program can also help you identify when interventions are necessary to avoid overtraining, burnout, and injury, and optimize adaptations.