#3: Get Bigger By Overloading Your Muscles

One of the most frequent questions I get is: “How do I get bigger or stronger when hitting the gym?” Lifting weights could get you there, but you will not see real results unless you overload the muscles over time.

By overload, I mean you must always add just a little more stress to your lifts because it is that which stimulates growth. Think about it like this: your muscles will adapt to the ongoing stress you subject them to. And they do so by getting bigger.

‘Stressing’ the muscles, however, is not an easy thing. And while we often think that overloading the muscle is simply ‘lifting more’, there are more ways to go about it.

Here’s how to progressively overload a muscle group.

1: Get Closer To ‘Failure’

‘Failure’ is the point where you can no longer lift in a given set. The closer each set comes to failure, the more likely you are to have exhausted the muscle.

Oftentimes, I use the term ‘reps in reserve’ or RIR. RIR are the reps you can manage before hitting a technical failure or missing a lift.

Say you’re bench pressing 60 kg; three sets of 10 reps. If you are ending those sets with 3-4 RIR, then you may want to end your set with 11 or 12 reps in your next workout. That would bring your RIR down to two or three.

2: Train More

Hit that muscle group more often and you are more likely to see some manner of gain.

Let’s say you are hitting your chest muscles once per week as part of two full-body gym sessions weekly. If you are not seeing any major results, try adding another session during the week. Maybe even add one day where you just exercise your chest.

The additional volume will overload the muscle group.

3: Increase The Weight

Yes, you can do three sets of bench presses. But it’s one thing to execute three light sets whilst playing with your phone and another to push yourself beyond the limits. In the case of the latter, yes, your muscles could be overloaded.

The most fundamental way of overloading a muscle is to pack on weight.

If you are benching 60 kg today and 65 kg next week, for the same reps, then logically speaking you have become stronger. Your muscles have been forced to adapt to the stress you’ve given them.

4: Increase Your Rep Range

Higher rep ranges have often been associated with hypertrophy (10+ reps), while lower rep ranges (5 - 9 reps) are usually ideal for strength gains. This isn’t necessarily true, however.

Schoenfeld et al. [7] had 18 trained males engage in a 21-set full-body workout three times per week for 12 weeks. Half of the participants performed all sets in the 8-12 rep range while the others performed all sets in the 25-35 rep range. All sets were taken to failure. What the scientists found is that there were no differences in hypertrophy between groups.

Both groups got results because they incorporated ‘failure’ in their sets. Therefore, if you are ‘failing’ at 10 reps today and ‘failing’ at 12 reps next time, then you have successfully overloaded the muscle by increasing your rep range.

5: Increase Your ROM

Range of Motion (ROM) is the extent or limit to which a part of the body can be moved around a joint or a fixed point.

10 reps of a half-squat will never give you the benefit a full-squat will; at least as far as hypertrophy goes.

Attaining a full ROM with your lift is essential if you want to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible within that muscle group.

6: Increase Your TUT

Time under tension (TUT) is the amount of time a muscle is held under tension or strain during an exercise set.

During TUT workouts, you lengthen each phase of the movement to make your sets longer. The idea is that this forces your muscles to work harder and optimizes muscular strength, endurance, and growth.

Say you can bench press 60 kg for 10 reps and notice each ‘full rep’ takes you five seconds. Increasing the time of each rep to 10 seconds will give the pectoral muscles more time under tension. Especially if you complete each rep without locking the joints.

7: Rest Less

Decreasing your rest in between sets can be a total game-changer in the art of challenging your muscles.

If you are bench pressing 10 reps of 60 kg for three sets, and notice that you take three or four minutes to check your Facebook and Instagram feeds, try dumbing down on that rest time. Like this, you’d have performed your next lift without having achieved a ‘full recovery’.

This is often debatable, with experts arguing that more rest is actually important because, through rest, the required muscle group can lift at maximum capacity again.

Yet there is no debating that decreasing your rest time can stress your muscles.

The Take away

Where progressive overload is concerned, mindset plays a huge part. To get bigger, or stronger, you just have to take the plunge and embrace some element of ‘suffering’. Only then, will you see results.

Regardless of the process, one might add that after completely exhausting the muscle, you should consider giving the same muscle group around 48 hours of rest to recover.

Sleep, during this time, is crucial. Because that is what helps muscles heal and grow.