Five Ways to Progress Without Increasing the Weight
Increasing the weight you're lifting is the obvious way to progress when lifting weights. When you're a novice, you'll be able to increase the weight almost every workout, but you'll soon get to the point where you can't keep increasing the weight and you'll need other ways to make progress.
The problem is that many people see it as the only way to make progress. If you could continue to regularly add weight most sessions, you would soon be breaking every world record. You'll need to be able to progressively overload in other ways as well.
Here are five ways to progress without adding any weight
Increase Reps: A proven and popular program is 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler. 5/3/1 is based around very slowly increasing the weight over time and beat rep PRs. It's common for people to claim that 5/3/1 results in progressing too slowly as the weight on the bar don't increase quickly. They don't understand that you can gain strength by increasing the reps you do with a certain weight.
Another way of increasing reps before increasing the weight in the double progression method.
I once went from squatting 140kg x 7 to 140kg x 14 in just three and a half months. I didn't increase the weight at all, but I still managed to increase my one rep max by around 35kg. I then did the same with 160kg and 180kg.
Increase How Many Sets You're Doing: Another way to increase volume before adding weight in to increase the number of sets you do. Adding sets is often easier than it is to increase the reps.
If you were stuck on 100kg 3 x 5 and built it up to be able to do 100kg 5 x 5, you would find it easier to go up in weight and do 100kg 3 x5.
You can combine increasing reps and sets before increasing the weight. This is called triple progression.
Complete the Sets With More Reps in Reserve and Faster Bar Speed: Reps in reserve are simply how many more reps you could do at the end of the set. For example, if you did 8 reps but could have done 10, you had 2 reps in reserve (RIR). If next time you did the same weight for 8 reps but this time could have done 12 reps (4 RIR), you would be stronger. Being able to judge how many reps in reserve you have takes some experience to be accurate with. A lot of people under, or overestimate how many more reps to do. You can just use the bar speed to judging progression. If the last time you did a weight for 5 reps, and the last rep was a slow grinder, but this time the fifth rep flew up and felt easy, you're stronger.
Increasing Time Under Tension: Using a slower tempo on the concentric and/or eccentric part of the lift will make it much harder, and is another way to master a weight before you add weight to the bar. It will force your muscles to work for longer while still doing the same weight for the same amount of reps and sets.
Decrease Rest Periods/ Increase Density of the Workout: Increasing the density of your workout means doing the same workload in less time. This is another form of progressive overload. I have an article on density training here.
I personally use increasing rep, bar speed and sometimes increasing the sets a lot more than increasing time under tension and decreasing rest times, especially for the big barbell lifts, but they're all can be useful.
The problem is that many people see it as the only way to make progress. If you could continue to regularly add weight most sessions, you would soon be breaking every world record. You'll need to be able to progressively overload in other ways as well.
Here are five ways to progress without adding any weight
Increase Reps: A proven and popular program is 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler. 5/3/1 is based around very slowly increasing the weight over time and beat rep PRs. It's common for people to claim that 5/3/1 results in progressing too slowly as the weight on the bar don't increase quickly. They don't understand that you can gain strength by increasing the reps you do with a certain weight.
Another way of increasing reps before increasing the weight in the double progression method.
I once went from squatting 140kg x 7 to 140kg x 14 in just three and a half months. I didn't increase the weight at all, but I still managed to increase my one rep max by around 35kg. I then did the same with 160kg and 180kg.
Increase How Many Sets You're Doing: Another way to increase volume before adding weight in to increase the number of sets you do. Adding sets is often easier than it is to increase the reps.
If you were stuck on 100kg 3 x 5 and built it up to be able to do 100kg 5 x 5, you would find it easier to go up in weight and do 100kg 3 x5.
You can combine increasing reps and sets before increasing the weight. This is called triple progression.
Complete the Sets With More Reps in Reserve and Faster Bar Speed: Reps in reserve are simply how many more reps you could do at the end of the set. For example, if you did 8 reps but could have done 10, you had 2 reps in reserve (RIR). If next time you did the same weight for 8 reps but this time could have done 12 reps (4 RIR), you would be stronger. Being able to judge how many reps in reserve you have takes some experience to be accurate with. A lot of people under, or overestimate how many more reps to do. You can just use the bar speed to judging progression. If the last time you did a weight for 5 reps, and the last rep was a slow grinder, but this time the fifth rep flew up and felt easy, you're stronger.
Increasing Time Under Tension: Using a slower tempo on the concentric and/or eccentric part of the lift will make it much harder, and is another way to master a weight before you add weight to the bar. It will force your muscles to work for longer while still doing the same weight for the same amount of reps and sets.
Decrease Rest Periods/ Increase Density of the Workout: Increasing the density of your workout means doing the same workload in less time. This is another form of progressive overload. I have an article on density training here.
I personally use increasing rep, bar speed and sometimes increasing the sets a lot more than increasing time under tension and decreasing rest times, especially for the big barbell lifts, but they're all can be useful.
Just make sure you're progressing in some way over time.
You should be able to see progress when going through your workout log.
It just doesn't have to be more weight on the bar.
You should be able to see progress when going through your workout log.
It just doesn't have to be more weight on the bar.