Progression is the basis for physical fitness. At the gym, you stress your body on purpose, and over the span of a couple days it recovers from the stress, and improves your ability to endure the same stress in the future. This is called 'super-compensation'. Importantly, if you were to re-visit the same workout three or four times, it will cease to be stressful for your body - you have adapted! This is a good thing, but it also means that you will have to increase the difficulty of your workouts to continue seeing results.
What does this mean? This means that no matter how you workout, it must become progressively more
difficult as time goes by.
There are a few variables that
can be changed for this to occur in both cardiovascular and weight training:
Cardiovascular
Exercise:
- Time
- Intensity
- Distance
- Rest/rest periods
 |
| An example of how to record running workouts from Runner's World. |
Weight Training
Exercise:
- Repetitions per set
- Sets per exercise
- Total volume
(sets x reps)
- Exercise selection
- Rest intervals
 |
| An example of a log for resistance exercises. |
A discussion of these variables warrants two or three more
articles (keep an eye out); however the general idea is to increase ONE of
these variables at a time. For example, if this week you run for 20 minutes at
10mph, next week you would try to increase this to 22 minutes at 10mph. Or you
could increase the speed to 12 mph and keep your time at 20 minutes. The important thing is that
each workout is slightly more difficult than the last.
Progressing workouts should always be done conservatively. Never increase any of the variables listed
above by more than 10% per week. While
this seems slow and boring, it will prevent any overuse injuries from cropping
up. You know what they say about the hare and the turtle.
So if progression is the key to making health improvements
through working out, how will you know if you are progressing? Will you remember how much weight was used? Or how far you ran, and at what pace? Probably not.
The simplest solution is to keep a tiny (or large) journal
of your work in the gym.
Write down what you accomplished
on Monday, and then a week later, add a little bit more to your workout. For an added bonus, add a note about how you
feel at the end. This will help you decide how much harder your next workout should be.
Having a workout journal will help in progressing your workouts, which will result
in better results in the gym. Additionally, notebooks are very cheap
and writing down workouts only takes a couple of minutes. What are you waiting
for?!
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