4 Simple Progressions to Improve Your Fitness

When we perform exercise, we want to make sure that we are progressing or improving our exercise performance.  Not only will this help improving your fitness, but you can also build confidence with what you can do. Although how we progress and what to improve is based on individual goals, there are simple progressions that may be considered. 

There are so many ways you can progress but there are 4 simple progressions that we can consider.

• Increase Resistance

• Increase Rep/Set

• Changing Exercise Tempo

• Increasing Number of Exercise

Increase Output

Most common one is increasing resistance or adding more weight.  For example, if you have been performing dumbbell chest press with 10lb and feel comfortable, then you may want to increase the dumbbell to 12 or 15lb.  Benefit of lifting heavy weight is not just to build strong muscles but also to build strong bones, ligament, tendon and cognitive function will also improve.

Output can be also be speed, especially those use running, biking, rowing and other form of method as part of their training.

Possible challenge in increasing output is you may increase the load too much too early.  This may lead to compensation for the technique.  Work with smaller inclement to make sure you can perform the exercise the same way you did with the lighter weight.

Increase Rep/Set

Another common progression is increasing number of repetitions or sets.  Basic mindset of reps or sets is amount of practice you are performing with the exercise.  Just like in sports skills, more you practice more you get better.  So, if you can squat 65lb for 6 reps, you can challenge yourself for 8-10 reps or even more.  For sets, you can take a break and practice again.

Challenge in increasing rep/set is to keep performing in ideal technique.  More fatigue you get, technique may become sloppy.  If you are practicing bad technique, then that will become your skill.  Pay attention to your skill for every reps.

Changing Exercise Tempo

Tempo is focusing on controlling the movement.  Typically, we start off with 1 to 1 ratio between concentric and eccentric movement.  For example, when you do a biceps curl, your concentric muscle contraction is curling up, and eccentric muscle contraction is curling down.  So, 1 to 1 ratio means, the tempo of curling up and down is about the same. 

With changing tempo, for example, you can curl up in 1 second and curl down in 5 seconds.  What this does is provide the muscle with more tension in each repetition which can lead to better muscle development.

Increasing Number of Exercise

Adding more exercise in a set is also a great progression.  Not only strength is being challenged but also your cardio condition as well.  Let’s say you are doing push-ups for 10 repetitions.  Immediately after you are done with push-ups, you can perform 10 squats.  Not only are you doing push-ups and squats to train your upper and lower body, because the exercise is done back-to-back, you will be training your cardiovascular system as well.

Although the benefit is great, however, you may get fatigue quickly and may lead to sloppy technique or may not be able to complete your training session.  Initially, just add one exercise every 2 weeks and keep the load and repetitions at moderate level.   

Summary

Progression can be applied in so many variations. What progression you will choose is based on what you are wanting to accomplish. Rather than doing same thing, change up your training routine by adding various progression.

Kota Shimada