Overload
Strength gains are achieved in two simple ways:
There are several ways to achieve this goal:
- Through increased ability of individual muscle fibers to generate a stronger contraction
- By recruiting a greater proportion of the total available fibers for each contraction.
There are several ways to achieve this goal:
- Increasing the amount of weight or resistance used for the exercise ( Intensity).
- Increasing the number of repetitions without changing the weight.
- Decreasing or Increasing, based on the movement, the speed at which the repetitions are performed.
- Decreasing the rest intervals for endurance improvements ( usually with lighter weight). Or increasing the rest length for strength and power development ( with higher resistances).
- Increasing the volume ( Sum of sets x repetitions x weight).
- Any combination of the previous steps.