Tips on progressive overload

[Darius169]

I'm wondering how many of you guys can help me out here.

I have the concept of what progressive overload is at this point, but I'd like to know the most efficient way to incorporate it into my work outs.

What I mean is best way to do progressive overload without it affecting my other exercises.

I.e when I move up in weight or reps to stay energized enough to still do my other exercises fully for the day.

Also, should I increase my rep range or weight for all my exercises in one day or go one at a time?

Example. Should I increase all my rep range for everything upper body OR should I increase rep for one exercise for today then next time I do upper body stick with the improvement of my last adjustment then increase the next exercise etc.

Overall I want to make sure increasing my rep or weight won't decrease my rep or weight with a different work out due to being a bit more exhausted than usual.

Thanks and happy new years in advance!

[Garage Rat]

You always want to improve one way or another and as mentioned sets and or reps is a good place to start.
It would though depend on what your goal is,is it bodybuilding or a strength one.
Bodybuilding would be increasing reps and sometimes sets to stimulate muscle growth and usually with higher rep sets.
Strength training on the other hand is usually trying to improve the one rep max on big movements although sometime it can be lower rep maxes 1-5 reps.
Regardless of what you do your nervous system will take a hit if you train hard.
The best thing is to put your most important exercises first wether it be bodybuilding or strength type training.
Taking a days rest between each session can help as well as smart programing where you are not constantly hammering your body day in and day out.

[brandontallman]

If you are talking progressive overload from a strength standpoint, just make sure you are receiving the proper amount of rest time in between your sets so you are fully ready. If you do that and are of course taking progressive overload in a reasonable manner, there shouldn't be any problems. Personally, I choose one exercise and up my working weights or my top sets. However, progressive overload does not work forever as you will eventually need to manipulate your volume in order to progress, as sadly linear progress your whole lifting career is wanted but not realistic.

[christos_swc]

Progressive overload is not that dogmatic.
Ideally you want to be increasing reps/weight every workout but that will lead to you basically taking the muscle to failure every workout seeking that extra rep.
Not gonna get too far doing that on every single exercise.
Stick with the "overload" part of it meaning that most of the time you should be trying to load the muscle with something it's not used to.
Just because last time out you did more weight or more repetitions does not mean that this time the muscle won't notice unless you do a little more.
For example I know what is the most weight and reps I've done on a particular exercise, I will not necessarily try to beat that every single workout or I will get exhausted pretty easily.
I will instead use that as a guide to what weight I should be using for my working sets and then do a nice workout to lead the muscle to fatigue and a reasonable amount of overload.
The muscle will get stronger this way anyway regardless of me breaking my previous PR or not.
It's a game of patience, after a while I will break my previous PR without even trying ,or, once every few workouts focus on this particular exercise and see what gains I've made.
Focus is on ending the exercise when I feel I've done enough to stimulate growth but not so much that will have me fail pull through my workout the rest of the week.
So that, concentrate on the exercise you are doing, stimulate growth and move on to the next.
It takes time to discover what you can and cannot get away with in terms of intensity.

[Darius169]

Thanks guys I appreciate the response!