Progressing, what a great sounding word. You are moving forward, not moving backwards, you are forging your way through the great-unchartered lands that are before you. Little by little, not big steps, you know we don’t want to get to ahead of ourselves here, but nice little steps that make you feel like you accomplished something. That my friend, is good old down and dirty progress.
You know what sucks? Not progressing or even worse getting somewhere and then having to REGRESS. After all, who wants to go backward? This is bad news to anyone hoping to better themself (Did you know “old news” is also an oxymoron?Just saying).
If you are going to the gym week in and week out, you better be progressing, you don’t got time to waste, you want the you of tomorrow, not the you of yesterday. There’s no time for stagnation, you got things to do and looking good is one of them.
So, what do we do to keep progressing? Increase the weight, make the exercise more challenging by doing it unsupported, doing it with one leg, doing it on unstable surfaces, and the list goes on. Being able to do these things makes us feel like we are in fact, making progress!
As athletes, we love progressions, they’re fun, they keep the exercises lively. However (cautionary note time..)too often we try and progress too quickly. Thinking we are ready for the next step, we canend up in a place that is too challenging for us at this time. This causes us to over-compensate and increase the likelihood of injury.
How Can Progression Be Regression?
Regardless of the exercise, when we progress too quickly, we will find other ways and use other body parts beside the one we’re training to move that weight. Often times this will involve using your lower back.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at a couple examples.
Front Plank to Front Plank with Reach
If you have been training for a good amount of time now, then you most likely have done your fair share of planks. You might think they are a beginner exercise. After a month of Front Planks, you are ready for more of a challenge – you want to progress. What do you do, you add a reach.
Your form was good with the Front Plank, you kept your spine neutral, relaxed shoulders, kept the pelvis out of an anterior tilt, when you were planking, you were looking sharp.
You decide to add a reach with your arms. You like the exercise. You think, “Now this is a challenge”. Except you are no longer controlling your hips and your butt is up in the air like you are doing some kind of yoga pose (you know which one I mean!)
You think you have progressed but you are mistaken. You just progressed to regression. Instead of adding in the reach, you might consider doing them with one leg raised.
Increasing Weight
Getting strong and fit is what the iron game is all about. In the beginning you will go up in weight just by looking at heavy objects. Soon you will find that the weights don’t go up as fast as before, but you’re a hard working son of a gun and you are determined to make these weights your bitch one way or another.
We all know increased weight equal progression.
But does it really? :/
Mmmm… maybe…maybe not.
Let’s say you are benching 45-pound dumbbells for ten reps (Side note: these were performed with perfect form). You had good control of both arms, keeping a strong base with your legs and driving the weights up quickly. You pick up a pair of 50’s, you get the ten reps, bam! You just progressed, sweet satisfaction.
Hold on a second Progressive Paula, this time around you controlled the weight coming down but you did not drive the weights up as quickly, your arms wiggled around like two wet noodles, you shifted your weight around and used your hips to get the weight up. But you got the reps.
You just progressed… to regression.
Why? You got the reps, you lifted the weight, which was more than you’d lifted before.
Unlike the first set when you used your chest and arms to move the weight and were training your nervous system to react quickly,you brought your hips to the party and they were not on the guest list. Result – you just trained your nervous system to be less reactionary.
That looks like a regression to me. Instead of jumping up five pounds add two extra reps to each of your sets or perform one extra set.
3 Questions to Ask When Progressing
Did I use good form/ were all my reps spot on?
Did I move the weight quickly and under control?
Did I not compensate in any why?
If you answer “no” to any of these questions when doing a new exercise variation or increasing the weight, hold off on progressing a little longer. You are better off not progressing than trying to progress and end up regressing even further back because of injury.
Hugs
Josh Williams
