How to Choose a Workout Plan and Use Progressive Overload

Nikkiey: Progressive overload allows you to continually make progress and reach your fitness goals over time, more and more. Always, period. End of story.

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder and brand personality of WarriorBabe, where we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome, you guys, to episode number 16, where we're going to dive into another listener Q&A.

A couple weeks ago, I dropped on my story again on Instagram, which, if you guys don't follow me, go follow me at Nikkiey Stott and at WarriorBabe. I dropped on my story asking you guys to participate in another one of these, because we just launched our first one a couple weeks ago. I forgot what episode that was. We're getting into the episodes, guys. Wow, we're on 16. This is awesome. I really enjoyed doing that Q&A before, so now we're going to kick off round two of the listener Q&A. You guys asked some really good questions.

It was hard to just choose one, so I chose two, and they're worthy of long answers, which is what I asked you guys for when I posted on my story: questions worthy of long answers to take to the podcast. So here we are. Let's break them down, guys. I'm super excited.

To dive right into it, question number one that I'm going to answer was: what workout plan is right for you? I'm going to speak to four different styles of training methods in this answer.

However, I want to remind you that nutrition is king and exercise is queen. Get your nutrition right and you'll gain results from whichever workout program you follow that's in alignment with your goals. I put that plug in there because so many people have no problem working out, right? They go get their workout done. They do it every week. They're hyped to get their workout done. But they're failing at a big freaking key that is a part of their entire transformation, and that is nutrition.

So just to put that plug in there: nutrition is king. Exercise is queen. Get your nutrition right and you'll gain the results from whichever workout program tickles your fancy that's in alignment with your goals. Okay? All right.

Let's talk about number one, CrossFit. Like I said, these are the four different styles of training methods that I feel are very prevalent with the people that listen to this podcast, the women that I serve. I'm going to dive into CrossFit, bodybuilding, Olympic lifting and powerlifting.

One, CrossFit. What is CrossFit? CrossFit is a fitness program that incorporates a wide range of exercises and movements, including weightlifting, gymnastics and cardio. Maybe you guys have done this before. I've actually recently incorporated CrossFit into my routine once per week, and it's hella cardio. CrossFit workouts are typically performed at a high intensity. A couple weeks ago, on a Saturday, I was with a group of my friends.

We did a CrossFit workout. It was me and Emily together, girls versus our boyfriends. And holy shit, was this high intensity, guys. We had to do a 50-calorie row to open it up, splitting the calories between me and Emily. Then we had to do 10 rounds, five each, of 12 deadlifts at 105 and 10 over-the-bar burpees.

I would do a round, Emily would do a round, I would do a round, Emily would do a round. We had to do 10 rounds of that, and then we had to close it out with another 50-calorie row, splitting the calories between me and Emily. Guys, we did this in 16 minutes. We beat the guys. But that was high intensity. I'm sure if you're listening and you've done CrossFit, you know exactly what I'm talking about. These workouts are designed to challenge the body in new and varied ways. The aim is to improve strength, flexibility, cardiovascular fitness, coordination, all that jazz,

rather than just building muscle or improving performance in a specific sport. So that's CrossFit in a nutshell. Like I said, if you've done CrossFit, you know. It's very fast-paced. It's more about the sport than it is about building muscle. I know I speak to a lot of you guys that do CrossFit, and you love the atmosphere. You love the whole intensity of it. But keep in mind, if you're wanting to build muscle, I would incorporate CrossFit a couple times a week.

I've spoken to my WarriorBabes about this. I would do the majority and bulk of your workouts in this next one. I would recommend bodybuilding, and this is the style of training that I've done for the majority of my entire career. So bodybuilding is number two. It's a style of strength training focused on maximizing muscle size and definition. Keyword: definition. Bodybuilding-style workouts use a variety of weightlifting and resistance training techniques to target specific muscle groups and increase muscle mass in those groups.

The workouts are more often performed using isolation exercises, such as bicep curls, leg extensions, glute ham raises or lat pulldowns, to isolate and work a single muscle group at a time. Doing this helps to improve the appearance of all of the muscles, right?

Let me allude to the goal for CrossFit and the goal of bodybuilding. For CrossFit, it's someone with a goal of improving overall fitness and preparing their body for real-life activities.

Like, if they want to go out for a four-mile run, they're going to be able to easily do that because of the cardiovascular fitness that they've built up by doing CrossFit. So that's a well-suited arena. It's all-encompassing. CrossFit is awesome as an all-encompassing fitness atmosphere. But you may see some CrossFitters that don't have an aesthetically pleasing body. You know what I mean? They go get the workout done, they smash it. It's awesome. But the big thing, guys, like I already alluded to, is your nutrition. You can be a CrossFitter, have bomb nutrition and have a bomb body.

You can do CrossFit, have shit nutrition and have a shit body. Your nutrition is what's really going to pull out the aesthetics of your body.

Now with bodybuilding, the goal is someone who wants to maximize muscle size and definition. That person would be well-suited for bodybuilding workouts. What I mean is, you're focusing on single muscle groups at a time. CrossFit is pretty much a full-body workout. You're maybe doing deadlifts one day, and the next workout is maybe deadlifts again with shoulder presses.

You know what I mean? Bodybuilding breaks it down to specific muscle groups at a time, doing isolation exercises, which is really going to break down that muscle and shape it and get it toned and all that jazz. So it's cool to do deadlifts, but let's back it up with some accessory work. Let's do some hamstring curls. Let's do some kickbacks, right? Because you're isolating those exercises to target a single muscle group at a time.

So that's bodybuilding workouts. And you can do all of these, really, maybe at a more advanced level. For me, for example, I do the majority of my workouts as bodybuilding-style workouts. Like I said, I incorporate one CrossFit per week, and then I incorporate one run per week, right? But bodybuilding-style workouts are what helped get my body to where it is. I've dabbled in the fourth one I'm going to talk about, which is powerlifting.

What I'm trying to allude to is: whatever suits your goals, whatever speaks to your goals and is in alignment with your goals, follow that program. They're all great. It's just what speaks to you the most.

Hey, hey, I just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to this show. It means a lot. I hope you guys are enjoying it, and there's so much more to come. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons, and it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too.

Thanks so much, guys. Let's get back to the show.

Okay, so number three is Olympic lifting. Olympic lifting is a type of weightlifting that involves the performance of two key lifts: the snatch and the clean and jerk. You try and get me to do one of those? I look like a freaking horse trying to kick its feet back and flailing everywhere. Even though I'm a professional in this space, this is not my type of exercise. My form is like a baby trying to walk.

It needs improvement. Olympic lifting emphasizes speed, power and technical proficiency, and it's a sport in its own right. It requires precise technique and a significant amount of practice to master. Olympic lifting workouts typically include the snatch and the clean and jerk, as well as accessory exercises to improve strength and technique. Like I said, it's a sport in itself.

And it comes from those two key lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk. If that's up your alley, then go do Olympic lifting, and then do accessory exercises, which are more of the isolation exercises I spoke to with bodybuilding. So you combine the two. But for me personally, I'm not going to be doing snatches and clean and jerks. Maybe I'll incorporate one of those exercises into my bodybuilding routine, but I ain't making my whole routine around those two things. All right? So if this sounds like your goal,

then I would recommend Olympic lifting. The goal is an interest in Olympic lifting and a desire to improve your speed, your power and your technical proficiency, like I alluded to. If that sounds like something you want to be able to do, then go do Olympic lifting. But make sure you have the right nutrition behind it, because that's what's going to get you the aesthetically pleasing body that you want. I'm just going to keep putting that plug in there.

Okay. The last of the four training styles I said I would share in answering what the right workout plan is for you is powerlifting. Maybe you're somebody who has done powerlifting before. Powerlifting is a sport that consists of three main lifts: the squat, the bench press and the deadlift. The goal of powerlifting is to lift as much weight as possible in each of these lifts, with the objective being to lift the most weight overall. Right? You've probably seen, or maybe you've done this, people going into powerlifting meets, and they prep for them in those three key lifts,

the squat, the bench press and the deadlift. They have all of these percentages that they're trying to hit, based on their max rep and yada, yada, yada. I did this. I loved it. It was great, but it was a lot of...

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All right, let's get back to the show.

...stress on my body, okay? My body didn't really like it as much, but I also didn't give it enough time to adapt to this style. I did it for a couple of months. Bodybuilding is just my jazz. I've tried everything, guys. I've shared that in previous podcasts. I just always come back to bodybuilding. But powerlifting requires strength and power.

It also requires that technical proficiency, and it typically involves lifting heavy weights for low reps. This is where I love incorporating a little bit of powerlifting with a little bit of bodybuilding. You could open up a workout doing a squat, focusing on percentages of a squat, and I've programmed this for myself and for my clients, and you do low reps. Then you go into more isolation work, like leg extensions, sissy squats and walking lunges, that's going to target more of the quad in an isolation fashion.

So when I say isolation, those are isolation exercises. You're also hearing me say compound exercises, which are the bench press, the deadlift, the squat, and the shoulder press as well. Powerlifting workouts typically involve, just like bodybuilding does, free weights: barbells and dumbbells. They involve the performance of the three main lifts, like I already spoke to, as well as accessory exercises to improve strength in those lifts. So you'll see powerlifters do accessory exercises after they work on their main lift

to improve the strength for that lift, right? So it's pretty cool. I just spoke to combining powerlifting and bodybuilding together. I've definitely done that before, and I like to cycle through different things. But if I was to pick out of these four techniques, again, it has to speak to your goal. For me, my goal is to have an aesthetically built body. I look like an athlete. I'm toned and defined. I have muscle mass.

I look strong. It matches my inner personality. That's my goal. So the way I'm going to do that is one CrossFit session, and the majority of my training in the week is bodybuilding. Maybe every so often in the month, I'm putting the squat, the deadlift and the bench press at the beginning of my lift, and then finishing with a bodybuilding-style workout, okay? So that's what I would recommend. But which one is right for you? Like I said, each style of workout has its own specific goals.

Each requires a different set of skills and attributes. So it's important to choose the style of workout that aligns with you and your fitness goals. They're all great. But like I said, which one aligns with your goals the most? Then do that one, okay? And then make sure your nutrition is on par. It's up there. You're focused on it. Because you ain't going to get the body aesthetics by doing these workouts when they're not backed with proper nutrition. You can do all these workouts, but if you eat like shit, you're going to have a shit physique.

Do these workouts, eat good, and you're going to have a bomb physique. Okay, so that answers question number one, and I hope it answers it for you.

Question number two: should you progressive overload? I'm going to break this down into what progressive overload means, why it's important, and how you can implement it into your routine for optimal results. So first, what is progressive overload? It's a gradual increase of stress placed on the muscle during physical exercise in order to continually challenge the body and promote muscle growth and adaptation.

So that is progressive overload. Is it important, and why? It's 100% important if you have a goal to build strength and muscle and see your body composition change. If that is your goal, you should be incorporating progressive overload into your routine. I'm going to share how you would implement it into your routine in a second, but first I want to share why it's important.

Progressive overload promotes muscle growth and adaptation. When the muscles are subjected to progressive overload, they undergo microscopic damage.

I've talked about this before. You're breaking down the fibers of your muscle in every single workout that you do. This damage stimulates the body to repair and strengthen the muscle fibers, resulting in muscle growth and adaptation. As you continue to increase the stress placed on your muscles, the body will continually adapt, resulting in the ongoing progress you want to see with your body and gains in strength and muscle mass. It's so important. If you're just continually doing the same thing over and over again, you go into the gym, you're going through the motions, you're not progressive overloading,

you're not going to reach the goals you want for your body composition: making progress, seeing strength and increasing your muscle mass. And increasing muscle mass is what gets you toned, you guys. So progressive overload promotes muscle growth and promotes adaptation.

Number two, it increases strength. Progressive overload gradually increases the weight or resistance used in a given exercise, and this challenges the muscles and forces them to work harder. You've probably heard people say choose challenging weight, choose challenging weight, choose challenging weight. What does that mean?

Well, maybe one week you're going to go in and do an incline chest press at 40 pounds. Then next week, you're going to try and go for 45. You ain't going to try and go for 60 next week. That's just silly. Don't be stupid like that and increase it by 15 or 20 pounds. That's not progressive overload. It's making small, gradual increases to the weight or resistance in a given exercise, which is going to challenge the muscle and force it to work harder. As the muscles adapt to this increased stress, they become stronger, allowing you to lift heavier weights and perform more challenging exercises.

This is what's going to stimulate growth. This is what results in ongoing gains in strength, making it possible for you to continue making progress even after months or years of training. For more advanced people, your newbie gains are probably out the door. It's really easy to build muscle in your first couple of years if you're doing it the right way. Now you really need to focus on progressive overload and pay attention to this, because your body needs continual adaptation to keep getting you the results you want to see.

Okay, number three, it prevents plateaus. If you continue to perform the same exercise, as I just spoke to, with the same weight and resistance, your body will eventually become too comfortable with the routine and stop making progress. I'm pausing here for a second, because this is probably the majority of people. They're getting too comfortable. They're going through the motions, and they're in a plateau, quote unquote, because they're not continually trying to progressive overload, to increase stress, to challenge the body, to put it through adaptation.

All of this, yeah. So progressive overload ensures that the body is continually challenged and forced to adapt, preventing plateaus and ensuring ongoing progress.

The fourth reason it's so important to progressive overload is that it supports overall physical fitness goals. Whether your goal is to build muscle, increase endurance or improve your overall fitness, progressive overload can help you reach your goals by continually challenging your body and promoting growth and adaptation. It's so important, you guys. By gradually increasing the stress placed on your muscles, progressive overload allows you to continually make progress and reach your fitness goals over time, more and more.

Always, period. End of story.

So how do you implement this, Nikkiey? You're telling me all this good stuff. I'm totally bought in. Progressive overload. I'm going to get a tattoo on my butt. No, I'm just kidding. But seriously, how do you implement this stuff? There's a variety of ways you can implement it, and I'm going to share seven tactics.

Number one, the most obvious, is increasing resistance or weight. Gradually increasing the weight used in a given exercise is one of the most common forms of progressive overload.

That's why it's important to track your weights. So one week you go in and you're hitting it. And every week is not going to be the same, guys. It's okay if one week is off and you didn't hit it. Maybe even for the first two weeks you're still at the same weight you were at the week prior. It's okay. It's a gradual increase. Don't be trying to go up every week. At some point you're just going to stay there for a significant amount of time so your body gets used to the weight. And then you'll be like, damn, I'm getting stronger. My muscles are getting bigger. I can increase it by five pounds. That's what I mean: five pounds.

It's not going to be 10 or 15 or 20 the next week. No, it's gradual increases. Maybe for the first two weeks, here I am at 40 pounds on incline. I'm feeling good toward the end of my second or third week, so I'm going to try and increase by five pounds. That's progressive overload. So that's number one, increasing resistance or weight.

Number two, adding reps or sets. Increasing the number of reps or sets performed in a given exercise can create progressive overload and force the muscle to work harder.

Number three is decreasing rest time between sets. Reducing the amount of time taken between sets can increase the overall demand on the muscle and promote growth and adaptation. So going from two minutes of rest between sets on a back squat one week to one minute the next week is going to help create more overall demand on the muscle, promote growth and promote adaptation. So just play around with rest times. That's number three.

And hold on, let me pause for a second. You don't have to do all of this at once. Try one of them. Incorporate it into your routine. Try another one. Incorporate it into your routine. First, definitely increase resistance or weight over time. Then play with your sets and your reps. Then play with your rest time. Don't try to do this all at once, please. Okay.

Number four, increasing the speed of the movement. By performing exercises at a faster pace, you can create a greater demand on the muscle and promote progressive overload. So that's number four.

Number five, using different equipment. Just switching to a different piece of equipment, such as going from barbells to dumbbells, can create a new and more challenging stimulus for the muscle. Going from dumbbells to cable. Awesome. Okay.

Number six, variation in exercises. Varying the exercises you perform can target different muscle groups and create new challenges for the body, promoting growth and adaptation. For example, drop sets. This was actually in the question I got asked that kicked off doing another Q&A.

Drop sets can be considered a form of progressive overload. Drop sets involve performing a set of an exercise to failure, then immediately reducing the weight and continuing to perform additional reps until failure again. This creates an increased demand on the muscles and forces them to work harder, which promotes growth, which then promotes adaptation, all that jazz. By continually increasing the stress placed on the muscle, drop sets can be used as a form of progressive overload and help promote muscle growth and strength gains.

So that's variation in exercises. That's a great form: drop sets. Again, you don't have to incorporate all of this at once. I'm giving you some golden nuggets here, you guys. Just add one or two of these into your routine. Add one, then add another, then add another, over time.

The last way you can implement progressive overload is eccentric training: focusing on the eccentric, or negative, portion of a lift. This is where tempo work is great, placing more time under tension.

You've probably heard of tempo work like 4-0-X-0, or 4-1-X-1. That means you're spending four seconds in the negative, then a one-second pause, exploding up, and then a one-second pause at the top. That's what 4-1-X-1 means. This can be more effective in inducing muscle damage and promoting growth as well. So that was eccentric training, the seventh way you can implement progressive overload.

So again, to recap how you can implement it: increasing resistance or weight, adding reps or sets, decreasing rest time between sets, increasing the speed of a movement, using different equipment, variation in your exercises, and eccentric training. Those are the ways you can implement progressive overload. I know you guys are totally bought in. I know you're going to start progressive overloading now, which is freaking awesome. Do it. It's going to get you to your goals of building strength and muscle and seeing your overall body composition change, in congruence with proper nutrition. Okay? So like I said when I opened up: nutrition is king.

Exercise is queen. All right, you guys, that wraps up another listener Q&A. I freaking love doing these, and I'm definitely going to be doing more of them. If you don't follow me, please go follow me on Instagram at Nikkiey Stott and at WarriorBabe. I post on my story periodically asking what questions you guys want me to answer on the podcast, so send me good questions that are worthy of long answers. Go follow me, and I'll see you guys in the next podcast.

Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. The only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask is that you leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, it will mean the absolute world to me, and it may change the world of someone else.