When Should I Progress My Workouts?

I’m a big fan of home workouts (hence the FEEL BE LOOK Squad) and I could write a very long list of positives when it comes to exercising from home. In this article though, I want to shine a spotlight on the one negative when comparing home workouts vs training at the gym and that is - Progressive Overload.

Progressive Overload is the gradual increase of stress placed on your body during exercise, which is an important piece of the puzzle if your goal is to significantly increase muscle mass, improve bone density & connective tissue strength and enhance your cardiovascular fitness. The only disadvantage to working out at home is that you likely have less equipment to be able to progressively overload as efficiently as you could in a gym. In saying this, how much you choose to overload depends largely on your fitness goals. I’ve worked with a lot of women and 95% of those women have very similar health & fitness goals which is to either lose body fat or increase muscle strength & mass but not as dramatically as some women are looking to achieve. Personally I’ve achieved and continue to achieve these goals by exercising at home. 

Introducing the RPE scale which is a scale from 1 to 10 which determines your rate of perceived exertion (how difficult you find a particular workout or exercise). Using this scale is my preferred way to determine whether it’s time to progress a either single exercise or an entire workout …

Measuring your RPE is a great way to monitor the intensity of your workouts which is an important thing to do to achieve any health & fitness goal. An RPE 1 represents someone sitting down, an RPE 5 represents someone exercising at a moderate intensity whereas an RPE 10 would represent someone exercising to failure - they have nothing left in the tank, they couldn’t try harder or lift any heavier if they tried.

You can use this RPE scale to determine your own progressive overload needs. For example - if you’re returning to exercise and have just done 12 squats, you’ll likely find those squats quite moderate to hard, so your RPE would be sitting around the 5 - 7 mark. If you’ve been working on your squats for a few weeks and are now doing 12 squats with little to no effort, then your RPE would be sitting around the 2-3 mark - this is when it’s time to think about how might introduce Progressive Overload. One of my favourite things about exercise is that there are stacks of ways to progressive (especially if you workout at home). Some exercises may require a new piece of equipment but for the most part there are lots of other ways to achieve great results (an article on ways to introduce Progressive Overload will follow this one soon).

In my experience working with women, most (including myself) aim to exercise consistently at about 7-8 on the RPE scale. Unlike many Personal Trainers, I’m not one to promote consistently exercising to fatigue where it can take 2-3 days to recover. I’ve worked with enough burnt-out women with high cortisol and unhappy hormones to promote that level of intensity. Instead, I find it helpful to have a little bit of energy left in the tank, particularly if you have kids yet you still want to challenge yourself physically.

Personally, I rate my RPE after each exercise and then again after a complete workout. The FEEL BE LOOK Strength Circuits include 6 different exercises. Perhaps only one or two of the exercises are relatively easy to do, so rather than ramp up the intensity of the whole circuit, it can be beneficial to introduce progressive overload to just those exercises and continue to see great results. What you want to avoid is doing the bare minimum every day, each week, therefore it’s helpful to consider this RPE scale every 8-10 weeks.

In a previous article, ‘How To Move Through A Weight Loss Plateau’, I spoke about this being an effective strategy to help you move through and potentially shift stubborn body fat however it will also help you progress strength-wise as well.