This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Understood, and I withdraw the assumption I opened with.
The most useful reply I ever got about Progressive overload was a request to state my units. It sounds like pedantry and it has saved me twice.
Post #90 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Cardiovascular work has its own benefits and is not a substitute for a resistance stimulus for this particular purpose.
On balance I think that is right, and I would not bet much on it.
Reduced appetite makes fuelling a session harder, and that is a practical problem with practical solutions rather than a reason to stop.
I would treat that as a working assumption and revisit it.
Anybody returning after a break should expect to start lower than they left, and expecting otherwise is where injuries come from.
I have written this out at length because the short version keeps being misread.
One more thing on Progressive overload that took me far too long to see: the two figures people quote are not measuring the same quantity. Once you notice that, the apparent contradiction disappears.
Confirming post #94 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Summarising the Progressive overload thread so far, since it is long and the answer is buried: the first reply has the method, the fourth has the correction to it, and the rest is people agreeing at length.
Building on post #98 rather than restating it.
Genuine question rather than a rhetorical one: has anyone here actually observed Progressive overload, as opposed to read about it? The thread is long and I cannot tell.
The failure mode on Progressive overload is boring rather than dramatic. It is almost always the step everyone assumes was done correctly because it is too simple to get wrong.
The reports here that state the programme, the load and the timeframe are useful. The ones that state an outcome are not.
Noting that the question and the thing people usually mean by it are different.
Post #98 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.
On Progressive overload: the maintained page in the documentation commons covers the general case with citations and a review date, which is more reliable than any reply here including this one.
Narrowing post #100, because the general version has more than one answer.
Nobody has said the unglamorous part of Progressive overload yet, so: most of the variation is explained by things that are boring to write about and easy to check.
Reduced appetite makes fuelling a session harder, and that is a practical problem with practical solutions rather than a reason to stop.
I would want the raw data before agreeing with my own summary of it.
The arithmetic in post #104 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
The question underneath Progressive overload is usually "how would I tell?" rather than "what is true?", and that one has a method attached to it.
Write down what you would expect to see under each hypothesis before you collect anything. If they predict the same observation, collecting it will not help.
Answering the question post #106 raises rather than the one it answers.
Cardiovascular work has its own benefits and is not a substitute for a resistance stimulus for this particular purpose.
Anybody returning after a break should expect to start lower than they left, and expecting otherwise is where injuries come from.
Before the thread moves on from Progressive overload — what is the sample size behind the claim? I am not being difficult; I have seen the same figure quoted from an n of four and from an n of four hundred.
I had written a reply contradicting post #109 and deleted it. Here is what survived.
Trying to state the Progressive overload position in a way that someone who disagrees would recognise as fair, because I do not think the version in this thread passes that test.
Strength and hypertrophy respond to different things, and preserving one during a deficit is a different objective from building the other.
The part I am sure of is shorter than the part I have written.
Adding thanks rather than a view. I do not have a view worth the space.
Anybody returning after a break should expect to start lower than they left, and expecting otherwise is where injuries come from.
Filing this under things that are true until someone shows me otherwise.
I would keep Progressive overload and the decision it usually gets used for separate in this thread. They are related and they are not the same question, and merging them is why the last one went badly.
Reading rather than contributing, but this is the most useful thread I have found on it.