Spring Forward: Building Strength with Progressive Overload
Current Conditions:
Winter is moving forward and the days are getting longer again. While winter can sometimes bring a bit of hibernation, it can also be a great time to shift your workout focus toward complex movements and plyometrics. As we move out of that slower season, our goals can start shifting back toward building strength and endurance.
This means your workouts should begin to push your boundaries a little more. By the end of a session your muscles should feel worked and tired. Harder workouts, however, require intentional recovery. That might mean building in rest days or alternating the muscle groups you train. Muscles grow by being challenged during workouts and then given time to rebuild. Rest days can be difficult for people who like to stay active, but following a plan helps your body adapt to harder efforts.
Taking notes:
Many lifelong athletes already know how to work hard. At some point though, working harder alone stops producing the same results. To keep improving, you have to start working smarter. This is where my concept of purposeful movement comes in. You don’t always need the hardest or longest workout for it to be beneficial. Everyone has different needs, and every season brings different challenges. Longevity comes from recognizing those changes and adjusting accordingly. That requires self-awareness and the ability to look back and see what inputs led to your current results.
Katie Hardie speaks about this idea well in this podcast. Her specialty is nutrition, but she also has a fitness background. She focuses on helping people find the nutrients their body needs to thrive. I think about longevity in exercise the same way. Instead of nutrients, we’re identifying the movements your body needs guidance in so you can continue to feel strong long term. It’s about putting quality and intention behind your habits.
Outlook:
As we move forward, we will begin applying progressive overload to training. This means gradually adding 1–2 harder workouts per week.
That could look like:
Adding an extra set
Increasing weight slightly
Adding a hill to a run
Pushing your pace for short intervals
The goal is to ease into pushing our boundaries so the body adapts without unnecessary setbacks. By gradually increasing intensity now, we set ourselves up for the biggest strength gains in late spring and early summer, right when we want to be ready for long days outside.