Progressive overload when the scale is falling — one year on Writing it up because I had to work it out twice and would rather nobody else did.
The question about Progressive overload that I actually want answered is the second one below. The first is context and I have kept it short.
Both are stated with units, and I have said what I already checked so that nobody repeats it.
The opening post answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
A definition problem is doing most of the work in this Progressive overload discussion. Once the term is pinned down I suspect the disagreement mostly goes away and what is left is small.
Progressive overload was covered in the wiki last year and the page has a review date on it, which is a better starting point than my memory of a thread.
I would be cautious about generalising from the Progressive overload example above. It is a good example. It is one example.
This follows post #5 rather than contradicting it.
Practical experience of Progressive overload, offered as one case with the conditions stated, not as a general finding. Conditions first, because they are what make it interpretable.
Reduced appetite makes fuelling a session harder, and that is a practical problem with practical solutions rather than a reason to stop.
This is the sort of thing the wiki should carry and currently does not.
Worth separating two things that post #8 runs together.
Nothing here is medical advice and anybody with a relevant condition should have a programme reviewed by somebody qualified rather than assembled from a forum.
Marking that as an opinion rather than a finding.
What I want from this Progressive overload thread is the list of things that would need to be true for the claim to hold. If we can write that list, we can check it.
Anybody returning after a break should expect to start lower than they left, and expecting otherwise is where injuries come from.
Noted, and thank you for writing it out rather than summarising it.
One caution on Progressive overload: everything above assumes the underlying documentation is what it claims to be. That assumption is doing real work and is rarely stated.
Cardiovascular work has its own benefits and is not a substitute for a resistance stimulus for this particular purpose.
The practical version of Progressive overload is three sentences long. The rigorous version is three pages and reaches the same conclusion with the conditions attached.
The reports here that state the programme, the load and the timeframe are useful. The ones that state an outcome are not.
I think the Progressive overload question is answerable and has not been answered, which is a more optimistic position than most of this thread.
Picking up post #21: that is the part I would want checked first.
Adding a null result on Progressive overload. I looked, carefully, and found nothing, and null results deserve posting precisely because they never are.
Anybody returning after a break should expect to start lower than they left, and expecting otherwise is where injuries come from.
Adding this to the thread rather than to the wiki, because I am not confident enough for the wiki.
This follows post #25 rather than contradicting it.
Distinguishing three things in the Progressive overload discussion that keep getting used interchangeably: the observation, the proposed mechanism, and the recommendation that gets attached to both.
Nothing here is medical advice and anybody with a relevant condition should have a programme reviewed by somebody qualified rather than assembled from a forum.
It cost nothing to check and would have cost something not to.
Post #29 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Having read the whole Progressive overload thread before replying: the question in the first post has not actually been answered yet, and three of us have answered a nearby one instead.