How to Get Stronger Every Week - Jacked Nerds Issue #013

Welcome to everyone who joined us last week. We are now {{active_subscriber_count}} strong. Stoked to have y’all here 💪.

I’m back from our short trip to Victoria and Vancouver. Of course we stuffed our faces with fresh seafood, but my favourite eat of our trip was these canelés from La Bise Bakery at the Granville Island Public Market. It was soft and gooey on the inside, perfectly sticky and crusty on the outside. #chefskiss.

Diablo 2 was released in June 2000. I didn’t discover it until almost four years later, during my first year of university, and it instantly became an obsession. It had everything my nerdy brain loved: deep character customization, sprawling maps, complex skill trees, and that endlessly satisfying loop of grinding for XP and gear.

Years later, fresh out of an MBA and working long hours, I found myself back in the same loop — but this time with Diablo 3. After a stressful day, nothing felt more satisfying than booting up the game, clearing dungeons with my friends, and watching my experience bar crawl toward the next level. I know most people felt the grind was incredibly tedious and repetitive. But I loved it. Every small gain made my character a bit tougher and a bit more capable.

That same concept — incremental growth over time — is also what your mind and body need in the gym. Imagine if my Diablo heroes never levelled up, no matter how many monsters I slayed and battles won. No stat boosts, no new gear, just the same grind with no progress.

That’s what it's like training without progressive overload.

I remember when I first started lifting, it was an exciting time because every movement was new to me. Every plan and program worked because my muscles were not used to the stimuli. I discovered muscles I never thought I had! But after a while, change stalled. I hit a plateau and finding my motivations drop.

To break through the plateau, you need to apply the principles of progressive overload to your lifts. I’m going to teach you everything I know about progressive overload I’ve learnt over the years, and how you can apply it to your next gym session.

Progressive overload is the gradual increase of stress placed on the body during training. Your body adapts to stress. It learns. So to keep getting stronger, faster, or more muscular, you have to keep teaching it something new.

The concept dates back to 500 BC. Legend says ancient Greek wrestler Milo of Croton carried a calf every day until it grew into a full-grown bull. He didn’t "switch things up" every week. He just lifted a little more over time.

When you lift a heavy load, your muscles experience microscopic damage known as muscle fibre microtrauma. This triggers a cellular repair process involving satellite cell — dormant muscle stem cells that become activated in response to mechanical stress. These cells proliferate, differentiate, and fuse to existing muscle fibres, helping them grow in size and strength through a process called muscle hypertrophy.

This adaptation only occurs when the training stimulus exceeds previous levels. If you continue lifting the same weight for the same number of reps without increasing the challenge week in and week out, the body has no reason to allocate resources to adaptation. In scientific terms, the mechanical tension must exceed a threshold sufficient to activate mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) signaling pathways and stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Without progressive increases in load, volume, or intensity, these anabolic pathways downregulate, and progress stalls.

Once you understand how progressive overload triggers adaptation at a cellular level, the next question becomes: how do you keep applying it over time? The good news is you don't have to keep piling on weight every session. Progressive overload comes in several forms, each offering a unique way to increase the training stimulus and keep your muscles responding.

Here are the most common ones you can start applying to your training today:

1. Add weight: The most obvious approach. Aim to increase the load by 2.5–5 lbs on upper body lifts and 5–10 lbs on lower body lifts each week or every other week. If you're training at home with limited equipment, even small increments (using fractional plates or resistance bands) count.

2. Add reps: Keep adding weight isn’t always the most realistic. At some point you'll hit a ceiling. So this is where adding reps come in. The idea is to keep the load the same but add reps per set until you reach the recommended rep range for the goal of that exercise. For example, if you did 3 sets of 8 at 100 lbs last week, try 3 sets of 9 or 10 this week. When you reach the upper rep range of your target (e.g., 12 reps), it may be time to increase the weight.

3. Improve form or range of motion: Take a slower tempo (e.g., 3–4 seconds on the eccentric part of the movement) or work on achieving full range of motion. Deeper squats, full lockouts on presses, or strict chin-ups all increase intensity without touching the weight.

4. Decrease rest time: Reduce your rest intervals by 15–30 seconds while maintaining quality reps. If you rested 90 seconds last week, try 60–75 seconds this week. This increases metabolic stress and can improve work capacity.

5. Increase volume: Add an extra set or an additional exercise for the same muscle group. For example, move from 3 to 4 sets per exercise, or add a secondary movement like incline dumbbell bench press after flat barbell bench press.

6. Increase frequency: Train the same muscle group more than once per week to increase total weekly stimulus. For example, add a second push day to hit chest again, or split your training into upper/lower or push/pull/legs to allow for higher frequency.

Keep reading to see how I’m applying these principles to my Road to Benching 315!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, progressive overload has myriad of benefits. Muscle and strength building are the obvious ones, but those benefits also lead to fat loss and mindset boosts.

Builds muscle: Progressive overload is the primary stimulus for muscle hypertrophy, as it consistently challenges muscle fibres to repair and grow stronger. Research shows that mechanical tension, muscle damage, and metabolic stress all contribute to hypertrophy — and overload enhances all three (Schoenfeld, 2010).

Builds strength: Overload enhances neuromuscular adaptations. As you lift heavier or perform more reps, your central nervous system becomes better at recruiting motor units and firing them efficiently. Studies indicate strength gains often begin from neural improvements before significant hypertrophy even occurs.

Burns fat: Resistance training with progressive overload increases lean mass, which raises your basal metabolic rate (BMR). As I covered in Jacked Nerds Issue #012, a pound of muscle burns roughly 6 calories/day at rest vs. just 2 calories for fat.

Boosts motivation: Last but certainly not least, tracking progress and seeing quantifiable gains provides positive reinforcement. This behavioural loop taps into dopamine reward systems, making training more satisfying and encouraging consistency — a key factor in long-term success.

One of the most common misconceptions in fitness is that fat loss and muscle gain require entirely different workout styles. In reality, the underlying training principle of progressive overload remains effective for both, especially when the goal is fat loss.

Fat loss occurs when you maintain a consistent caloric deficit, meaning you consume fewer calories than your body expends. However, without resistance training, that weight loss is often accompanied by a loss in lean body mass, including muscle (again, a topic I covered in depth in my last issue). This is where progressive overload becomes essential.

By continuously challenging your muscles through increasing load, volume, or intensity, you send a clear message to your body: preserve this tissue. Studies have shown that resistance training during a caloric deficit helps retain significantly more muscle compared to cardio-only protocols (Bickel et al., 2011). Retaining muscle is critical not only for aesthetics and performance but also for maintaining a higher basal metabolic rate, which supports ongoing fat loss.

Additionally, progressive overload can enhance hormonal profiles and increase energy expenditure through elevated post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). This creates a more favourable environment for fat oxidation while minimizing the risk of metabolic slowdown.

I know, that’s a lot of concepts and knowledge. Here are some tips and steps you can follow to apply the different types of progressive overload methods:

Track your lifts. Your body doesn’t remember what you lifted last week, and you can’t progress what you don’t track. Use tools like Fitlist (I just use the free version), the notes app on your phone, or even a simple spreadsheet. The data and trends will show you if you are progressing, how quickly you are progressing and where you might be hitting a plateau.

Pick one or two progression methods. Don’t change everything at once. Choose to add weight, reps, or reduce rest time. Stick with that focus for 4–6 weeks. This structured approach helps you notice gains that might otherwise go undetected.

Focus on consistency. Progressive overload is more about trends than perfection. Improving by 1 rep every two weeks is still progress. Think of it as compound interest for your muscles.

Lastly, Be Patient. Muscle building takes time, and reaping the fruits of progressive overload can take weeks and months. Trust the process and you will be rewarded.

Pick one lift you’re currently doing — bench, squat, deadlift, overhead press, doesn’t matter — and apply progressive overload to it for the next 7 days.

Choose one progression method: add 2.5–5 lbs, add 1–2 reps, reduce rest time, or improve your form/ROM. Execute that change this week. Nothing fancy. Just push that one metric forward.

Then write down the result and reflect: Was it harder? Did your form hold? How did it feel? Listen to your body and adjust accordingly.

I’m dedicating the second half of the year to improving my bench press — my weakest lift of the big three (not that anyone asked, but I squat 405lbs and deadlift 495lbs) — with the goal of finally hitting 315 lbs.

To tackle this, I’ve revamped my training split to include two dedicated bench days per week. Day 1 is heavy pressing, focused on low reps, high intensity. Day 3 shifts to higher volume work, focusing on hypertrophy and movement efficiency. My Day 2 (squats) and Day 4 (deadlifts) are unchanged.

This will be a 18-week program broken into three 6-week phases. I’ll be posting weekly updates right here, sharing progress, challenges, and what I’m learning along the way. You can also follow my journey on Instagram at @thejackednerds for more behind-the-scenes content.

Interstellar (2014) is one of my top 5 movies of all time, along with Donnie Darko (2001), The Matrix (1999), Goodfellas (1990) and Saving Private Ryan(1998). And being a 3D printing nerd, I was completely awed by u/robo_boy_’s build of a functional TARS that can walk, roll and transition between the two modes rather seamlessly 🤯.

👉 Take a look.

While we are on the topic, if you haven’t seen GPTARS, it is an equally impressive build for different reasons.

In response to a recent post I made on r/budgetfood, where I talked about how legumes are one of the cheapest protein sources you can buy in this economy (topic for a future issue), a fellow Redditor shared this delicious yet simple-to-make Cheesy White Bean-Tomato Bake recipe with me.

Trust me, you will not regret making this.

If you’ve been enjoying reading Jacked Nerds, it would mean a lot if you shared it with someone you think could benefit from the frameworks and tips I share here.

Thanks so much for being part of this — I appreciate you! 🙏

My mission: 10,000 like-minded legends in the Jacked Nerds crew by end of year.
Help me get there 💪

Progressive overload is a simple concept, but not always easy to apply. It rewards patience, consistency, and curiosity. And when you zoom out, it’s more than just a training principle. At its core, progressive overload is a growth mindset: a commitment to challenging yourself to show up just a little better than you did yesterday. That’s ultimately what progressive overload is all about.

That’s all for this week. Catch y’all in the next one! ✌️

Happy lifting! #LFG