What’s on the Progressive Overload poster
A 7-row table: Variable · Increase by · Note.
Ways to increase demand, roughly from safest to most aggressive.
- Reps — 1–2 per set — The gentlest lever
- Sets — One per week — Adds volume quickly
- Load — 2.5–5% — The classic; needs good form first
- Range of motion — Deeper, controlled — Free, and often overlooked
- Tempo — Slower lowering — Increases time under tension
- Rest — Shorter — Raises conditioning demand
- Frequency — One session — Adds recovery cost
Change one variable at a time. Two at once, and a failed week does not tell you which one was too much.
Questions about the Progressive Overload poster
- What’s on the Progressive Overload poster?
- A 7-row table: Variable · Increase by · Note. Ways to increase demand, roughly from safest to most aggressive. Reps — 1–2 per set — The gentlest lever; Sets — One per week — Adds volume quickly; Load — 2.5–5% — The classic; needs good form first; Range of motion — Deeper, controlled — Free, and often overlooked; Tempo — Slower lowering — Increases time under tension; Rest — Shorter — Raises conditioning demand; Frequency — One session — Adds recovery cost. Change one variable at a time. Two at once, and a failed week does not tell you which one was too much.
- Who is the Progressive Overload poster for?
- Progressive Overload belongs to the Body & health section rather than to a school year, because health is not something one grade owns. Anyone learning movement can pin it up — a beginner, a student mid-course, or someone revising years later.
- When should you use the Progressive Overload poster?
- The body adapts to what it repeatedly meets. Change nothing and it changes nothing. A wall chart earns its place by being glanceable from where the work is happening, so Progressive Overload belongs on the wall where that health work actually happens, within glancing distance, rather than filed away.
- What other posters go with Progressive Overload?
- Breathing Under Load, Common Injuries and The Core sit alongside Progressive Overload in the Body & health section. Printed together they make a wall rather than a single sheet, which is how a reference set actually gets used.Breathing Under LoadCommon InjuriesThe Core
- Is the Progressive Overload poster free to download and print?
- Yes. Progressive Overload downloads as a free PDF with no account, no email and no watermark, like everything else in the Body & health section. Print as many copies as you like for a home, a classroom, a library or a tutoring group; reselling the file is the only thing the licence rules out.Read the licence
- What size does the Progressive Overload poster print at?
- Progressive Overload is a vector PDF laid out for US Letter, and prints on A4 with Fit to page — the same file, no separate download. Because every mark on it is drawn rather than photographed, it stays sharp enlarged to A3, A2 or A1 at a copy shop. Colour carries emphasis only, so a greyscale print of Progressive Overload loses nothing.Printing guide
Related posters
Charts that sit alongside Progressive Overload on the same wall.
Browse every Body & health poster, or start from the full catalogue.