460: Progressive Overload: The Principle Behind All Progress

Progressive Overload for Runners Over 40

Build strength, mileage, and speed—without breaking down

Progressive overload isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing just enough to create adaptation.

In this episode, we break down how to train smarter as a runner over 40 by working with your body (not against it). We cover the stress → recovery → adaptation cycle and why recovery becomes even more important with age, hormones, and life stress.

You’ll learn how to use the 3 key training dials:

• Volume
• Intensity
• Frequency

…and why adjusting one at a time is the key to staying consistent and injury-free.

We also dive into:

• 5 ways to progress your strength training (without just adding weight)
• How to build mileage safely (without overloading your long run)
• Smarter speed progression, starting with strides
• Why your nervous system plays a bigger role than you think

Plus: Join our FREE live masterclass on May 12
👉 realliferunners.com/brain

Train smarter. Recover better. Keep running strong.

07:02 Why Progressive Overload

09:34 Stress Recovery Adaptation

11:57 Three Training Levers

14:10 Over 40 Recovery Reality

18:22 Strength Training Overload

23:36 Tempo and Rest Strategy

26:45 Mileage Progression Myths

29:41 Acute vs Chronic Load

30:57 Long Run Injury Spike

32:16 Fueling And Recovery Gaps

32:52 Weekly Miles Over Long Run

35:50 When Breaking Rules Helps

36:59 Experience And Deep Roots

38:11 Speed Work Risk Dial

39:33 Strides And 80 20

41:17 Hormones Stress Nervous System

42:13 Cross Training And Neural Gains

45:00 Perimenopause Listening Cues

48:09 Common Mistakes To Avoid

48:48 Down Weeks And Deloads

52:01 Stop Comparing Past Self

53:06 Train Less Eat More

54:19 Progressive Overload Recap

56:07 Membership And Masterclass

Join the 30 Day Running Reset and get a plan that will help you build a strong and injury-proof body by combining running and strength training in a way that actually works for runners like you.

Gain access to my new secret podcast, Unbreakable: The Runner's Guide To Injury-Proofing Your Body After 40. Click here: https://www.realliferunners.com/secret

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Have you ever looked at your training and thought,"I'm doing everything right. I'm showing up, I'm putting in the miles, so why does it feel like nothing is changing?" Maybe you've been running the same routes, the same pace, the same routine for months, and at first it worked. You got stronger, you got faster, you felt better. But somewhere along the way it just stopped working. Or maybe the opposite is true. You decided to finally push yourself. You added miles, you signed up for a race, you went harder, and then your body unfortunately decided to push back. An ache here, a tweak there, a week on the sideline that you didn't plan for. Here's what both of these situations have in common. They're both missing the same principle, and it's not a complicated one. In fact, once you start to understand this, you're gonna see it everywhere, in your running, your strength training, and how your body responds to basically any physical challenge that you throw at it. Today we are talking all about progressive overload, and Kevin and I are gonna be breaking down what it actually means, why it matters even more as we get older, and most importantly, what this actually looks like in practice. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to episode number 460 of the Real Life So stay tuned. Runners podcast.

Speaker 2 1:36

460, that's my favorite number.

Speaker 1:37

It- It's your favorite number. You're such a wild wacko sometimes. All right. So today we're talking about progressive overload, but before we get into this, I have a couple really fun announcements that I want to, tell you guys about, because I know I've been teasing some stuff a little bit over the last couple weeks. Truly, I haven't probably done a good enough job letting you all know what is coming, because it's just, Kevin and I record this podcast usually on a Monday night-

Speaker 2 2:06

Yes

Speaker 2:07

after dinner. May the

Speaker 2 2:07

Fourth be with you, actually.

Speaker 2:08

May the Fourth be with you. Kevin is a huge Star Wars nerd, and I am like, I would like... I wouldn't call myself a huge Star Wars nerd.

Speaker 2 2:16

I ha- I'm wearing Mandalorian socks,

Speaker 2:17

I had never even seen Star Wars until we started dating.

Speaker 2 2:20

And then we had to rectify

Speaker 2:21

that. We did. and I think I fell asleep during the first one that we ever watched. Pretty sure I fell asleep during episode four, but-

Speaker 2 2:30

it is a little slow to begin

Speaker 2:31

I do have a lot of respect for the series, and we've watched a lot, with the kids, growing up, not only the nine Star Wars, movies, but then the spinoff shows that, I think we've seen them all, right? Or we might be missing-

Speaker 2 2:46

No, we've definitely not seen them

Speaker 2:47

all. We've not seen them all?

Speaker 2 2:48

Not even close.

Speaker 2:49

But there's been a lot.

Speaker 2 2:50

Yes.

Speaker 2:50

Yeah. So anyhoo, we are recording this on May the Fourth. But anyway, we typically record on Monday nights after dinner, so usually it's like- Around 9:00. It's 8:59 right now as we are starting this recording. So a lot of times we come in and we just get the job done, and the dog is deciding to- to ramp up at that time, which right now he is totally good. He is lying right behind us, totally calm. So I think it's gonna be a good night to record.

Speaker 2 3:19

All right, so what ex- what, are you actually announcing here?

Speaker 3:22

Oh, I've got some fun stuff coming up.

Speaker 2 3:24

Okay, great. So

Speaker 3:25

the first one is that I'm gonna be... I'm launching a brand-new live master class, and the first, live class that you all will be able to attend is going to be May 12th, Tuesday, May 12th, at 1:00 PM Eastern. If you can't make it live, I want you to still register'cause there are other times and dates available when you go to that page. So basically, you're gonna go to the page, realliferunners.com/brain is- is the, URL,/brain, because it's all about the brain-body connection, the mind-body connection. I'm gonna be teaching you how to stop fighting your body and really understand how to start training with it by using the power of the nervous system. And you all know we love the nervous system around here, especially me. I'm a big nervous system nerd because your nervous system controls everything that is happening in your body, and it controls how your body responds and reda- reacts and adapts to exercise. So it's really important that you understand this because if you're not using the power of your nervous system, you're not going to be getting the results and the adaptations that you want. So I am building a brand-new master class all about how to use the power of your nervous system to get better results in your running and to feel better in the process. So you can register for that. So by the time this episode goes live, you can go over to realliferunners.com/brain and register for that class. So that's announcement number one.

Speaker 2 4:52

Excellent. Announcement

Speaker 4:53

number two- You've been

Speaker 2 4:53

excited for that one for a little while here, so that's a good announcement.

Speaker 4:55

I know. Announcement number two is that we are launching our own app, which is super exciting, and it's going to be called the Running Reconnected app, and it is going to be live soon. So I am going through the whole process of Apple, approving, getting the app into the Apple Developer program and the Google- Google developl- dev- developer program. Try saying that five times fast.

Speaker 2 5:19

No, thank you.

Speaker 5:19

so I'm waiting for all the different approvals, which all take a couple of days here and then a couple of days there. And I am planning for it to be launched sometime in May for sure, hopefully sooner rather than later. But I will let you know when that is officially launched. it's definitely gonna be an app for all of our members. So if you are A part of our membership on our team, you're gonna have access to all of your training plans and all of the stuff, like all right there in the Running Reconnected app. So I'm super excited about that as well. So you're gonna be seeing some changes here. we might also be renaming the podcast into Running Reconnected. That is still on the table. I think that's what's going to happen. but that's gonna be a transition to, like in that process as well. So-

Speaker 2 6:03

Excellent

Speaker 6:03

the whole idea is really, re- we love Real Life Runners. we've been Real Life Runners since 20-

Speaker 2 6:10

17

Speaker 6:10

17. and it's meant a lot to us and to our people. And I also think that right now I'm in this evolution of our brand and of the things that we've been talking about. And the more that I really dig deep into this evolution of my own personal self and the message and the content that I wanna bring into the running world, it really is about reconnection. It always has been. like Kevin and I were talking about this. it's been about how to do the whole running thing in real life, but it's about reconnecting the two, right? So it's not treating strength training and running as separate. It's reconnecting them. It's not treating running and your real life as separate. It's reconnecting them. It's reconnecting the mind and the body. It's reconnecting to yourself and to your identity. everything that I do and everything that I stand for is really all about reconnection. And so I'm really excited to evolve the brand, and everything that we're doing here with that in mind. So-

Speaker 2 7:09

Excellent

Speaker 7:10

those are some of the big announcements that I've got for y'all.

Speaker 2 7:13

There's a lot of big announcements. I know. Let's try and steer this thing back into the theme of the episode- and I think we've got it- Yeah is the connection between your training, your as- different aspects of training and real life and how it all goes together- Yeah is very much connected to progressive overload. Because if you treat everything as an own, its own individual silo, you are likely going to get progressive overload wrong- and then end up probably sidelined.

Speaker 7:38

So when we were deciding what to record this week, I came up with this idea of progressive overload because I think it's one of those terms that we say a lot, and we just assume that people know what we're talking about. And if you're listening, you might think that you know what we're talking about and be like nodding a little,"Oh, yeah, progressive overload. I've heard that before, and I totally know what that means. Which means I just add up a little bit at a time." But there's some nuance, like there is in everything. And today we wanna dig into that. We wanna really help you understand what progressive overload is and how to apply it to- Your running, your strength training, if you want to build mileage and endurance or if you want to build speed. And we're also going to share some research that, came out recently, about which training habit is most likely to get you injured, because it might not be what you think. So let's start off with what is progressive overload? Kev, you wanna kick us off here?

Speaker 2 8:34

Sure.

Speaker 8:34

With the, a simple definition.

Speaker 2 8:36

the simple definition is really what you said. It's literally just gradually increasing the stress on your body. And most people think that is just doing a little bit more, but that's where the very simple definition of increasing the stress kind of veers from just doing more. It's continuing to increase stress in some form. It's just that the type of stress has a variety of different ways that you can do it. You can do more, but you could also increase the intensity. You could also increase the frequency of it. There are ways to increase the load on your body- that are not simply just doing more.

Speaker 9:14

And so progressive overload is increasing the demand on your body over time. And I think the over time piece, like y- I was listening as you said it, you didn't mention that part, and I think that's a really important piece of the definition. It's just adding a little bit more load on your body over time so that your body continues to adapt and grow stronger. That is the whole point of progressive overload. And no matter what kind of training program you are following, whether you are following a sh- a pro- a strength program, a running program, you're training for a race, you're trying to build muscle, you're trying to build endurance, whatever. If you are trying to improve in some way, you need progressive overload. That is the way that your body adapts to stress. And so one of the really important things that you have to understand is the stress recovery adaptation curve. So basically, when you apply any sort of training to the body, that is stress. You are placing an intentional stress on the body. So that is a run, that's lifting a weight, that's doing more repetitions. Whatever it is, you are actually applying a stress on the body. And when you do that, you are actually breaking the body down. Then during your rest and your recovery, your body builds back up to where it was, and then the goal of progressive overload is that your body then sees, oh, wait a second. I wasn't strong enough to handle that. I better build up stronger so that next time when I encounter that same stress, I'm gonna be able to handle it better. And that's the portion of the curve that's called adaptation. So then your body builds back a little bit stronger than it was before, and that is the whole point of training. The whole point of training is for us to get stronger, to improve endurance. We wanna stress the body, allow it to recover, and then our body adapts and builds back a little bit stronger than it was before. And so if you are never actually increasing the stress on the body, the adaptations plateau. you don't keep getting better if you stop stressing the system. Or if your body, if you're just adding the same level of stress into the system, then your body's never, going to adapt off of that because it's already used to that.

Speaker 2 11:22

Yeah. Eventually it reaches the point where it's squeezed all the adaptations it can- out of whatever stress you're giving it to. Out of, yes, out of whatever stress you're giving it, and if you just keep giving it that same stress, it's gonna get really efficient at that- but it won't really make much more adaptation to it'cause it's fully adapted- to what you're giving it.

Speaker 11:40

Because the whole point of your body, like your body is amazing, and so it's doing its job because it becomes more efficient doing the thing that it normally does. And so if you just keep giving it the same thing over and over, it's going to get very efficient at that, and it's going to stop gaining benefit from it. It's just, it's, you're just gonna kinda stay where you were until you actually start to decline. Because if you continue to just stress the body the same and you never increase the stress, you're not just going to stay the same over time, you actually will decline.

Speaker 2 12:09

Yeah, but the issue is that different levers have different saturation points. So one of the things you can do is increase how much you're doing. So in terms of running, this is literally adding more miles to it.

Speaker 12:21

So let's ta- yeah, let's talk about the three levers because I think it's important that we, point all three of these things out.

Speaker 2 12:26

Yeah. So volume, how much running you're doing over the course of, a week- for instance. or strength training, how many reps you are getting in over the course of a week. You could also increase intensity. In running, going up a hill, going faster, these are ways to increase the intensity. In lifting, this is putting more weight on the rack and going for that- Yep is your primary way of increasing intensity. We'll talk more about that. There's other

Speaker 12:51

ways,

Speaker 2 12:51

There's other ways, which we'll get to at, when we specifically talk about strength training. And then the last one is frequency, how often you are doing the greater stress.

Speaker 13:00

So the three levers, the three ways that you can create adaptation in the body are volume, intensity, and frequency. And the key, and this is one of the things that a lot of people get wrong, because they wanna try to increase all three at the same time, or they try to increase too fast. And when you do that, your risk of injury goes up. So it's very important that when you are trying to overload the body, you choose which lever to pull- so that you're only focusing on one at a time. And we can talk about levers, but I actually like to think of it more as like dials. Yep. Like a dial from 1 to 10. So you have all of your dials going, if we say, maybe like around a five. If you imagine the different dials, right? Volume, intensity, and frequency. And then based on what kind of adaptation you want at the moment, maybe you're trying to train for a half-marathon and you've never run a half-marathon before, you're gonna wanna increase volume. You need to increase the volume of your training, because you need to increase how much mileage your body's able to handle. So you're going to increase that a little bit, but you don't wanna then also increase intensity and frequency, right? So there's different... We have to be careful here, and that's one of the reasons why people get injured when they try to jump into one of these training plans, because, say, they're running two times per week, and all of a sudden they wanna train for a half-marathon. That's four to five times per week. So n- now they increase their frequency. They also increase their volume, and then they've never done speed work before, but there's speed work on their plan, so they start doing speed work as well. And so they're increasing all three at the same time, and so the injury risk goes up. And this matters even more if you are a runner over 40, because your body does not recover and adapt the same way that it used to. It takes longer to recover in between harder sessions, and hormone shifts, especially if you are a woman in perimenopause or post-menopause, means that the body needs more time between hard stress. your body just doesn't recover the same way, and so we just need a little bit more time in between. It's still important for us to stress the body. There's a lot of women that are like,"Oh, I can't do certain things when I'm older." no, you can. you should still lift heavy. You should still do speed work. You should still increase mileage. These are all very good things, and women over 40, in their 50s or 60s or 70s, we can still improve, like, all the rest of our lives. It's not like we get to a point where it's like,"Eh, you know what? My body just doesn't respond this way anymore." your body will always pr- respond to progressive overload, and they've done research studies on this. Women are still able to build muscle after m- after menopause, this is a... As long as we are following the principles, and as long as we're not overdoing it and leading to injury- Yes and setbacks.

Speaker 2 15:43

Yeah. When you say that you like to picture it as dials, I like to picture this as different pots that you've got on the stove. And if you wanna increase volume, if you've got- Three pots on the stove, volume, intensity, frequency. Great, you've got a variety of things you're working on the stove. If you want to increase volume, that means that you're now dealing with three larger pots that you're now trying to handle on the stove. Yeah. That's a lot. Frequency says, okay, now instead of having three pots on the stove, we're gonna handle six pots on the stove. And it's very possible that by putting six pots on the stove, you have a greater volume of what you're working with, but the pots didn't grow bigger. I think what people mess up here is they're like, yeah, I, I've been running three days a week. I'm gonna move it to four days, or I'm gonna move it to five days a week. But also at the same time, my 30-minute runs are gonna become 45-minute runs." Now you've increased frequency and volume. If you were doing- 30-minute runs every, three times a week, and you change to 30-minute runs four times a week, that's just messing with frequency. Yes, technically that's increasing your weekly volume, but basically you're just messing with your frequency. So that is really only moving one thing at a time.

Speaker 16:50

Yeah, and this is one of the reasons we love longer run ways, especially for runners over 40, because it gives you more time. Like, when we start working with a client and, someone comes to us and they're like,"Oh, I only have eight weeks before my half marathon, and here's where I am." And sometimes we're like,"Oh, crap.""Okay, here's the, probably the safest way that we can do this, but we also want you to know that your risk- you have a higher risk of injury if you plan on doing this with this timeline." If you give yourself a longer timeline, it's always a better thing, because this way we can build that foundation. a lot of times people try to jump in and do these things without the proper foundation, and that's what leads 80% of run- over 80% of runners to get injured, is that they're trying to overload the body without the proper foundation. And so when you give yourself a proper timeline to build up the strength, to build up the endurance, like, all of these things are really important, and we're gonna talk about some more details about why, in the different areas of your body that need to adapt, throughout this episode so that you'll really understand this on a deeper level so that you can hopefully start to apply this in a more safe way so that you can get better results and really decrease your risk of injury here.

Speaker 2 18:04

Yeah. if you don't have the ideal timeline to work something, you just have to generally adjust expectations.'Cause you still want to try and get to whatever the thing is in the safest way possible, so then you might not be able to reach goals that you're necessarily aiming for.

Speaker 18:17

Yeah. All

Speaker 2 18:18

right, where are we going? All

Speaker 18:18

right. So now what I wanna do is really talk about progressive overload in three main areas. Yeah. And we're gonna break these down for you one by one. So we're gonna talk about progressive overload in strength training, progressive overload with mileage, and then progressive overload with speed and intensity. Because those are the... All the clients that we work with, it's usually one of those three areas that they want to improve.

Speaker 2 18:40

Usually all three simultaneously.

Speaker 18:42

And hopefully by the end of this episode, you are gonna decide not to do that. So- First, let's talk about progressive overload and strength training. So most runners, we've been taught, as runners that we should be doing low weight, high reps. And so oftentimes m- runners think that more reps are how you would over- progressively overload the body. But there are actually five ways to apply progressive overload. There is load, which is the actual volume of the train, the weight that you're lifting. The number of repetitions is the second thing. The number of sets is number three. The tempo, okay, so the speed with which you perform the exercise, that's the fourth way. And then the fifth way that you can progressively overload the body is by reducing the rest period between sets and between exercises. Now, that's always a fun one when people find that one out and they're like,"Wait a second, the rest period matters?" that's often the number one question I get, and I'm always saying yes, like the rest period definitely matters because it completely changes the load on the muscle and your muscle's ability to recover in between sets, which is a very important thing to take into consideration if you are trying to build muscle. So for runners over 40, So again, you can increase load by doing any of these things, by increasing weight, reps, sets, changing the tempo, b- and m- mainly by slowing it down,'cause when you do it slower, it's harder on the muscles, and then by reducing the rest in between sets. So all five of those things work, and that's one of the easiest ways that you can switch up your strength training if you are someone that likes a little bit of variety. You don't have to be switching your exercises all the time. You can actually do the same exercises and just change the way that you're doing them and get continual benefits.

Speaker 2 20:32

So- When you hit rest reduction of that's, that is a way that you can actually increase, that you can progressively overload. I'd say that's one of the more tricky ones to, to lean on- of trying to rush through your strength training.

Speaker 20:45

No, I 100% agree.

Speaker 2 20:46

Even, even within that lifting session- it seems like reducing the rest and trying to move through the routine quickly is least likely to get the best benefit. It's least likely to make your muscles fully express- if you're trying to actually really build strength or build- in my case, I'm trying to actually build some size. Yeah. it seems like that's not- Yeah, if you- gonna be the most ideal.

Speaker 21:08

Definitely a- agree with that be- because for muscle hypertrophy, and again, it goes back to what is the actual goal of your lifting session, so- You're

Speaker 2 21:16

so smart when you say muscle hyper- hypertrophy.

Speaker 21:19

Muscle hypertrophy just means bigger muscles, like visibly bigger muscles. If that's what your goal is, then rest reduction is not the most effective way to achieve that.

Speaker 2 21:28

I know, which drives me nuts,'cause I like to get through my strength training.

Speaker 21:30

Because you wanna be efficient?

Speaker 2 21:32

I would like to be efficient and be done with it. But I know that what I really need to do is increase- Rest increase the weight- or once I've got it to a good weight, maybe increase a couple of reps on it until I'm like,"All right. That's a good amount of reps." Yeah."Now I need to go back and increase the weight and maybe drop the reps down." Neither of those are messing with move the routine along faster.

Speaker 3 21:51

No.

Speaker 2 21:52

the one thing that I can do is change tempo and slow the lifting down. That's the opposite of what I would like to be doing. Yeah. It's a good one, and I'll hit it every once in a while of"All right. We're just slowing things down today." But rest reduction seems like the most efficient way to get through, but it's not necessarily the best way to actually increase muscle-

Speaker 22:11

Yeah

Speaker 2 22:11

ability, increase

Speaker 22:12

strength. So there's a lot of granular details that we can get into here about which one is the best way to increase load. And for our intents and purposes, and for the majority of you that are listening to this episode, especially if you are someone that is not doing any strength training at all, then it doesn't freaking matter. period. it does not freaking matter. You just have to, A, start lifting, and then, B, you can start by, reps, or reps and sets. That would be the first one. if you are not doing anything at all, start by choosing the top five exercises and doing one set of 10, and then the next time you do it, do two sets of 10, and then do three sets of 10, and then you can, we can start worrying about other things. But number one, always be consistent first, okay? And that's one of the biggest things. don't start trying to worry about progressive overload if you aren't even consistent with this. if you are a runner over 40, which is the majority of our audience, if you have the ability to increase weights, that's going to be more, preferable accord- than just like- C- consistently, increasing reps and sets. Because obviously, if you keep just increasing reps and sets, like Kevin said, that's going to increase the length of your workout, and you might not want that. You might not want it to take you, 60 to 90 minutes to do your workout because you're doing so many reps that you...'cause you're trying to get to failure. So increasing the weight. So if you're a part of a gym and you have access to lots of weights, great. If you can purchase some in- increased weights and resistance at home, fantastic. Now, if you're not someone that has the ability to do that and you don't have access to heavier weights, that's when you can really start to look at increasing reps, increasing sets, and then, the eccentric, tempo, like really working on changing up your tempo. So for example, if you've been doing, say, three sets of 10 goblet squats at 20 pounds for three weeks, then it's time to go up a little bit, time to go up to 25 pounds. But if you don't have a 25-pound bar, dumbbell or kettlebell, you could slow it down. You could add a tempo. So doing, a slow three-count on the way down is g-'cause the three... going on the way down is the eccentric loading phase of the muscle of a squat, and then going up a little bit quicker, and then going down really slow and then going up really quicker. So changing the tempo is going to make it more challenging and increase the load on the body as well because it's time under tension.

Speaker 2 24:39

And if you're ever trying to figure out which direction should you go slow, because it is, like if you're doing a squat, it's slow on the way down, and then you can go quicker on the way back up. Yeah. The part that you would want to rush through is the part that you should slow down.

Speaker 24:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:52

That is, that is- It's true always the answer to it. Yeah. you're doing curls. Slowly lower them, and then you can quickly lift them. If you're doing squats, slowly lower. If you're doing, lat pull-downs, you can pull down quickly and then slowly let it go back up.

Speaker 25:05

Yeah.

Speaker 2 25:05

it's always the direction that you'd be like,"Man, this would be easier if I went quicker," that's the part you should slow.

Speaker 25:10

Yeah. And then the key also is remembering that rest is part of the program. It's not- A sign that you're not working hard enough. And people are like,"Oh, if I take too much rest in between sets." Nope, there's really not s- no such thing. there's really no such thing as too much rest when it comes to progressively overloading your muscles and especially if you're trying to increase the weight and the load on the body.

Speaker 2 25:33

Yeah. I like to connect strength training to sprint training because they're both very explosive, powerful things. And if you watch high-end sprinters at practice, the majority of what they're doing- Yeah. It's so- is resting for the next rep.

Speaker 3 25:49

I know. It's so funny'cause they look so unproductive.

Speaker 2 25:52

they really do. Yeah. But when they work, they are working so hard. Yeah. And until you get to a point where you can actually push and get yourself going super fast, you don't necessarily need that recovery. I tried to do this with some of the kids on my track team, I don't know, like a decade ago. I'm like,"Okay, when you really get into sprinting, it's more like you're gonna push really hard for, seven seconds, and then we're gonna take, a five-minute break." And these kids, after 30 seconds were like,"Wait, we still have four-and-a-half minute break?" I'm like,"Okay, they're not-" They didn't

Speaker 26:21

know how to get to 10 out of 10.

Speaker 2 26:22

they couldn't get themselves at full sprint- Yeah over that seven seconds. So then I was like,"Okay, we need to figure out a new way to adapt this," because they don't need that much recovery. If you're lifting really heavy and you're like, I think I need another minute recovery- before I can do it again," that's good. That means you're actually pushing- Yeah yourself closer to failure.

Speaker 26:38

Yeah. So if you are really lifting heavy and you are really struggling on those last couple of reps like you should be, if that's the goal, then you need a good one to two minutes at least in between sets or in between, the n- the next, yeah, the next set.

Speaker 2 26:54

Which is I like to rotate a couple of exercises- back and forth that work completely different parts of the body- so that I can still move my thing around- That is-

Speaker 27:00

and not just

Speaker 2 27:01

sit there

Speaker 27:01

correct. That is one way to get around the, that and, make your workouts a little bit more efficient so they don't take forever. Yep. Okay. So the second way that you can add progressive overload is with mileage, okay? So let's talk about mileage, because this is one of the biggest categories that people- Oh, I love this one wanna know about, right?

Speaker 2 27:21

I'm all about this one.

Speaker 27:22

So are, you wanna start us off?'Cause we've got the old 10% rule that people- Oh, it's a classic that people love to talk about.

Speaker 2 27:28

They, it's a rule of thumb.

Speaker 27:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 27:30

I don't even know what that means. I'm not even sure why that's a saying, but-

Speaker 27:33

Oh, we should find out. Yeah.'Cause there was, like, a Instagram reel or something that I s- saw at one point in time that was all these little sayings and, like, where they actually came from.

Speaker 2 27:42

I, I have

Speaker 27:43

a- It was a pretty cool one

Speaker 2 27:44

I have a book, I'm sure- it's in our bookshelf somewhere of all these idioms. I can look it up. But it's the 10% rule suggests that you're never supposed to increase your weekly mileage from one week to the next more than 10%, which is a drastic oversimplification. And don't get me wrong, it's safe. The problem with it is it's in all likelihood way too safe.'Cause the 10% rule suggests if you're running 10 miles this week, that next week you can't do more than 11, and then the week after that you can't do more than 11.1. And I'm a math teacher, I get how exponential growth goes. Eventually you're gonna be able to start putting big jumps from one week to the next. But 10% was really essentially just designed as a way to make increases in volume as safe as possible. So it was a nice round number to throw at it. Yeah. That's really what it was. It wasn't that research suggested that over 10 was a problem and under 10 was better. it was a safe number and it was an easy number to remember.

Speaker 28:41

All right. So the rule of thumb- Rule of thumb refers to an approximate practical method based on experience rather than exact science. It originated in 17th century England, where tradespeople like brewers and tailors used the width or length of their thumb for quick measurements.

Speaker 2 28:59

Yes, because it's about an inch across your thumb.

Speaker 29:01

It is often wrongly believed to stem from a wife-beating law. Did you know about this one? So yes, it was a measurement practice, to test the temperature of beer or the length of a cloth. But there was a widely spread myth that suggested it originated from English law allowing men to beat their wives with a stick no thicker than their thumb.

Speaker 2 29:22

No thicker than their thumb.

Speaker 29:24

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 29:25

I'm glad that it's not that. I'm not sure that- That's

Speaker 29:27

wild

Speaker 2 29:28

I wanna make sure that my brewer has tested by sticking his thumb in what he's creating

Speaker 29:33

with- this was from the 1700s though,

Speaker 2 29:35

1700 beer. Sounds delicious.

Speaker 29:37

Sounds like the Black Plague.

Speaker 2 29:39

I don't know, I don't know why diseases were so easily spread. It's

Speaker 29:42

so weird. Doesn't the alcohol disinfect it though?

Speaker 2 29:45

Yeah, just pour

Speaker 29:46

some

Speaker 2 29:46

beer on

Speaker 29:46

it. I heard that. I heard that once.

Speaker 2 29:47

I definitely heard that. I heard that from a doctor, I did.

Speaker 29:50

g- gonna be a doctor anyway. So what... So there is this rule of 10%, which is an over- like Kevin just said, it's an oversimplification. But it can be good to go by sometimes. it's got a little bit of weight to it. But what actually matters is the ratio of acute load to chronic load. So it's how this week compares to the average of recent weeks. It's not just from one week to the next.

Speaker 2 30:18

Yes. It's not just this week to last week. It's this week compared to the last three weeks averaged out- Yeah is actually how... that's how your Garmin measures acute to chronic, and it's one of my favorite features on the watch. this study that I love, I think it's a study from 2025, they were trying to figure out what the safest way to increase volume was- essentially. is it more dangerous to increase a single long run just to bump up your long run and leave everything else the same? Or is it better to increase just all of your runs to just gradually increase that up? And they did that in two different ways. They compared one week to the previous, or they compared the acute load to the chronic load. And that one that takes what you're doing this week to what you've on average done over the last three weeks actually showed negative correlation to injury, which means if you increased your weekly volume relative to the last three weeks, your chance of injury actually decreased statistically in the study. Super cool. Which was bonkers. And then a single long run was shown to increase your injury risk as soon as that long run, ironically, was more than 10% of your long run in the previous 30 days.

Speaker 31:31

Okay. You're gonna- I want you to say that one again, because that's one of the most significant findings from that research study. there's a lot of good things that came out of that research study, but that was- And I love

Speaker 2 31:40

them all.

Speaker 31:40

Yeah. And but that was, like, one of the big important ones, was that, that a single long run, like a big jump in one run spikes load in the way that the body has not had time to prepare for. And so just increasing that one run by a significant amount is much more predictive of injury than by increasing your total weekly mileage by the same amount, right? Yeah. you could increase your total weekly mileage, let's just say, by five miles. That's-- your body's gonna be able to handle that because it's spread out over the course of the whole week in multiple runs versus just trying to increase your long run by five miles, for example. Yes.

Speaker 2 32:21

Yes,'cause your body's not ready, and there's, there's a lot going on, and they didn't- Thankfully, they didn't try to, the researchers didn't try to jump to the conclusion. They came up with some speculation as to some reasonings why. Yeah. but there's a lot of things at play here. were the muscles strong enough to handle that increased single stress? Were the tendons and ligaments able to actually adapt to that? But another one that was mentioned is, were the participants fueling appropriately for such an increase in volume? that's a good one. Because if you're not taking in enough food- Yeah and hydration for that drastic increase in just one run, your body's not gonna respond appropriately to it. It's gonna be too much stress. You're not adapting. And so then when you try and get back into your runs on point with the rest of the week- it's not even that the long run hurt you, it's that you then tried to do your next normal run before you recovered from the long run.

Speaker 33:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2 33:10

And then now you're running, but you're already in a hole that you're not digging out of.

Speaker 33:14

Yeah. And so there's lots of things at play here. But what we need to take away from this, the biggest application is it's safer for you to add mileage gradually across multiple sessions rather than making one run dramatically longer. So this is really important for people that are especially training for things like half marathons, et cetera, because a lot of times we see c- our clients fall into this trap as well, where they'll miss a run throughout the week, or they'll miss certain things, but they're like,"As long as I get my long run in, it'll be fine." But they're focusing on the wrong thing. It's actually much better for you to get in a few runs during the week and not worry as much about that long run. The long run's still important, don't get us wrong, but, trying to add in mileage on the long run, they'll feel like,"Oh, I'll just increase my long run to make up for the miles that I missed during the week."

Speaker 2 34:04

Oh, that's-

Speaker 34:05

Please don't do that. That's the one that gets me. That is not a good idea.

Speaker 2 34:07

I missed this four-miler- Yeah so I'll just stick an extra four onto my long run- No is a very dangerous game to

Speaker 34:12

play. Do not do that, yeah. And the important thing for us to also know, especially if you're over 40, especially if you are a woman, because of the hormonal changes that are going on in our bodies, one of the reasons that this is super important is because of the connective tissues, like our tendons and ligaments, because those adapt more slowly than your cardiovascular fitness. So a lot of times you're gonna feel like, I could probably go farther. I'm not out of breath. I'm not that tired." But you, there's a lot of things going on. So you might feel fine, but if you're outpacing your structural adaptation, then you're putting yourself at a higher risk of injury. you have to remember that there's multiple systems of the body that need to adapt. It's not just about your cardiovascular fitness. It's about your muscles and your tendons and your ligaments and your bones and, like, how everything works together, and that brain-body connection too, which we're gonna be going into, in a couple minutes here. So I want you to think about this- this concept to give you a visual, as in watering a plant, right? If you water a plant a little bit every day, that keeps the plant alive and it keeps it thriving. But if you dump an entire watering can on the plant once a week, you're probably going to flood the roots and kill the plant, even though it's the s- same total amount of water, right? you can take that same watering can and use that one watering can over the course of a week or dump the whole watering can at one time. it's going to be much more effective if you do it little by little throughout the week. Or get one of those pretty bulbs that go into your plant that, gradually releases the water for you.

Speaker 2 35:51

Yes.

Speaker 35:51

Those gravity ones.

Speaker 2 35:52

Yeah, I know. I'm right there with you. Yeah. But there's nuance to this-

Speaker 35:55

Yeah

Speaker 2 35:56

because there are plants that are much better if you give the plant a good, thorough soaking periodically- Sure rather than a small amount every time. Because it allows the roots to grow deeper because the roots keep going down looking for greater water- rather than have very superficial roots. it is good for your training to occasionally every once in a while, not like every week, not every other week, but occasionally to actually do a run that may technically be outside of the, safety method.

Speaker 3 36:28

Yeah.

Speaker 2 36:28

Okay? every race that you've run. Think about a marathon. What do most marathon training plans peak out at? They're at 20 miles. Yeah. And the race is 26. that's more than a 10% increase. So that long run race is going to be more than you've ever trained in, so then the race itself is an injury risk. You've got to open your body up to being able to handle things that are slightly beyond- what is necessarily the safest thing. That's where the progressive overload comes from, is I'm gonna push myself and it might be a little bit too much, but make sure that you just have plenty of recovery on the back end. Yeah.'Cause I think that that's- Agreed. it's what the study didn't really necessarily show, and I'd love to get a follow-up to this one, of what if you do have a big increase in the long run, but then you take the next two days off? And you make sure that you're, like, overfueling on those days- Yeah so the body can actually recover. Yeah. Does it actually then still have the same injury risk?'Cause I bet it doesn't.

Speaker 37:23

I would agree, and then I also would offer another thing about how experience matters here also.

Speaker 2 37:30

Ooh, excellent.

Speaker 37:31

Because if you dump a whole watering can of water on brand-new seedlings, those seedlings- You've drowned them those seedlings are never gonna take root. And so the same thing happens with newer runners. If you have been running for a short amount of time, less than a year or even less than a couple of years, depending on, how frequently you run and blah, blah, blah, That's what- you're gonna be at a much greater risk than someone who's been running for 30 years and has deeper roots.

Speaker 2 37:57

All right. So I was looked down on the running snob. I heard that one coming. I've- Huh? My- is it my 30 years of experience that I can handle the increase in load? Is that what you're suggesting?

Speaker 38:05

I think that has a big- plays a big role. Yes. I think that it plays a big factor because y- you have very deep roots, and people that have, over five years, over 10 years of running experience that have more miles on their body, that is going to set you up better than someone that is newer and their body d- hasn't made those same adaptations.

Speaker 2 38:27

That is a good point. Yeah. If I had a new pair of shoes, I could probably go out and basically double my wrong- Yeah long run this weekend without really huge injury risk.

Speaker 38:34

Okay. And so the third way that you can progressively overload the body is with speed and intensity. Now, speed is the highest risk lever. It- or dial. It puts the most mechanical load on your muscles, your tendons, and your nervous system. So it- trying to run faster, trying to push your pace is putting the most amount of stress on your body, and this really is probably the most common mistake that we see with runners, is that they're trying to add speed work too early. A lot of that is because they don't even realize that it's speed work that they're doing. They're just pushing all of their runs to that medium to moderate pace. And so when they're trying to push themselves, and then they're doing that too often, and they're ramping it up too quickly week after week, trying to make each run a little bit faster. I know how so many runners that tell me,"Oh, I just try to make this week faster than I was last week. I have a three-mile loop, and I just tr- try to do it faster every single time I do it." That's too much on your body.

Speaker 2 39:33

Yeah, and you're right. This is really the most common mistake- Yeah because social media makes the speed workouts the coolest part of

Speaker 39:39

training.

Speaker 2 39:40

Because they've got the ones that are like,"Oh, I did this many quarters, and I went for this many minutes at this effort level." All the things, they sound interesting. They sound way more interesting than,"I did 45 minutes easy."

Speaker 39:52

Yeah.

Speaker 2 39:52

"I did my long run easy." the workouts sound interesting, so people get excited, and they start putting them all in. But if you've never done speed before, the place to start is probably with short strides. Yeah. Do some accelerations.

Speaker 40:03

Not probably, definitely. That is going to be the best way to start.

Speaker 2 40:07

And it's a short thing, and you're like, we've talked before about the 80/20 principle, that 20% of your runs should be at a harder intensity. If you haven't done speed, you should be starting at strides- Yeah and your ratio's gonna be, like, 95/5. And that's okay also.

Speaker 40:23

Yeah. At the beginning, that's where you start, and then we progressively overload. We, we- Progressively increase the amount of speed that you're able to do, and then we move into structured intervals. Then we go into more race pace work, but only after that solid base is built.

Speaker 2 40:39

And the interesting part about the progressive overload with speed and intensity is you can build this, but then if you flop back over and you're like,"Oh, I wanna increase volume," your 80/20, it's only at that 20% when you're really focused on a lot of speed. Yeah. If you then ramp up the long run, you're back and you're gonna be at, a 90/10 week. And that's okay also.

Speaker 40:58

Cause remember dials, right? if you're ramping up, if you're increasing the speed dial, you gotta bring the other one back down or put it back onto maintenance mode.

Speaker 2 41:06

Yeah. And, one of the biggest things here is strides, is you can put them on the end of a couple of runs a week, even if you've never done speed. Because they're shorter, you get nice recovery in between them. It's not a huge, beat-up on the body.

Speaker 3 41:20

Yeah.

Speaker 2 41:20

But the frequency of more intense workouts, start with once a week. Yeah. Start with once a week. And I would suggest to actually essentially just make them longer strides. Yeah. instead of doing 20-second strides, stretch them out and make them 30, 45 seconds. Yeah. And just stretch it out a little bit- before it starts getting a little bit more structured.

Speaker 41:40

Yeah. Because especially if you are a runner over 40, and especially if you are a woman over 40, it's important for us to remember the nervous system. Again, going back to the nervous system and that brain-body connection. When you are increasing training load, you are also increasing stress on your nervous system, and nervous system fatigue accumulates gradually but recovers slowly. And this becomes even more important after 40 because as you lose estrogen, your cortisol levels are more elevated. Because estrogen helps to decrease cortisol in the body. It helps to buffer the effects of cortisol in the body. And so as we lose estrogen, we have typically higher levels of cortisol more chronically elevated in the body. So that means we have to be even more intentional about the intentional stress that we are placing on the body. So it's quality over quantity here for sure.

Speaker 2 42:37

All right, excellent. So I think a lot of this was in terms of, running. Yeah. We did the section on lifting, and this is in terms of running. I think that if you are adding in cross-training, that you can actually increase some of the intensity a little bit more often on cross-training methods- Yes because it's less wear and tear on the body.

Speaker 42:54

talk- depends on what kind of cross-training you're talking about. Oh, okay. But yes, if we're talking about, biking or swimming or non-impact activities- That's

Speaker 2 43:00

what I'm saying, non-impact cross-training

Speaker 43:02

those are fantastic ways to increase your training without increasing the load on the body, especially the ones that we're talking about.

Speaker 2 43:10

But that's without increasing the muscular load, which I think is a nice transition to where I know you wanna take this thing.

Speaker 43:15

Which is the nervous system, right? Because progressive overload is not just muscular, it's neurological. So your nervous system is learning the pattern. It's not just your muscles getting bigger. So this is actually what people don't really understand. Like, when you are lifting, w- es- especially when you're starting to strength train, I think you and I just talked about this a couple episodes ago as well, those early strength training gains that you get in those fir- first four to six weeks, like when you are starting to notice,"Oh, this eas- this weight is easier for me to lift," or,"I'm able to increase my weight here," this happens in running as well, but those early strength gains are almost entirely neural, like your nervous system adaptation. It's your brain learning how to recruit muscle fibers more efficiently. So it's bringing more people to the party, okay? It's not just- And

Speaker 2 44:03

in coordination

Speaker 44:04

and, and coordinating them all to be able to lift and do it effectively. if you think about, a coxswain r- on a rowing team- Yeah if people... you could have really strong rowers, but if they're not in unison, they're not going to go as fast as the boat that has slightly weaker rowers but are all operating in unison. And that's what's happening those first four to six weeks of your strength training, is that your muscles are just learning how to fire and coordinate the movement. And so all of that is neurological, and this is why consistency matters more than intensity, because you're training a pattern, and patterns need repetition to become automatic.

Speaker 2 44:43

And then it seems like you stop getting the strength gains. And it's because the first ones came neurologically, and once they came, you got that jump- Yeah because you were suddenly coordinated, and then you're trying to actually build muscle. And that's gonna be a slower process because now you're just- It's

Speaker 44:58

gonna be much slower process and require actual, programming. Y- well- a lot of times people- Now

Speaker 2 45:04

you're trying to actually create new soft tissues.

Speaker 45:05

Yes. this is gonna create much better programming, or not create, require better programming for you to actually build muscle.

Speaker 2 45:12

And, in all likelihood, a substantial increase in

Speaker 45:15

nutrition.

Speaker 2 45:16

For sure. Which I'm gonna keep dialing in on. Yeah. As progressive overload, as you keep overloading, you need to also keep overloading calories.

Speaker 45:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And so going back to our hormones and how they affect our nervous system as well, especially if you're a woman in perimenopause- We have fluctuating levels of progesterone because estrogen and progesterone are like the two main female hormones that are changing during perimenopause, and your progesterone directly affects your nervous system regulation. So on low progesterone days, your tolerance for high-stress training loads is genuinely reduced, and that is physiology. It's not just mindset. So it's important for you to start to notice this, and this is where it gets kinda tricky when it comes to perimenopause because your hormones are all over the place. Your body does not follow the same cyclical pattern that it did when you were ovulating regularly because in perimenopause, ovulation is all over the place. there are some months that your body releases an egg, some months you don't, and so that's why some months you feel okay, some months you feel like you're totally on a rollercoaster. So this is where listening to your body becomes really important. If you feel like you just don't have it, that's okay. this e- exact thing happened to me last week. I was really excited. It was deadlift day. I was going to increase my deadlift, and I did the first set of deadlifts and I was like,"Nope, not today." My... I could feel it in my back. the load that I had been lifting for a couple of weeks, I was getting ready to increase it, and it was hard for me to just do the same number of repetitions that I had been doing. And so clearly my body was saying,"No, this is not a good idea for you to increase today." And then turns out I got my period later that day.

Speaker 2 46:53

Yeah. So you've got these hormone levels that are going all over the place. Yeah. And obviously, that, that has greater fluctuations throughout perimenopause, but the general nervous system perspective on this works for everybody. Yeah. If you have a super high-stress day-

Speaker 47:07

Yes

Speaker 2 47:07

if you just feel fried by the end of the day, and that's the time that you're gonna go in and lift weights, it's going to be difficult.

Speaker 47:13

Yes.

Speaker 2 47:13

that is an increase-

Speaker 47:14

Because stress is stress.

Speaker 2 47:16

Yes.

Speaker 47:16

this is one of the biggest things that I want people to understand, is that it all goes into the same stress bucket. This is one of the concepts that we've talked about here on the podcast, is w- what we teach our clients. you have one stress bucket, and all of the stress, no matter if it's a mental stress, emotional stress, physical stress, it all goes into the same bucket. And so if your stress bucket is already starting to r- reach the top, there's not gonna be much more physical stress that your body's gonna be able to take.

Speaker 2 47:43

So on nights where I'm like,"All right, I'm gonna do a lift in the evening," I might not be able to increase as many things. I might have to have a pullback. I'll focus and be like,"All right, I really wanna lift on, bigger on this one exercise." So I put that towards the front of the workout. Yep. And I really go big on that one, and then I make sure that I'm maintaining on the other ones. Yeah. I'll do the same things. if I'm doing a workout in the afternoon and I'm fried, like maybe school was really rough that day- maybe I can't hit the whole workout. I do like a steady state run, and then I put some good strides at the end of it for some, extra boost, but nothing where it's just like continuously high intense, just beating me down workout.

Speaker 48:17

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so those are the big main concepts that we wanted to talk about. We've now talked about how to progressively overload your strength training, how to progressively overload your endurance, and then how to progressively overload your speed. Now let's talk about some of the most common mistakes that we see so that you can avoid them. So the first one we've already talked about. I think we, we might have gotten all- touched on all of these throughout, but we're just going to put another point in here again because we want you guys to avoid these ones. So the first one is trying to add multiple variables at once. So adding mileage and speed and a new strength program all in the same week or all in the same month. you have to be careful when you are trying to add and increase multiple variables at the same time. It is not recommended.

Speaker 2 49:06

All right, the second one, I wanna have a little conversation on this one. I know we're getting long on time, but I still wanna bring it up.

Speaker 49:10

No, we have to. This is important.

Speaker 2 49:12

Never having a down week.

Speaker 49:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 49:14

Okay? Progressive overload requires actually planning and recovery.

Speaker 49:17

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 49:18

It's possible that life will just naturally give you down weeks from time to time. That is

Speaker 49:24

true.

Speaker 2 49:24

That it's just gonna happen.

Speaker 49:26

Yep.

Speaker 2 49:26

That, that y- you didn't-

Speaker 49:28

Vacation, your travel, like there's, things that are just built in or the unexpected.

Speaker 2 49:32

Yes. That it's possible. So in general, every three to four weeks, pull back 20 to 30% on volume. This helps you really make sure that you're gaining the adaptations. Yeah. Now, part of this whole idea that you need to pull back every three to four weeks actually came from, East German Olympic training camps, because that followed their steroid cycle. Yeah. So you had to have a down week every four weeks- because of the steroid load. That is part of the origin of this. So you don't necessarily have to get like diehard in there of every four weeks I have to go down. That's not how it works. This is saying if you've been building for a few weeks and you're like,"Wow, I'm getting pretty tired," that's time to have a down week.

Speaker 50:11

Yeah.

Speaker 2 50:11

that's the logic. That's putting the general idea into work for you.

Speaker 50:16

Yeah, and I think that this also can be adjusted based on who you are, your experience level, what the other stress in your life looks like. There's a lot of other factors that need to go into how often you have a down week. Because we originally, like when we first started our coaching practice, we built most of our plans going three weeks up and one week down. Building for three weeks and then having a down week, building for three weeks and then having a down week, and we found that- Some clients that came to us were not able to handle that, especially if they were older, especially if they were newer. there's a lot of factors, especially if they have high-stress other- like a jo- high-stress job where they're on their feet all day. There's going to be some clients that just respond better to a more frequent down weeks. So s- a lot of our clients, we will now do two weeks up and then one week down. And there are some clients, especially the ones that are very sensitive to injury, that we go up one and then down one, up one and down one. And you obviously need a longer timeline if that's what's going on, but it's a very safe way to build.

Speaker 2 51:27

And you don't need much longer of a timeline. Yeah. We've had great success with plans- Yeah that go, the weekday runs are pretty consistent. It's the long run. And this is why I'm saying if you're able to actually recover from the long run, that's why we went a bigger longer in one week and then back the next, and then increase the next week, and it allowed people to increase their long run in a safer manner- Yes in ways that they've literally not been able to do for their entire running career.

Speaker 51:51

for 20 years. Yeah. Because they're actually giving their body time to adapt, and some people just need a little bit longer to adapt, and that's okay. there, that doesn't mean that anything is wrong with you. This is actually a very smart way to train, is giving yourself more recovery and more time for your body to actually reap the benefits of the hard work that you're doing. so many people are putting in the hard work, but they're not actually giving their body the opportunity to reap the benefits of it.

Speaker 2 52:18

'Cause,'cause they're reaping the benefits by putting in more hard work- and then it's not getting any- But

Speaker 52:22

then they're working against themselves, and it's really problematic.

Speaker 2 52:25

Yeah. this leads to one of the other issues is comparing to a past self. Yeah. looking at my training schedule and comparing it to when I was training in college- those don't match.

Speaker 52:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 52:35

But the problem is that I was getting hurt all the time in college, so I'm not sure that I want it to match- anymore. Like-

Speaker 52:42

That's one of the things I ask our clients a lot too, like when they start questioning our methods- I say-

Speaker 2 52:48

Did the last one work for you?

Speaker 52:49

That's, without being, too... I don't wanna be off-putting or dismissive in any way, but really having them take a look, okay, what did that- the way that you did it before, did that actually work for you? Or- Was that the thing that was leading to the injuries? are you willing to do this differently so that you can have different results?

Speaker 2 53:08

But a lot of times it feels like you're not doing enough. Yeah. And that's not necessarily that your training isn't going well. that's a hit to your ego- Yes that you're not doing as much. It's

Speaker 53:16

true.

Speaker 2 53:17

And you just have to get past that- Yeah and be like,"All right. I'm training in the way that's gonna be the most successful for me, even if my mind is like-'Ooh, you're not doing enough.'" I can get past my mind saying I'm not doing enough if my body says,"Yes, you are."

Speaker 53:30

Yeah. I think that's the w- one of the wildest things that, we see so often with our clients, is, convincing them to do less. And, I make a joke because a lot of times when people come to me, they- I tell them that I'm not the running coach that they expected because I- instead of telling people to eat less and move more, I tell them to eat more and run less.

Speaker 2 53:51

Yeah. Yeah, that's often.

Speaker 53:53

A lot of times that, that is the answer because when you run less, you're actually giving your body more time to recover and adapt. And when you eat more of the right things, you're actually giving your body the fuel that it needs to perform. And those two things are what makes a huge dis- difference, especially if you're a runner over 40.

Speaker 2 54:12

Yeah. And that's not saying that we throw the lowest mileage at everybody. No. But I don't think that you need high mileage just for the sake of high mileage. High mileage, if it has a purpose, is a wonderful move. it's great. It's- you can progressively overload volume. It's really hard for most real-life runners to reach their limit of volume- Yeah because they just don't have enough time in their life to do it.

Speaker 54:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2 54:35

So that's a great lever to pull on, too. But with real-life runners, you have to have other levers. Yeah. that's where we fit everything in.

Speaker 54:42

Absolutely. So progressive overload is the mechanism behind all training gains, strength, mileage, and speed, and all three of those things require it to be applied intentionally. That's the biggest thing. So hopefully you now, after listening to this episode, you now understand what the concept of progressive overload is. You understand that there are three main dials that you can play with, which are volume, intensity, and frequency. You understand that you should only be playing with one dial at a time, i- for you to have the best results with the least risk of injury. You understand the different ways that you can increase your strength. There's the different ways that you can increase mileage and the different ways that you can increase speed, so that you can start to train like the athlete that you are, and you can start to train more intentionally so that you can get better results from your running. Because the goal is not to do more. It's to do slightly more than last time consistently- With enough recovery so that your body can actually absorb and adapt to the training

Speaker 2 55:50

'cause the goal is actually exponential growth. Yeah. Like I talked about this at the beginning, that you don't actually really need to go from a 10-mile week to an 11, but you can't just increase so rapidly so that it looks good, because that's eventually just gonna sideline you. And having a bunch of weeks in a row with zeroes is not going to continue to actually have the point where- Yeah your growth takes off and does that sort of like hockey stick move where it just starts spiking. You start seeing these huge benefits. Because every time you take two huge steps forward, you then have to sideline for a week. It's better to take five very small steps forward, and then be able to take five more steps forward. That's how you actually make the huge improvements.

Speaker 56:30

Yep, exactly. And so if you want help with this, like this is the main principle behind all of the training that we do inside the team membership. This is behind all of our training plans, both our strength plans and our running plans. we can help you figure out how to make all of these different things work together. Yeah. That's the biggest key, because so many runners are just trying to do all these things, and they're not sure which levers they should pull or which dials they should turn up or turn down. That is the whole goal of the team membership, and so you can check out that information over on the website, realliferunners.com/team. but I would highly encourage you to sign up for my next live master class, which is at realliferunners.com/brain, okay?'Cause again, we're g- talking all about how to train with your body instead of against it using the power of your nervous system. We will be talking about progressive overload, on that workshop as well, because that is one of the main concepts that we need to learn, a- as well as some other really important things with the nervous system. So check it out, sign up for that class, and then at the end of that class, you're gonna get a special offer. I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you guys, like spoiler alert. There's gonna be a special offer for you to join the membership. So if you are interested in joining the membership, make sure you sign up for that master class so that you get- The special offer, at the end.

Speaker 2 57:52

Excellent.

Speaker 57:53

All right, y'all. Thanks for joining us. If you haven't yet, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. I was just checking the other day, we have not had a new review in months. So if you are listening to this and you haven't left us a review yet, will you please? I'm just gonna ask very nicely. Please go leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts, because it really does help the show to grow. It helps other listeners, like new listeners, to find the show. It helps people on Spotify. if you, like listening to us on Spotify, give us a star rating, hopefully five stars. leave a comment. You can literally comment on every single separate episode. So if you leave us a comment, we are gonna be more likely to show up on people's search pages or, on their suggested podcast pages. So we would love to reach more runners, and you can help us do that. So if we're- have helped you in any way, please help us help more people. So this has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 460. Now get out there and run your life.