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Progressive overload
Always create a log when you train, recording everything from how you were feeling to the amount of weight you used, with reps and sets too. With a record you always know what you did the previous week. Once you start building up a history of logs you be able to pinpoint problems such as ineffective exercises. For example if you progressed in strength in your triceps by doing skull crushers each week for 6 weeks and at the end of that period you have an extra ¼ to yours arms then you know you found something that works for you. If you then switch to close grip bench press to hit your triceps and for 6 weeks you don’t get stronger and don’t get any size gains then you can address your logs and conclude that close grips are not as good as skulls for you.
When you step foot in the gym you need to be at the very least matching last weeks performance as a minimum requirement. The reason I say “at the very least” is because growth is not linear and strength takes time to build up. You’re not going to grow week in and week out getting stronger forever. It will come in bursts and might take 3 weeks at the same weight and reps to notice an improvement. Example being 3 weeks doing 80kg bench press for 8 reps, with the 4th week you getting that extra 9th rep. That is progression, even if you think it’s small. You need to build upon that.
It’s not just increasing the weight on the bar and squeezing out extra reps that are part of progressive overload. If you’re effectively doing more work than last time then you have checked the boxes, which include increasing the number of sets, increase the number of exercises you do and even decrease the rest time between sets and exercises. If you can do 3 sets of 8 reps of 80kg on the bench press with 2 minutes between each of those sets, and over time you bring that down to 1 minute between each set of the same weight at the same reps then you have achieved the same effect.
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