Progression in weight lifting for increasing muscle mass means increasing the amount of weight you are lifting, and to increase muscle tonality you have to progressively increase your weight and reps! Progression is essential to the discussion of how many reps and sets someone needs to do to achieve their goals. Have you been told to do 3 sets of 15, well that is merely a MAINTENANCE schedule. If you are happy with your body the way it is, then thats fine but there is no “progression” which is essential for the improvement of a muscles size and/or tonality.
So people looking to make progress towards their goals (be it mass or tone) need to incorporate something called “Inverse Progression”. This basically means as you increase the weights through your consecutive sets, you have to drop or decrease the repetitions you do. For example through a 3 set bicep curl exercise: 1st set 10lbs for 20 reps, 2nd set 12lbs for 18 reps, 3rd set for 15 reps.
Progression in stretching or Yoga or Pilates means holding a position with better form for longer periods of time. Learning to relax into the stretch while breathing deeply helps tremendously. When trying a new stretch or position you DON’T want to hold it too long because you don’t know how the muscles and soft tissue are going to respond afterwards. So you slowly progress the duration of a given stretch, position or pose gradually so that the muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage become accustomed to the newer movement.
Stretching On Demand
Our On Demand Video Library has hundreds of stretches for every part of your body. There are 5, 10 and 15 minute stretches, full body routines, sport specific and injury focused stretches. Our Stretch Education section teaches you about your body and the benefits stretching has to fight stress and anxiety.