Diabetic INBA bodybuilder who goes by the username @diabetes.n.dumbbells shared the different ways to make progress with your lifts.
Many lifters, especially beginners, go into the gym doing different exercises every workout. However, mixing up your movements too often hurt your gains. Therefore, it’s essential to stick with the same exercises for long enough before switching your workouts to improve your physique. Keeping your training routine constant is the only way to practice the progressive overload principle. An International Natural Bodybuilding Association (INBA) diabetic athlete with the Instagram (IG) username @diabetes.n.dumbbells uploaded an IG post explaining how to make progress with your workouts via the progressive overload principle.
Training with diabetes has some unique challenges diabetic bodybuilders must overcome. Matt Morton, wheelchair Natural Olympia champion, is another diabetic bodybuilder who details bodybuilding training with type-2 diabetes. @diabetes.n.dumbbells also has diabetes, and it doesn’t stop her from competing with the world’s best physiques in the INBA/Professional Natural Bodybuilding Association (PNBA) league – the most significant natural bodybuilding organization.
On IG, diabetes.n.dumbbells explained how to make progress on your workouts by following the progressive overload principle. She stated:
“Progressive overload, in reference to exercise, is a technique that gradually increases workload demands from your muscles. When combined with proper nutrition, our muscles grow in order to acclimate to set challenges.
There are different ways of increasing the workload:
Increasing weight being lifted, Increasing number of reps, Increasing tempo, Decreasing rest time between sets, Increase training frequency, Increase number of exercises per group.”
@diabetes.n.dumbbells says that slowing down the lift’s tempo (speed) will help you progress if you can’t increase the weight. That’s because slowing down the rate of an exercise will help you progress by increasing your muscle’s time under tension. She noted that you might not be able to add weight to your lifts each training session, but you can still make progress in other ways.
Her full IG post below explains how to make progress with your lifts and a clip of her performing various leg exercises.
Progressive Overload Principle
The progressive overload principle is one of the most important laws to follow in the gym. Frequently, inexperienced lifters think that changing their movements will often enhance their physique. Unfortunately, while changing your workouts is vital to target different muscle groups and help you break past plateaus, switching your exercises too often will hold you back from reaching your full bodybuilding potential.
It’s essential to stick with the same exercises to allow your body to adapt to the movements to make progress with your workouts week after week by increasing the weight, reps, or volume. We recommend sticking with the same exercises for 4-12 weeks; changing your workouts will vary for each individual. But typically, you want to stay with the same movements until you start to plateau or need to help a lagging muscle grow.
Recap
@diabetes.n.dumbbells leads by example to show that you can make significant progress with your physique as a person with diabetes. And she goes into full detail on how you can improve your body by following the progressive overload principle. She says to make progress on your workouts by increasing the weight and reps. Or slowing down the tempo of your exercise.
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