How to Give Yourself a Break with Progressive Overload & Periodization

My Apple Watch won't give me a break.

I mean, without overriding the notification settings or manually manipulating my goals, my Watch will push me to go faster, farther, and harder day after day, week after week, year after year.

I'll get a tap tap on my wrist that chides me for not moving as much as yesterday. Or a tap tap that reminds me of the monthly challenge It selected for me. Or a tap tap that offers praise for exceeding my normal activity.

A couple of years ago, I turned off almost all of the fitness-related tap taps. I did it because that relentless push for more and better was actually hurting rather than helping my body.

The human body—and I know this is going to sound wild—has limitations.

It's true! It turns out that bodies need sleep, food, water, etc., or they'll eventually stop functioning. Bodies also need time for rest and recovery in order to take advantage of the training they endure. To get faster or go further, you need to take it easy with surprising frequency.

Unfortunately, the world around us makes it difficult to maintain the bioregulation that’s critical to pursuing excellence. Instead, we live in a state of bio-deregulation brought on by our always-on, hustle-harder culture and 24/7 access to markets, devices, and information. We don't make time for rest or sleep, we squeeze it in when we can or succumb to it when we can't do anything else.

As a result, our performance suffers. But more importantly, we don’t have the capacity to go all in when we want to. We lose the ability to feel satisfied with our work(out) because we’ve settled for failing at the impossible rather than pursuing excellence, to paraphrase Audre Lorde.1

Now, while this is not a fitness publication, and I am not a fitness expert, I'm going to get a bit nerdy with a few of the nuts and bolts of training. Then, I'll tie it all back to how we can work with less strain, honor our limitations, and pursue excellence.

No rest, no gain

While the familiar adage is 'no pain, no gain,' it's more appropriate to say, 'no rest, no gain.' Unfortunately, that doesn't rhyme. But it is true. Rest and recovery help keep athletes physically healthier, mentally fitter, and better adapted to perform at higher and higher levels. Rest gives us the ability to really push ourselves when that's the goal.

The authors of Peak Performance, Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, put it this way:

If we never take “easy” periods, we are never able to go full throttle and the “hard” periods end up being not that hard at all.

Weekend warriors and elite athletes alike prioritize structured rest—on a workout-by-workout, week-by-week, and month-by-month basis.

This is what infuriates me about the Apple Watch's lack of a built-in recovery function. It takes for granted that I need a push to go harder but not a push to take a break. It assumes that pushing myself is the challenge when the reality is honoring the need for rest is the biggest obstacle of all.

Ideally, my Watch would allow me to select days of the week as my typical rest days or have a single-click feature that would allow me to lower my goals for the day and turn off activity notifications. Instead of choosing a 'challenge' each month that pushes my edge just a little more, It might challenge me to do less for a month. Something like, "You've really been putting in the miles over the last few months! This month your challenge is to limit your runs to no more than 15 miles a week."

I should be able to earn an award for rest and recovery, goshdarnit!

My guess is that you don’t need a push to go harder or faster at work, either. Even if you aren’t happy with what you’ve accomplished at the end of the day, it’s not for lack of productivity. More of us—especially the recovering overachievers and goal-oriented strivers—could use a tap tap to remind us to take it easy.

Pursuing growth without overtraining

Athletes of all stripes tend to be pretty goal-oriented people. The goals we set aren’t always (or even often) about winning a medal or breaking a personal record. Instead, they’re often variations on curiosity: “I wonder if I could…” I wonder if I could finally do a pull-up. I wonder if I could complete a 5k without walking. I wonder if I could play softball again.

These goals encourage us to push ourselves, and that’s great. But mix that with our productized, gamified, individualist “culture” of health, and we’ve got a recipe for pushing ourselves straight into the ground. Been there, done that.

That’s where a training plan comes in. Each week, I train for five days and rest for two days.2 Each month, I'll work hard for three weeks and take one week easy. Over the course of the year, I'll work through different training periods so that I'm not always pushing the same physical capacity (e.g., strength, endurance, etc.).

This process is called periodization:

Periodization is defined as the planned manipulation of training variables (load, sets, and repetitions) in order to maximize training adaptations and to prevent the onset of overtraining syndrome.

Overtraining syndrome is a lot like burnout—there is a breakdown in both physical and mental performance because the body has been overstressed for a prolonged period. A ha, the tie-in to work is becoming clearer! A paper in the journal Sports Health defined overtraining syndrome as a “maladapted response to excessive exercise without adequate rest, resulting in perturbations of multiple body systems (neurologic, endocrinologic, immunologic) coupled with mood changes." See, it’s the fitness equivalent of burnout!

Back to the definition of periodization. Let's take a closer look at the "planned manipulation of training variables" part. While this encompasses many training techniques, progressive overload is probably the most common. Progressive overload is the process of pushing your muscles, aerobic capacity, endurance, etc., just a little bit more week over week. The incremental changes allow the body to adapt so that it's able to go farther or push harder with less strain.

Here's an example. Let's say a runner is working on progressively overloading their hill repeats to build speed and strength. They might do one session of hill repeats per week mixed in with their other training. In Week One, they run uphill for a quarter-mile at a moderate pace, repeating that work four times total. In Week Two, they run a quarter-mile uphill, repeating that work six times. In Week Three, they run a quarter-mile uphill, repeating that work eight times.

After that first session, they'll be tired and sore, especially if they're not used to training hill repeats. In Week Two, though, they'll feel better. In Week Three, their body might have already adapted to the strain so that two miles uphill feels about the same as one mile uphill did in Week One.

At this point, it's tempting as all get out to just keep pushing. Why stop at eight repeats when you could go to ten, twelve, fourteen? But the body needs time to adapt. The runner can keep pushing—but they need to take a break first. In total, they might spend twelve weeks working on hill repeats. Nine of those weeks will work on either pushing speed or distance on the hill. Three of those weeks will feature a lighter load—either a reduction in the number of repeats or elimination of the hill workout altogether to focus on easy running.

Now, this is a simplified example. I am not qualified to write programming for anyone but myself—and even that is dubious. But hopefully, you get the idea. Incremental increases in stress with regular rest periods lead to results over time and avoid bridging into overtraining. Now, let’s apply this idea to our workloads.

How to apply progressive overload to our workloads

We know we should take regular breaks—lunch, evenings, weekends, and, ideally, vacations. However, a more strategic approach to rest and planning could help us work toward excellence without burning out.

Take the idea of progressive overload. When I start a new training block, I know I'm going to hurt that first week. But I also know that my body adapts pretty quickly (at least, for now). If I'm trying something new at work, say, working with a new client, I know there are going to be some hurdles to overcome. But I can also trust that as long as I stick with it, that relationship will become easier, and the work will flow without friction.

I can also use that to guide how I onboard a new client. For instance, at YellowHouse.Media, we always start a new client by working with them on a podcast trailer (even if they've been producing their show for a while). The trailer is the 2-3 minute micro-episode that introduces new listeners to what the show is about. Because it's short, the stakes are much lower. If the client is struggling with the script or having a hard time with their mic, we can have them re-record (and sometimes re-re-record) it without them feeling like they've wasted a bunch of time.

Once we have the trailer in the bag, they're both more excited about their show and ready to dive into interviews or longer episodes. And they have a really good idea of what the production process is going to look like. They've adapted, and so have we.

Progressive overload can also help us think about how we plan new projects. Whether it's launching a podcast, developing an online course, or writing a book, many people hit the ground running, and by running, I mean sprinting. Before long, they're overwhelmed and exhausted—or, to put it another way, overtrained.

But what if every new project started slowly and gradually increased in intensity? What if we aimed to progressively overload the various tasks and deliverables required to complete the project instead of trying to do it all at once? We could ease into new projects and have plenty left in the tank for the inevitable slog in the last leg. In fact, that 'inevitable' slog might not be so inevitable after all.

Periodization at work

Let's revisit periodization now. While progressive overload will guide the load or volume of work in a given period, periodization also addresses different types of work over cycles of varying lengths. A macrocycle occurs over a season or even as long as a year. A mesocycle is typically about a month. And a microcycle is about a week.

Over the course of a macrocycle, an athlete will have different periods when they focus more on strength, or power, or endurance so that they can peak at the right time—typically for an event or goal. Within a mesocycle, an athlete will focus on progressive overload within that focus area. And within a microcycle, an athlete will spread the necessary training out over 3-6 sessions.

Now, consider a year in your business or work. Even without planning for them, there are periods when you're focused on different things. Perhaps the summer is light on client work, so you use it to work on your business rather than in it. Maybe you open enrollment for your core offer twice a year, so leading up to those two enrollments, you focus on marketing and audience growth. Maybe the business you're in has seasonal tie-ins, so you're busy with customer work around the winter holidays.

You can also plan for periodization in your work and take a more strategic approach to your project management. For instance, you could break the year down into quarters and assign each quarter its own focus: marketing, sales, operations, and product development, for example. You don't ignore the non-focus areas, but you do spend extra time and attention on whatever area the quarter has you focused on. The result is that you make meaningful and satisfying progress on a certain area of your work or business before moving on to the next focus.

Imagine you're in a period where marketing is your focus. You make sure that you're not sacrificing progress in the other areas of your business while progressively overloading your marketing systems. Maybe you use that time to focus on landing podcast interviews, or developing a new channel, or networking with new-to-you colleagues. By the end of that marketing macrocycle, your goal is to have whatever activity you've chosen either completed or integrated into a workable routine.

Using the example of booking podcast interviews, you could break that focus down further into mesocycles. In the first mesocycle, you could focus on researching the shows you want to pitch and drafting those pitches. In the second mesocycle, you could do the work to send those pitches out. Finally, in the third mesocycle, you could train someone on your time how to research, draft, and send pitches for you. Instead of a daunting project that requires juggling a variety of unfamiliar tasks, you have a focused plan for completing the project over time.

Last but not least, you can tackle this in terms of microcycles, too. You could designate one day a week as your podcast pitching project day—and protect it from all other work and responsibilities. Or, you could decide that you're going to spend the first hour of every morning on the project. However you choose to do it, the point is that you've made a schedule that accommodates your focus and has room to maintain your own responsibilities—while pre-planning weeks of lower intensity for rest and recovery.

Final thoughts

Nothing I've shared here is likely all that surprising. Even if you didn’t know that training schedules work this way, you can appreciate the rhyme and reason. Intellectually and physically, it probably makes a lot of sense. But culturally and technologically, prioritizing rest and periodizing our work gets hairy.

Just like my Watch always pushes me to go a little harder, our work tools are designed, with a few exceptions, in the same way. ClickUp or Asana don't remind us that it's time for a vacation. Google Calendar doesn't put up a fight when we try to schedule a fourth or fifth meeting for the day. Our inboxes will continue pinging us long into the night if we let them.

Our ‘productivity' tools weren't designed to accommodate our need for rest. They weren’t designed to help us shift focus or think strategically about embarking on a new project. They were designed to keep us producing. To remind us that there’s always something else we could be doing with our time.

But that doesn't mean we have to use these tools as intended. It might be as simple as blocking certain times on your calendar, pausing your inbox, or shutting off notifications like I did on my Watch. If you're really savvy, you can probably figure out ways to hack your tools to remind you to rest or set aside time during the year to scale back.

The most important tools we have for moderating ourselves, however, are our body-minds. Being conscious of the signals we're receiving, the intentions we've set, and the assumptions we want to subvert is the best way to ensure we rest hard enough to truly perform excellence.