Progressive Overload

When was the last time you did something difficult?

Milo of Croton is one of the most celebrated and revered wrestlers of Ancient Greece. Legend has it that he was given a calf as a young boy, which he began carrying on his shoulders. He continued doing so as the calf grew into a bull, gradually building strength. 

I don't recommend carrying livestock on your shoulders, but the principle Milo followed is still used today. Overload or dynamic overload is the most fundamental building strength and fitness principle. The idea is that our bodies adapt and adjust to their demands. Lifting a progressively challenging weight sends signals to our bodies to build muscle to handle the increased demand. 

Exercise doesn't make us stronger; it destroys muscle. Our bodies then repair and rebuild muscle as they can rest and recover fully. Our brain sends signals to repair and strengthen the damaged muscle so we can more easily manage a similar demand the next time we need to do so. 

If the demand is too great, we risk injury and burnout. Our minds and body will require more time to recover, and we won't be able to make steady progress. If the demand is too little, our body won't be stressed sufficiently to promote growth, and again, we won't see any progress. 

The trick is to find the right intensity or weight needed to trigger a growth response from our bodies without killing ourselves for the rest of the week. For example, pull-ups are a challenging exercise for many people. Imagine you can do five pull-ups in a row, but doing so absolutely wrecks your body and leaves you sore for days. You do five on Monday, take two days off, and do five more on Thursday. You've done ten for the week.

Rather than doing five, do three on Monday. Three is enough to be challenging but not overly stressful, and you can train the next day again. Tuesday, you do three more and continue this way for the week. Rather than ten, now you've done fifteen in a week. Keep that up for a few weeks, then bump to four daily. Even if you take a day off in the middle of the week, which you may want to do, you are still doing more volume by working smarter and not harder. Trainers have labeled this approach as greasing the groove. You keep your body moving but never really get sore.

The principle of overload or progressive overload demands that we leave our comfort zone. Only when our bodies are pushed a little beyond what they are used to will we start to see the results we hope for. 

Time Under Tension

A key aspect of physical training is time under tension. Time under tension is simply the amount of time your muscles are required to work. Imagine the difference between doing ten pushups as fast as you want and doing only one pushup but spending thirty seconds slowly going down and another thirty seconds returning to the starting position. The second exercise is much more difficult. 

The same rule holds for endurance exercise. Running at an easy pace for a progressively longer duration is the key to adapting your cardiovascular system to greater demands and building the endurance necessary to run long distances. 

Whichever exercise we perform, the key is to find the appropriate amount of stress or tension to work our muscles and promote them to grow stronger as they recover. 

Spiritual Tension

We live in an already but not yet world. Jesus has already inaugurated his kingdom on Earth, but it is not yet complete. There is a tension between what should be and what is. You don’t have to be a person of faith to admit that the world isn’t perfect, and we each have room for improvement. The same tension exists in each person following Jesus. We are forgiven and secure in our relationship with God through Jesus, but we also know we are far from perfect. We are working against the tension of sin, disbelief, pride, and whatever idol has caught our attention. 

No matter our situation, we have two possible responses, faith or fear. Will we believe what God says is true for this circumstance, or will we respond with doubt or disbelief? Everything can be simplified to these two options. The tension we feel in decision-making isn’t something we should avoid. As we read scripture, it becomes apparent that God desires to use this tension to strengthen and refine our faith. 

Regardless of the source of tension, it is not going to disappear. As long as we live in this world, we will swim upstream. Our natural tendency is to ask for that tension to be taken away. Consider how many prayer requests you hear that focus on alleviating the weight of our situation. We ask for deliverance, healing, ease from financial hardship, or the reconciliation of relationships. These are all good things to ask for. I believe God wants us to live in healthy relationships and have a degree of security, peace, and good health. 

Each of those things, however, requires effort on our part. Just like training to run a marathon, we must exercise our faith to be spiritually healthy. Simply asking God for healthy relationships while not doing the hard work to be a good friend or deal with conflict isn’t going to cut it. The majority of the time, what Jesus offers is to walk through difficult times with us, bearing the weight of whatever we are going through and encouraging us to keep going. He will miraculously change our situation at times, but far more often, He wants to use whatever situation we are in to deepen our faith and train our minds and souls to trust Him. The best way to do that is with what Nietzsche described as “a long obedience in the same direction.” Lots of time under tension. 

Our situation is not meant to crush us or destroy our faith. God promises us that He can use any situation for the good of those who love Him. We quote this verse one minute and then ask God to airlift us out of discomfort at the first sign of difficulty. 

Looking back at my life, I realize God is an insistent teacher. He will put me in situations to learn a particular lesson over and over until I finally submit to what he wants to produce in my life. Until I learn what he wants to teach me, I will repeat the lesson. Far better to learn the first time than have to go through the same thing repeatedly. Marcus Aurelius is famous for saying, “The obstacle is the way.” The tension and difficulty we face are not roadblocks to our progress; they are the means of growth. The better we can lean into them and allow Jesus to help us move through them, the quicker we can make it to the other side. What might God be wanting to teach you right now? Is there a lesson that you have yet to learn or an area where you haven’t fully trusted him which is holding you back? Broken ways of thinking or sinful habits are fueled by a lack of faith. Until we trust God in that area we will remain frustrated and keep repeating the same fruitless cycle.  

Spiritual Overload

Progressive overload in our faith involves gradually stepping out into deeper areas of trust in God. Life with God is based on faith, which must be acted upon to be confirmed. It is not enough to say we believe if we are not willing to demonstrate our confidence in who God says he is through our actions. 

Let's look back at the story of the exodus, in many ways, the pinnacle of the Old Testament. Israel, after generations of slavery, was miraculously rescued from Egypt. During their escape, they walked through the Red Sea on dry land and watched the water swallow their enemies. They wandered through the desert but were fed daily bread that fell from the skies. God gave them water to drink from a rock when they grew thirsty. With each new challenge or complaint, God met their needs in a supernatural way. This doesn't even mention that they were guided by a pillar of fire by night and a cloud by day. 

There are moments in every relationship that serve to build trust. If we begin to doubt whether or not another person has our best interest at heart or if we have been hurt, it can take some time before we feel safe putting our faith in them again. 

It would be fair for Israel to assume this position with God. He had given them a promise to bless them through Abraham and make them a mighty nation. It would be easy to lose some faith in that promise and the God who made it after enslaving people for 400 years. They went from being people of influence in Egypt to being beaten and having their workload increased. They watched their children be murdered and stolen from them. It is fair for them to question where God was all that time. It is fair for them to be skeptical about his ability to protect and provide for them when he seemed unable or unwilling to do both for so long. 

What I see happening in the story of the Exodus is, yes, a miraculous rescue, but also a restoration and a renewal of the relationship between God and Israel. Now through Moses, God was building on his promise to Abraham and taking it one step further. 

To do that, however, the people needed to trust Him. The relationship had to be nurtured and cultivated to become strong enough to withstand all that God had planned and wanted to do. The first generation failed the initial test of whether or not they were ready. Sadly, they chose to live as enslaved people in fear and doubt and spent the next forty years wandering the desert. 

A whole generation who intended to begin a new relationship with God did not enter the promised land. Because of that, everyone in Israel got to hit their step count for the next forty years.

All that walking through provided time for reflection, and when the time came to enter the land a second time, they were ready. Moses sends out 12 spies into Canaan. Israel has two possible responses. They could view the situation through the perspective and worldview of slaves in Egypt, powerless victims against a superior force. Or they could see the situation through a lens of faith. They could choose to remember the exodus, the crossing of the Red Sea, the manna and quail they ate, and the water springing from a rock. By faith, they could trust more in what God said was true than in what they could see with their eyes. 

Just like muscles can atrophy, our faith weakens over time if we don't use it. Israel needed time to retrain their faith to be strong enough to walk through the wilderness and confidently enter the land, not in themselves but in who God was. Slowly but surely, as he met the nation's every need and complaint in the wilderness, that faith was rebuilt and able to respond when God prompted them. 

Gideon: A Progression of Faith

On a more personal level, we see the same lesson play out in the life of Gideon. How God interacts with Gideon offers us a glimpse into how he may also be working to grow our faith. 

God begins by proclaiming what he wants to do with Gideon. He calls him a mighty man of valor long before he has done anything meriting such a distinction. A good coach sees potential in an athlete and then works with them to uncover what they can become until it is visible. God identifies Gideon not by who he is but by who he will become. This should encourage us that God is never finished working with or pursuing us. 

What follows is a series of tests between God and Gideon. As Gideon responds and asks God to prove he is faithful, God consistently proves himself and requires Gideon to act on his faith. It is a beautiful picture of God almost playing with Gideon as a father plays with his child. 

When my son was younger, he loved to jump off the stairs into my arms. As he trusted me more and more, he would jump from higher and higher until he was fearlessly jumping from the highest stair possible. Two things motivated my son to keep moving higher and higher. The first was to see how far he could jump. He was, and still is, a bit crazy in the beautiful way many young boys are at that age. He wanted to see what he was capable of. 

To do that, though, he needed to know he was safe. The second motivator was to see to what degree I, his father, could keep him safe. How much could he risk safely in my presence? Each step up was an opportunity to test his limits and for me to prove my love and protection. 

Gideon and God are engaged in a similar game. Gideon steps higher and higher with a mixture of faith and doubt, and God responds like a father, happy to demonstrate his love and desire to see Gideon realize how much he is cared for. The trade-off is that each time Gideon asks for more confirmation that God is with him, God reduces his army until he has no choice but to give God the glory for victory. 

God's glory is the goal of where He leads us and what separates this type of maturation from other self-help books or programs. God's desire is not for us to grow exclusively self-confident or realize our potential. We can only become genuinely confident when we realize who we are in God. We can only realize our potential when we learn to allow God to work through us. The goal is for us to make much of God and, just like Gideon during his battle, claim victory not for our reputation but for God's. 

Conclusion

Israel and Gideon had been tested like athletes in training. God's ability to provide and care for them has been proven repeatedly, mirroring the recovery process necessary to come back stronger and handle the increased demands of life.

All the conditions were present for Israel to step forward in faith and continue trusting God. When given a choice, though, they wavered. They focused on the obstacle in front of them and, in doing so, disqualified themselves from all the blessings that God was eager to give them. 

Dynamic overload requires us to do more than we are comfortable with constantly. We don't get stronger by doing the same thing every day. Relationships grow as we open up and allow ourselves to be known for vulnerability. Academic progress is made by exploring new ideas and testing new theories. 

God is going to ask us to leave our comfort zone. It is the only way to demonstrate faith and switch from living independently to cooperatively with him. Like any good parent or coach, this is done in love and with our best interests in mind. As uncomfortable as it is to step out, we can do so with confidence because of who is leading us there.