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The honest answer is less often than the internet implies, and far more often than most people manage on the lifts they avoid thinking about.
Add load when you can complete every set at the top of your rep range with clean technique. In practice that is most sessions in your first six months, every 2–4 weeks per lift in your first couple of years, and every 1–3 months after that. Standard increments are 2–10% of the load.
Do not add weight on a calendar. Add it when the current weight has been beaten. The clearest trigger is the top of your rep range on every set, with the same technique you would use if someone were filming it.
Double progression is the method almost every good programme uses without naming it: pick a rep range, add reps inside it until you hit the top of the range on every set, then add weight and drop back to the bottom. 3×8 → 3×9 → 3×10 → add 2.5 kg → 3×8 again.
| Training age | Load increase per lift | What the other weeks look like |
|---|---|---|
| 0–6 months | Most sessions | Adding reps between load jumps |
| 6–24 months | Every 2–4 weeks | Building reps back up through the range |
| 2–5 years | Every 1–2 months | Volume, quality and tempo carry the block |
| 5 years plus | Every 2–3 months | Progress measured per block, not per week |
| Lift | Typical jump | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Deadlift, squat | 5 kg | Large muscle mass, tolerates bigger steps |
| Bench, row, overhead press | 2.5 kg | Smaller jumps; 5 kg is often a 5% step |
| Dumbbell work | 2 kg per hand (rack limit) | Often a 10%+ jump — add reps first |
| Cable and machine work | One pin, or micro-plates | Stack increments are frequently too coarse |
The dumbbell problem is worth naming. Going from 12 kg to 14 kg dumbbells is a 17% increase, which no progression model supports. On those lifts you add reps for weeks, and the load jump happens rarely. Micro-plates of 0.5–1.25 kg solve this properly if your gym has them.
A common mistake is expecting one rhythm across the whole session. Deadlifts might move every three weeks while lateral raises sit on the same dumbbells for three months and progress purely through reps and control. Both are progressing. Only one of them looks like it.
Every six to ten weeks of hard progression, taking a week at roughly two-thirds of the volume while keeping the loads moderate usually produces a jump immediately afterwards. Fatigue masks fitness; a deload removes the mask.
Increase load when you can complete every set at the top of your rep range with clean technique. That tends to be most sessions in the first six months, every two to four weeks per lift in the first couple of years, and every one to three months for experienced lifters.
Around 2 to 10 percent of the current load. In practice that is about 5 kg on squats and deadlifts and 2.5 kg on bench, row and overhead press. Dumbbell jumps are often 10 to 17 percent, so add reps first or use micro-plates.
Reps first. Work up through your rep range at a fixed weight, and only add load once you hit the top of the range on every set. This is double progression, and it removes the guesswork about when a heavier day is warranted.
No. Beyond the first few months of training, most weeks are repeat performances and that is the process working normally. Progress should be judged over a six to eight week block rather than week to week.
Knowing whether you earned the jump means knowing exactly what you did last time. NutriMacro shows your previous sets for that exercise while you are still at the rack, and charts load and volume per lift so a genuine stall is visible before it becomes three months.
NutriMacro is a nutrition and training tracker for iPhone and Android. It logs food by barcode, photo or search, counts food in slices and units rather than grams, and keeps strength training, GPS activities, sleep and recovery in the same daily view. It runs in the language of your phone across 108 countries.
General training guidance for healthy adults. If you have an injury, a health condition or are new to lifting, get coaching on technique before chasing load.
Read next: What is progressive overload? When to add weight Why am I not getting stronger?
