Which principle involves gradually increasing intensity over time?

Which principle involves gradually increasing intensity over time?

• A. Specificity
• B. Progression
• C. Overload
• D. Reversibility

Answer: (B)

Progression means gradually increasing the training stimulus over time as your body adapts. As you get fitter, you add a little more challenge each session—this could be more weight, more time, higher intensity, or more frequent sessions. The idea is to keep nudging the body just beyond what it’s comfortable with so adaptations continue rather than plateauing. A practical example is starting a running plan with 20 minutes at an easy pace, then after a week or two increasing either the duration or the pace little by little each week. This slow, planned escalation helps improve endurance, strength, and speed while reducing the risk of injury from too big a jump too soon. Overload is about imposing a stress greater than the body’s current capacity to elicit adaptation, but progression is the process of making that stress increase gradually over time. Specificity focuses on training that targets the exact demands of a sport or goal. Reversibility is the loss of adaptations when training stops.

Progression means gradually increasing the training stimulus over time as your body adapts. As you get fitter, you add a little more challenge each session—this could be more weight, more time, higher intensity, or more frequent sessions. The idea is to keep nudging the body just beyond what it’s comfortable with so adaptations continue rather than plateauing. A practical example is starting a running plan with 20 minutes at an easy pace, then after a week or two increasing either the duration or the pace little by little each week. This slow, planned escalation helps improve endurance, strength, and speed while reducing the risk of injury from too big a jump too soon.

Overload is about imposing a stress greater than the body’s current capacity to elicit adaptation, but progression is the process of making that stress increase gradually over time. Specificity focuses on training that targets the exact demands of a sport or goal. Reversibility is the loss of adaptations when training stops.