Double progression explained: add reps until the range runs out, then add weight

Most strength programs start with linear progression: a little more weight every session. On most lifts it works for a few months and then stops, usually on the press first. How to tell when that phase is over is in choosing a strength program you will finish. What most people run next is double progression. It is also the default rule in the strength log I build, so this is the long version.

What is double progression?

You progress two things in a fixed order. Reps first, at a weight you keep. Then load, once the reps have run out of room.

None of this is new. The American College of Sports Medicine’s 2009 position stand on progression lists increasing load within a prescribed zone, its example being 8–12 RM, as one of three ways to progress. Its rule for when to move is a 2–10% increase once you can do one or two reps more than the target on two consecutive sessions, at the lower end for small-muscle exercises (ACSM, 2009). Double progression is that rule with the bookkeeping written down.

A worked example: eight sessions of overhead press

Barbell overhead press, 3 × 6–10, starting at 40 kg. The smallest jump in this gym is 2.5 kg.

Sessions 1 to 4 are the easy part: the weight never changes while the total climbs from 25 reps to 30, and session 4 is the first time all three sets reach ten.

Session 5 is where people lose faith. Going from 10, 10, 10 to 8, 7, 6 looks like a step backwards. It is the plan working: every set is inside the range at a heavier weight, and the climb starts again.

Session 6 has a set below six. That is a miss, and the response is nothing special: same weight next time. A rough session right after a 6% jump is common.

By session 8 the lifter is doing 27 reps at 42.5 kg. Reps times load has gone from 1,000 kg in session 1 to about 1,148 kg, roughly 15% more work, while the bar moved once. That is the trade: the load moves less often, and the reps show you are still progressing between jumps.

Which add-weight rule should you use?

“Every set reaches the top” is the strict version and the most common one. There are others.

Pick one per lift and keep it for the block. Switching rules midway is how a lift ends up at a weight no rule would have chosen.

Why does adding reps count as progress?

Because, over a couple of months at least, it seems to work about as well as adding load. In Plotkin et al. (2022), 38 trained lifters did eight weeks of lower-body training. One group added load and kept its reps in a range; the other kept its load and added reps. Squat strength rose 21.8 kg in the load group and 19.3 kg in the reps group, a gap the authors called of questionable practical significance, and muscle thickness changes were similar.

The wider rep-range research points the same way. A 2017 meta-analysis led by Brad Schoenfeld found similar muscle growth with light and heavy loads when sets were taken to failure, while one-rep max strength favoured heavier loads. A 2021 re-examination of the repetition continuum, also led by Schoenfeld, argued that adaptations happen across a wide range of loading zones. The ACSM’s 2026 update, an overview of 137 systematic reviews, found hypertrophy did not differ across 30–100% of one-rep max when effort was comparable, and that strength gains were greater at 80% and above (Currier et al., 2026).

So no rep range is magic. For size, pick a range you will push honestly. For a lift where top-end strength is the point, keep the range near the heavy end, where the strength benefit shows up.

How wide should the rep range be?

Wide enough that one load jump does not throw you below the bottom of it.

If you add weight and land below the bottom of the range two or three sessions running, the range is too narrow for the jump. Widen it, or make the jump smaller.

What is microloading, and when do you need it?

Microloading means adding less than the standard 2.5 kg (5 lb) step, with fractional plates from 0.25 to 1.25 kg or small add-on weights for dumbbells. The case for it is arithmetic. The same plate is a very different jump on different lifts:

Against ACSM’s 2–10% band, which asks for the low end on small-muscle exercises, 2.5 kg on a 30 kg press sits near the top of a range meant for big lifts. The same plate on a 100 kg squat is near the bottom. That is a large part of why the press stalls first.

Dumbbells are harder, because the rack decides the jump. Going from a 10 kg to a 12 kg dumbbell for lateral raises adds 20%. Without add-on plates the practical fix is a wider range, such as 12–20, so the reps can absorb the jump.

You need microloading when the smallest standard jump keeps knocking you out of the range: overhead presses, bench press for lighter lifters, most single-joint lifts. You can usually skip it on squats and deadlifts until the weights are well past bodyweight.

When does double progression stop working?

On accessories it may never need replacing. On main lifts, these are the signs I would look for before changing:

1. Reps flat at the same weight for three or four weeks, on more than one lift at once. One stuck lift is a problem with that lift. Several at once is usually recovery, food or sleep, and no progression model fixes those.
2. Every jump lands you below the range, even after microloading. The lift may need a heavier, narrower range for a while, or a different variation.
3. You want to peak a main lift. Double progression is good at building and has no plan for a heavy single on a set date. A percentage cycle off a training max, such as 5/3/1, does, starting from a one-rep max that is tested or estimated.

Before giving up on the model, change one thing inside it: swap the exercise variation, move the range (from 6–10 to 10–15 for a block), or add a set. If one lift does move to a percentage cycle, the others can keep running double progression. Mixing models across lifts is normal.

This is training information, not medical advice. If a load jump hurts rather than just feels hard, have a clinician or a coach who can watch you lift take a look.

How LiftLog runs it

In LiftLog, progression is a setting on each exercise in a program rather than on the program as a whole. The choices are double progression, linear, a percentage of a training max, RPE-based, or off. Nearly nine in ten exercise rows in the bundled example programs use double progression.

The rule is the strict variant from the table above. You set the target sets and a rep range, and the weight goes up only when every target set reaches the top of the range. A session inside the range holds the weight. A session where fewer than the target number of sets reach the bottom counts as a miss, and after three misses in a row the weight drops to 90% and the climb restarts. The increment, the number of misses and the drop are all editable per exercise.

When a workout ends, the recap labels each exercise Progressed, Hold, Missed or Deload and shows the next session’s weight and reps, and the program list previews that next target under each exercise. Bodyweight exercises get a reps-only mode that adds one rep at a time.

For microloading, the increment and the rounding step can both be set in 0.5 kg steps. Change both. With a 1 kg increment and rounding left at 2.5 kg, the next weight rounds back to where it was. The built-in plate calculator assumes a standard plate set down to 1.25 kg, so fractional plates are still your own bookkeeping.