Double progression: the only rep scheme most men need
Add reps until the top of the range, then add weight and start again. How double progression works, why it beats adding 2.5 kg a week, and how to run it.
- training
- progression
Most men who lift have no rep scheme. They pick a weight that felt right last time, do three sets of something between six and twelve, and go home. Progress happens by accident, and stops the same way.
Double progression fixes that with two rules.
The two rules
Pick a rep range — 6 to 10 is a reasonable default for compound lifts, 10 to 15 for isolation work. Then:
- Progress reps first. Keep the weight the same until every working set hits the top of the range.
- Then progress load. Add the smallest increment you have — often 2.5 kg on a barbell, 2 kg on a dumbbell pair — and start again at the bottom of the range.
That is the whole method. Two variables, one moving at a time.
Why not just add weight every week
Linear progression works for a beginner and then stops, usually inside three months. When it stops, the weight is still going up on paper, so the lifter grinds reps with worse technique, misses sets, and calls it a plateau.
Double progression gives the body somewhere to go when load cannot move yet. A set of 8 at 80 kg becoming a set of 10 at 80 kg is progress. It is measurable, it is recorded, and it justifies the jump to 82.5 kg when it arrives.
Running it honestly
The failure mode is bookkeeping. Double progression only works if you know what every set did last time — not the top set, every set. Three sets of 8, 8, 6 is not “three sets of 8”, and the difference decides whether the weight moves this week.
That is the part an app should own. You do the set and report the reps; the program decides whether the load moves.
When to hold the weight
Hold it when the last session was genuinely bad rather than merely hard: poor sleep, a session cut short, a joint that complained. Repeating a weight once costs a week. Adding load on top of a bad session costs a month.
What it looks like in GreekBody
The app stores the working weight per movement and the reps you reported per set. When every set hits the top of the range, the next session shows the next weight — tempered by the soreness, sleep and energy you logged. You never decide what the weight should be. You report what happened.