99% of success comes from having a well formulated plan. A good plan includes tracking your progress. By monitoring your nutrition, body composition, and keeping a training journal, you will be able to see how you are progressing or if you are not making any progress. Keeping some type of journal will allow you to make educated decisions on when and if it's time to change your training load (the weight you are lifting).
If you do not set specific goals, and if you do not monitor the own progress toward those goals, then how can you assess if you are making progress?Your training program should always be focused on progression to meet your overall goals. This is where having a specific goal and timetable is important. You don't want to just training the same way for an extended period of time and hope for results.
Graves and Baechle developed a dynamic formula to assess when progression is necessary called the 2-for-2 Rule. They said that "if you can successfully complete two or more repetitions in the last set in two consecutive workouts for any given exercise the load should be increased."
The International Sports and Science Association (ISSA) recommends a load increase of 2% to 5% percent for advanced trainees and 5% to 10% percent for new and intermediate trainees.
Another reason for this is that a beginner has a lot of neural transformations occurring rather than muscle hypertrophy. Improved motor unit synchronization and the recruitment of new motor units account for this faster rate of progression. This is one reason that new strength athletes will progress in strength faster than muscle size.
