Which fitness principle means gradually increasing the demands on your body?

The principle that focuses on gradually increasing the demands placed on your body is known as progression. This principle is essential in physical fitness training as it ensures that individuals can continue to improve their strength, endurance, and overall fitness levels over time. By systematically increasing the intensity, duration, or frequency of workouts, individuals can avoid plateaus in their training and continue to adapt their bodies to higher levels of performance.

When applying the principle of progression, it’s important to make these increases in a manageable and steady manner. This helps mitigate the risk of injury and allows the body to adapt effectively. Progression can be applied in various forms, such as increasing weights lifted in strength training, extending the duration of cardiovascular activities, or increasing the complexity of exercises.

While other principles, like specificity, focus on tailoring training to specific goals, and overload emphasizes placing greater than normal stress on the body to achieve gains, progression embodies the gradual increase necessary for continuous improvement. Muscular endurance refers specifically to the ability of muscles to sustain repeated contractions over a period, which does not encompass the broader concept of incrementally challenging the body.