TMU Mondays - Deload week

What’s deloading? Deloading is when you consciously reduce your training volume or intensity in your training routine to help you rest, recover, and perform better in the long run. I prefer to deload both in my programs and in my own routine every 4th week.

Here’s a breakdown of how advantageous a deload week could be -

Prevent injury and overtraining:

If you’re incorporating heavy strength training in your training routine, chances are high that you may stress your joints too much, injure yourself, or overtrain. Deloading lets you take it easy on your body without completely breaking from your training routine.

Prevent burnout:

Training hard every week can be pretty taxing both physically and mentally. Taking a week off can help you prevent burnout by mixing in a light week in your routine.

Recovery with no loss in gains:

You’re not taking a break from training so there’s no detraining here. Detraining occurs when you take a break from training because of injury, sickness or some other unavoidable event for so long that you lose the progress you’ve made in the gym. You’re continuing to use the same exercises programmed in your routine except the loads, reps and/or sets are lower.

Typically, deloading is done every one or two months by

• reducing the weight to, let’s say, 60% to 70% of your 1 rep max

• reducing the number of sets/repetitions,

• a combination of both when weight training

If you’re deloading your conditioning routine, and you like to run as part of it, you could reduce the duration and intensity of your runs.

Bottom line is that taking an easy week every one or two months in the gym is likely to help you reduce the possibility of injuries, recover better, and perform better in the long run without sacrificing your gains.

References:

Coleman M, Burke R, Augustin F, Piñero A, Maldonado J, Fisher JP, Israetel M, Androulakis Korakakis P, Swinton P, Oberlin D, Schoenfeld BJ. 2024. Gaining more from doing less? The effects of a one-week deload period during supervised resistance training on muscular adaptations. PeerJ 12:e16777 http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16777