Think of it this way: If you keep grinding week in and week out without hitting the brakes, eventually you’ll be forced to deload because of an injury. A better approach is to take preventative measures and scale back regularly to keep your body fresh and chugging along over the long term.
What is a deload in weight training?
A deload is a period of lower training volume or intensity with the goal of improving recovery. A deload can last anywhere from a single workout to several months (most often 1-2 weeks), depending on the goal and the level of the athlete. Deloads tend to become more important the stronger you get because heavier training takes a greater toll on your body. Therefore, the more advanced you are in weightlifting, the more often you’ll want to deload.
What is the difference between a deload week and a rest week?
During a deload week, you do the same exercise routine as normal just with about 50% less training volume per body part. For example, you might skip a set or two of each exercise or do half your normal exercises for a particular body part. A rest week is just as it sounds, taking a complete week off from weightlifting.
What are the main reasons behind deloading?
Why would anyone need to deload, you may ask?
Over time the intense stress placed on your body by weightlifting causes you to accumulate fatigue. Add in cardio or dieting to lose weight, and it’s only a matter of time before you start to feel rundown. To help prevent burnout, overtraining, injury, and reduced performance, we use a deload week or two. It’s therefore more than clear that the main purpose of a deload is to provide your body time to recover from accumulated fatigue. Several studies have found that taking a short break from exercise can lead to improved performance and greater increases in strength and muscle mass. Similar strategies are adopted by athletes before events, where they taper down their training to ensure their body is 100% on competition day.
Deloading will also help you to avoid those annoying plateaus (which by the way, often occur shortly before you hit the point of overtraining). We often forget that bodybuilding does not only mean building muscles. Your goal is to preserve the health of your joints, tendons, ligaments, and other segments that together make up the locomotor system. If we do not satisfy that aspect as well, we are de facto sawing off the branch we are sitting on.
When is the right time to take a deload week?
When is the right time to take a deload? You’ll know it’s time to take a deload or rest week when you experience one or more of the following symptoms:
- Persistent aches and pains in your muscles, tendons, and joints.
- Persistent fatigue or irritability.
- Stalled progression in your exercises.
- Difficulty completing your workouts.
How long should deloads last?
Typically, a deload week is enough of a reduction in exercise to allow your body to fully recover from accumulated fatigue. However, if you are feeling extremely worn out or you have a particularly busy period in your schedule, then a rest week can be a better option.
How to deload for bodybuilding?
Below are some of the different ways that you can deload to avoid overtraining.
- Reduce the volume by 45% across the board. This one is pretty simple– just take whatever volume you’re lifting each session and slash it by 45%.
- Change your workout split. Try mixing things up a bit. Instead of doing a 3-day split, try a 2-day split, or a 4- or even 5-day split.
- Select new exercises. It’s not only boring for your mind to do the same thing day in and day out. It bores the body too. Once our bodies become accustomed to a routine, that’s when the returns start diminishing. Shake up your routine every now and again.
- Reduce the intensity. You can also try reducing the intensity of your workouts. Just like reducing the volume, reduce the intensity of your training by about 45%.
- Do more cardio. If you don’t normally do much cardio, now is the time to throw some in. This will get your heart pumping, shake up your metabolism, give your muscles a rest, and keep your enthusiasm up. Be careful not to overdo it though because extended periods of cardio can burn up muscle.
- Switch from barbells to dumbbells (or vice versa). If you normally work out with barbells try working out for a couple of weeks with dumbbells. Or if you normally train with dumbbells, then give the barbell a whirl for a while.
- Isolation exercises. Compound exercises that involve multiple muscle groups are the foundation of real muscle growth. Compound exercises mimic real-life movements that we do in our everyday lives. If you are used to doing compound exercises then switching the focus to isolation exercises for a while can help you deload. You can do any type of isolation exercise—even if they’re movements that you normally wouldn’t care about.
- Stretching and strengthening. Another way to deload is to spend some time at the gym focusing on stretching and strengthening your core. Stretching is something that most bodybuilders don’t pay enough attention to anyway so it can be good for you all the way around. It will not only give your major muscle groups a much-needed rest, but it can also help to improve your flexibility and range of motion. By doing that, you can help reduce the likelihood that you’ll injure yourself.
Won’t I lose strength if I take a deload week?
There is a misconception that deloading will cause you to lose your hard-earned gains and strength. However, this is not the case. It takes much longer than a week to lose your strength gains, and that’s completely without lifting as well. So, you shouldn’t notice any change in strength when taking a deload week.
Summing up: The importance of deload weeks
Be sure to back off from hard training every 6 to 8 weeks to allow your body to reset. You can choose to deload more frequently, if you feel fatigue, can’t seem to recover, can’t sleep, or unable to remain focused during your training. It might be hard for some to accept this, but deload is necessary for you to come back stronger. A week is not going to cause you to lose any muscle or slow down your progress. You will be amazed how good it feels when you do come back full speed again after deloading.
So, go ahead and pick any of the options above for deloading for one full week. Our general recommendation is to cut back on load by 40 to 50 percent and cut down on the total number of sets performed by up to 40 percent if you’re feeling particularly fried. You can schedule your deloading week to occur during your vacation or business trip when a gym might not be accessible.
