Deload Weeks to Increase Strength

Experiencing training plateaus or workout exhaustion? It might be time to deload.

After much research and planning you’ve designed the perfect workout to prepare for the upcoming season. You’ve chosen the exercises that will deliver the best strength gains and have decided on the appropriate sets and reps to elicit the desired response. You understand progressive overload and have planned the workouts to be more challenging from week to week, but most of all you’re ready and determined to get after it.

You know the hard work and commitment that will be required to accomplish the kinds of gains you’re looking to achieve and won’t let anything stand in your way. Things are moving right along as planned for the first few weeks, but by the fourth or fifth week you stop seeing the weekly improvements and start questioning the program. At this point you may strengthen your conviction and vow to push even harder until your joints ache and you feel so exhausted and unmotivated that you can hardly drag yourself to the gym eventually missing workouts, or you may decide the program is faulty and switch to a different one.

If your program was as on target as it seemed, then most likely the cause of your stalled progress was that you failed to account for the impact recovery has on strength gains. It’s commonly said that fatigue masks fitness. It’s also a fact that you don’t get stronger from what you do in the weight room, but rather you get stronger from recovering outside of the weight room. This increase in strength due to recovery is called supercompensation and is the objective of all periodization schemes. These planned rest periods are termed unloading or deloading and are designed to give the body a chance to adapt to the stimuli it has been exposed to before exhaustion occurs.

Although each individual is unique, a general recommendation is that one should deload one week for every three weeks of hard training. This is usually done the third or fourth week of a four week training cycle. A typical deloading period lasts about 5-10 days and should be dependent on the training done in the previous weeks and the individual (training age, chronological age, training status etc.). Because overtraining is much more likely to occur from volume than intensity, deloading for the majority of athletes is best accomplished by decreasing the volume by 40-50% and leaving the intensity the same or even slightly higher. This can be done by reducing reps, exercises or both. Below are examples of effective volume reduction strategies. Use the volume from week one when calculating the decreased volume for the deload week.

If you’re experiencing excessive fatigue, joint aches and pains or if you have a high training age and are stronger than average, then you may be better off decreasing the intensity for a week. Making sure to keep the intensity below 70% and performing some higher rep training can aid in the restoration process by promoting blood flow and flushing the system. A workout consisting of 3 to 5 exercises done for 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps and some med-ball circuits would be a good option for someone deloading by means of decreased intensity.

Another method of allowing the body the time it needs for regeneration is to just get out of the weight room for a week. You can choose to take two to three days of complete rest or a week of active recovery where you perform activities other than lifting or your sport (i.e. a light swim, bike ride, or run as opposed to HIIT or lifting). These breaks in training tend to happen naturally due to holidays and breaks in the academic year, but you should make certain to plan an active recovery or complete rest period from your training regimen every twelve weeks.

Probably the most crucial aspect of deloading is flexibility. The guidelines for when and how to deload are not written in stone, so if you feel tired and lack motivation to train, then your body may be trying to tell you something. Listen to these signals and take some time off. This may difficult for some to do without perceiving it as lazy, but protect your investment by regarding this rest just as important as the time you've put into your workouts.

And 1R, to aid in training recovery, we at OneResult recommend the following supplements:

1. Optimum Nutrition Fish Oil – These tasteless fish oil pills will help you burn fat, improve joint health, and reduce inflammation associated with hard training
2. Optimum Nutrition Opti-Men – A high performance multivitamin, Opti-Men will improve your energy levels and cover your nutritional bases so that you’re able to get the most out of your workouts
3. Cytosport Joint Matrix – When you’re training hard, and/or training heavy, your joints inevitably take a beating. Joint matrix will ensure that you don’t feel that beating the next day