Deload

Taking a week to “deload,” or recover a bit, is a simple training method that allows you to keep making progress without abandoning training all together. It allows your body to recover by muscles totally repairing, returning hormone levels to normal, and your central nervous system to rest. This is an absolutely essential part of strength training as well as conditioning.

In general, you don’t have to take a full week off from doing anything to deload but you should ‘lighten’ it up a bit. Just learning how to plan ‘light’ weeks or listening to your body and taking weight off the bar some weeks will go a long way towards preventing fatigue & overtraining from killing your progress.

There are multiple ways you can deload your training routine to take out some of the stress that contributes to overtraining.

 Use one or a combination of these tweaks to recover:

• Decrease the number of sets for each exercise
• Use lighter weight for each exercise
• Decrease the reps
• Increase the rest periods
• Decrease the number of training days/week
• Decrease the time under tension

Just because you are taking a deload doesn’t mean you have a Get Out Of Jail Free Card for training for the week, well, unless you have been training REALLY, REALLY hard. You are the only judge of that!

Have a fun workout. If you are one of those people who always train by the book and follow a periodized program, find something outside your comfort zone to do. Take a fitness class. Do some yoga. Do exercises you don’t normally train and keep it light-hearted. This is a great way to take it down a notch and have some fun!

Take a day off from training and get stuff done. Use all the energy you would typically put towards a workout and rearrange your living room, clean out the garage or help a friend do some extra chores. You will burn some calories and get stuff done, win-win!

Eat, sleep and recover! This is not the time to let your other efforts unwind and perhaps the best thing to help you recover is to, well, recover. Eating better and working on your nutrition plan will go a long way towards helping you succeed in the future! Since your workouts are lighter it is also a great time to focus on recovery activities such as massage, or doing some extra stretching. Yoga is always a great option for recovery as well.