Last Updated: September 19th, 2017

How to deload is a question all lifters should ask themselves.

Why?

You see, success in the gym rests upon 3 major pillars.

Once your nutrition and training are in check, there is one tiny little thing left…

Recovery.

And today we are going to discuss how to deload and why it is crucial for best results.

We'll also go over recovery weeks and how to pick the right option for yourself.

Although taking a week off from the gym might sound nuts to you, it’s actually an important element of long-term progress.

You see, lifting weights puts a lot of stress on your nervous system, muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons.

Over time, that stress builds up and your performance starts to fall off. You start feeling achy, weak, de-motivated to lift, and so on.

But we don’t want that!

We want to hammer at the weights without all these negative symptoms of overtraining.

Enter the recovery week.

The purpose of a recovery week is to give you some time off the gym to recover both physically and mentally. Once the week is about over, you would be itching to get back and crush your workouts.

And the funny thing?

You’d most likely be feeling rested, motivated and even stronger than before.

I know the skeptical part of your brain is like:

“Yeah, like NOT training is going to make me stronger.”

But think about it:

If you haven’t taken time off the gym lately, you’re likely starting to feel overtrained. And piling on more stress on top won’t make you jump over the fence and feel better.

Still, there are those individuals that won’t benefit from a recovery week. Then again, they aren’t benefiting from the training they are doing, either.

Those are the individuals who give priority to going out on Friday night over lifting.

To sleeping in over having that morning cardio session before work.

To socializing with their bros rather than actually training.

To eating junk over whole foods that nourish the body.

To.. you get it.

Those are the people who don’t feel tired and accomplished after a workout. And they look exactly the same as last year.

THEY don’t need a recovery week. Hell, they don’t even need recovery days.

But not you. You’re determined and hungry for progress.

You push yourself hard every workout.

You follow a decent training program that delivers results.

You most definitely need to be taking a week off from working out every once in a while.

Much like other aspects of training, recovery is also individual.

But there are certain guidelines you can follow to ease the process of figuring stuff out for yourself.

Recovery needs depend on different factors such as:

Based on all these factors, there are 3 main ways to schedule recovery weeks:

Those are the scheduled breaks you have. For example, I used to follow the Beyond 5/3/1 by Jim Wendler. It calls for a deload week (which we’ll cover below) every 7th week.

Most decent strength programs out there have some sort of recovery week scheduled. They are there to help you manage fatigue and feel motivated to lift year-round.

The idea is, decide how long you will train and schedule a recovery week every so often.

The second scenario is based on feel. You start feeling like crap = take a recovery week.

Symptoms of overtraining could include body aches, loss of sleep, lack of motivation, and weakness when training. There are others, but you get the idea.

Once the symptoms start piling on top of each other, there’s no doubt, you need rest.

For some, it could take 3-4 full months of training before the symptoms begin to surface. For others, it might be after the second month.

My two caveats with this option are:

Sometimes life tends to creep up on us and our plans.

Did you plan that 405 squat for Monday? Too damn bad, man. That stomach virus making its way in your body right now doesn’t care.

When life happens and you’re unable to get to the gym (read: unable, not unwilling), treat it as recovery time and don’t beat yourself up.

Other times, you might have to skip the gym for something more pleasurable. Like a trip to Fiji.

I often get asked whether taking a break from lifting during a vacation is alright.

My answer is yes.

If there’s no gym where you are, you haven’t taken time off recently, and you want to have a good time and take a break from the iron, by all means, do it.

But, if there is a gym near you, and you’re itching to go hit some weights, don’t let the fact that you’re on a vacation stop you.

I used to follow the option of a scheduled de-load week when I followed the Beyond 5/3/1 program and it works well. I still do to this day.

Most if not all decent strength programs out there have a scheduled period of taking it easy. This, in on itself, should tell you how important recovery is.

Some of you might say:

“Well I don’t need to take an easy week after 6 weeks of lifting!”

I hear you.

But, again, think of such a week as a preventive mechanism in your training. To help you stay energized and motivated year-round.

This is the most common concern people have with taking a week off from working out.

And I get it.

When I was first introduced to the concept of “not lifting”, I was skeptical.

I thought that if I took a week off training, my gains would evaporate and I would need at least 2-3 weeks of solid training to get back to where I left off.

Boy, was I wrong.

I read enough materials to convince myself that a week off was what I needed. At that point, I was pretty overtrained, too.

So, I took a week off (I felt like a slob the entire time, too) and once I came back, I was thunderstruck.

I had forgotten what it feels like to feel energized and motivated to lift.

I crushed all my PRs.

I felt stronger on each accessory exercise.

And I felt good after my workout, rather than like a boiled turd.

Ever since then, I’ve taken my recovery weeks without worrying that I’d lose my gains. I get impatient to return and see what I can do after the break.

If you still feel skeptical about this whole recovery week thing, I get it. I was too.

If you’re not on board not to lift for an entire 7-day period, you can take 2-3 days and see how it benefits you. Then, after some weeks, take a whole 7-day off.

I’ll admit, I know individuals who feel a bit weaker after a recovery week. But, that could be due to not treating a recovery week well.

You should focus on getting quality sleep and keep your nutrition in check. Just because it’s time off the gym, doesn’t mean that it’s time to forget it all.

Yet, it could also be due to factors that are not in your control.

You may find yourself weaker after a recovery week despite keeping everything in check. For you, there's another option I mentioned above – deloading.

A deload week:

“The week where you’re supposed to go light. You enter the gym, do some warm-up and feel the most energetic you’ve ever felt in your entire life. Too bad you can’t do anything with it, though! MWHAHAHAHA”

But in all seriousness…

I’m joking because this has happened to me once or twice before.

A deload week, unlike the recovery week, is one where you don’t take time off the gym. Instead, you keep training but you keep your workouts light and unchallenging.

There are 3 main ways to plan out your deload week:

1. Reduce training sets for each workout.
2. Reduce training intensity for each workout.
3. Reduce both for each workout.

With this method, your goal is to maintain the weights you lift and instead reduce the total sets done for the workout in half.

For example:

If you normally do 4 sets with 225 pounds on the bench for 5 reps, now you would do 2 sets with 225 for 3 reps.

If you normally do a total of 14 working sets for your chest, now you would do 7.

Cut back your repetitions a bit for each set to further reduce volume and don’t take sets to failure.

When deloading intensity, your goal is to maintain the number of sets you do in favor of less weight lifted. You can go as light half of what you usually lift.

For example:

If you squat 4 sets with 315 pounds for 5 reps, now you would squat 4 sets with 160-170 pounds for 5 reps.

If you usually deadlift 375 pounds for 3 reps on each set, now you would do 185 for 3 reps.

With this option, you reduce both the weight you lift and the total sets you do for a workout by about 50%.

For example:

If you deadlift 4 sets with 385 pounds for 5 reps each, now you would deadlift 2 sets with 180-200 pounds. Barbell curls with 90 pounds for 4 sets – 45 pounds for 2 sets, etc.

A quick note on the set reps and weight I used as an example:

I realize that your sets likely aren’t static as the examples above and that’s okay. I presented the examples in a simplified way to make things easier to understand.

It doesn’t matter how you usually train that much. Don’t overthink your deload workouts too much.

Choose a weight light enough and do the sets.

The answer to this question is individual and I’m afraid I can’t give an answer that will fit everyone. There are questions you need to answer, like:

These are all questions that can help you determine how often you need to take a deload week.

What I recommend is to deload every 6-10 weeks. Experiment with the frequency of your deload and see which works best for you.

Remember:

Treat your deload week as a preventive mechanism to steer clear from overtraining.

I’d like to address this issue because a lot of people feel that a de-load isn’t doing them any good.

The problem is, they can't see the benefit in training with less effort.

“Damn, I’m lifting the bare minimum of my ability!”

“I feel like I’m going through the motion.”

“Why don’t I take a recovery week? This crap is useless.”

If you feel this way towards your deload weeks, I’d like to help you change your perspective.

First off:

Don’t think of a deload workout as useless because you’re lifting less weight. Think of it as a reset point.

And also consider the fact that after each of these reset points, you’d be better than you were before.

Second:

Focus on proper form and explosiveness. Also, address any nagging pains you might have had in the past, but never got around to fixing.

It could be that your left shoulder feels kind of uncomfortable. Or one of your hips.

It doesn’t matter.

Do extra long warm-ups, focus on mobility work and perform your compound lifts with mindfulness.

Finally, on the accessory lifts:

Instead of yawning because you’re lifting baby weights, focus on each individual repetition.

Are you lifting the weights properly?

Are you feeling the right muscles activate?

Maybe your form is a little off and you never noticed until now.

Fix that.

What’s the bottom line?

A lot of people approach the deload week with a negative mindset and feel miserable until it’s over.

I urge you to shift your mindset and focus on the positive things your deload can bring.

Once you do that, you can reap the benefits from the deload and get back into your normal training feeling stronger and more determined.

Since nutrition is such a crucial element of proper recovery, you should pay as much attention to it as you would during any other week.

Your body is in a state of rebuilding and nourishing itself and it’s your duty to supply it with the building blocks it needs.

During that period, you’d already be in a caloric surplus. And you need to maintain that surplus even during your deload or recovery week.

Since your body is working to recover and grow stronger, you cannot cut the energy supply short.

Also, because of that, It’s not uncommon for you to actually build some muscle mass during the recovery week and actually come back stronger.

There is some controversy here and a lot of different opinions.

This is a tricky subject so I’ll try to look at it as objectively as I can to help you make a good decision.

We all know that the main goal of fat loss is to maintain as much muscle mass as possible while leaning out. Thus, lifting heavy and eating enough protein are two crucial elements.

But what happens when you don’t lift heavy for a week and instead take a deload or recovery week, AND keep that caloric deficit?

That’s right, you’re likely to lose more muscle mass than if you were to keep training heavy.

I couldn’t find any studies that looked into the issue and this information is more of an intuition.

Until we have more research, my advice to you is to raise your calories to maintenance level until your recovery/deload week is over.

That way, you can supply your body with more energy to repair itself and also make sure you don’t lose any muscle mass.

You won’t lose any fat during that short period but you will spare your muscle mass.

Once the deload or recovery week is over and you’re back at it, go back to a deficit and resume your fat loss.

If you feel like you must do something to keep your sanity, go for it.

But, keep in mind that the goal of the deload/recovery week is to reduce the stress on your body.

You should avoid high impact cardio such as running and doing HIIT cardio.

Aside from that, non-impact cardio like a stationary recumbent bike or a walk in the park can do some good for your recovery.

Did you find this post helpful?

Have I missed anything you wanted to know?

Either way, leave a comment below and let me know what you think.