How to Take a Deload Week in Strength Training

When your training is dialled in and you’re starting to see results, reducing intensity and volume via a deload can seem counterproductive. If you’re putting more weight on the bar, seeing your athleticism improve, and performing well at your sport week after week, why would you pull back your training?

The answer is because the most critical part of progressing at anything – whether that’s in the weight room, on the pitch, or on the mat – is consistency. Over time, training at a high intensity will bring fatigue. When fatigue gets too high, we move into dangerous territory, where the likelihood of injury is increased, and the utility of our training drops as we can’t perform at our best.

This is true for skills and sports-based practice, but it’s also true for our strength training. Strength is a skill, and fatigue will accumulate over time. If we are regularly performing within strength-building parameters, i.e.  85%+ of our one-rep max, we will start to feel fatigue in the muscles, but also in the central nervous system (CNS). Strength has a high neurological component, and this creates additional stresses that must be properly navigated.

So, how do we implement a deload week, while still moving towards our goals? The key lies in how we think about them, and how we implement them in our training.

If you are a highly motivated individual, or you like to give 100% to each session, a deload can make you feel like you’re slacking. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Deloads are essential to long-term performance and consistency, which is what will get us to where we want to go. They are as important to your training as hard sessions and high-volume weeks. This is because they play an important part in allowing our bodies to adequately recover and cement the adaptations we are provoking through training. They protect our body from becoming too fatigued and reduce our risk of injury.

Context is everything, and when we think about a deloading in this way, the uncomfortable feeling of ‘not giving enough’ can dissipate. By maintaining focus on our long-term goal and viewing the deload as being a stepping stone towards it, they become an integral part of the plan.

How we implement a deload is also important. In most cases, deloading does not mean that we skip all training sessions that week and take a complete rest. It’s usually better to reduce training volume by about 50%, along with lowering the intensity. This way we can still practice movement patterns, without the added fatigue. As we perform our exercises, we should be paying attention to bodily cues to tell us if we’re on the right track.

For example, as a rule of thumb, pain or discomfort in the joints should not exceed 3/10 (where 10 is debilitating pain). If it does, then further reduce the load.

In terms of when to implement a deload, it depends on our training. Generally, we should be looking to take a deload week every 4-6 weeks while training for strength. If we are focused on power development with lighter loads, fatigue will be less of a factor, and so we can go longer without implementing a deload. In this case, it would be better to self-monitor for signs of overtraining.

If you’re experiencing the following signs:

• A sustained decrease in performance – you can’t lift as much as you normally would, sports performance decreasing, etc.
• Excessive fatigue – feeling tired and lacking energy even after adequate sleep
• Changes in mood – feelings of anxiety, volatile emotions, irritability, or depression
• Catching colds, or having a cold that won’t shift – sniffles, sore throat, cough, headaches that persist for longer than normal
• Excessive or sustained muscle soreness – while it’s normal to feel some soreness after a tough session, if the DOMS is excessive or slow to heal, it could be a sign of overtraining

There’s a good chance its time to take a deload week.

Deload weeks can be tricky to navigate if you’ve not used them as part of a larger training strategy. When you’re used to redlining yourself every session, it can be hard to take your foot off the gas. But doing so can have important benefits for your training, and even your overall health.