As you train your body will accumulate fatigue. Whether you are training for powerlifting, bodybuilding, Olympic weightlifting, strength sports of any other discipline or just working out for health and wellness. If you are regularly applying progressive overload and pushing your body week in week out accumulated fatigue will take place. This will also affect your central nervous system as a whole and you may start noticing that workouts are generally becoming even tougher and weight that you should be able to move doesn’t feel as comfortable.
What is a deload week?
A deload week is when you drop the volume and intensity of your workouts in order to let your body recover from accumulated fatigue.
Watch the video above to learn more about what a deload week is and why you should do one.
Deload Methods
There are a few different methods you can use for a deload week which include:
- Reduce the Volume– Your intensity can stay consistent. But you will drop the amount of sets you normally do. This will decrease your overall workload.
- Reduce the Intensity – Drop the amount of weight. For example let’s say you were training using RPE or RIR. If the last few weeks the training training intensity used was between an RPE of 8-10 drop the RPE to 5-7.
- Reduce both Volume and Intensity – Depending on how taxed the body and CNS is. Dropping both the volume and intensity might be appropriate.
Do you need help planning out your workouts? Get a custom workout plan catered to your goals.
