What is a deload week?
A deload week occurs when you drop the volume in your training week in order to let your body recover from accumulated fatigue. A deload week will occur over the period of one week as opposed to a taper which will usually be a drop in volume over a few weeks.
How Can I do a deload week
There are a couple main approaches
- Drop intensity- meaning decrease the amount of weight being lifted throughout that week
- Drop the volume – decrease the amount of reps/sets you regularly do during your training block
- A lot of time you will end up doing a combination of both decreasing the intensity and volume
Why is a deload week important?
As you train and accumulate fatigue not only will your muscles get tired but also your CNS. This can start to negatively impact your workouts. It is also good to allow your body to rest and recover once in a while so you can go into a new block feeling fresher and having more to put into the workout when your body is fresh.
Deload weeks are also extremely important for strength athletes leading up to a competition as you will not be able to compete to your full potential while being overly fatigued from a tough training block.
Incorporating deload weeks will not only be great for helping your body and CNS recover but it can also give you a mental break and go a long way when it comes to building strength.
Lastly deload weeks can help decrease the risk on injury from over training.
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