Deloading: A Critical Component for My Own Fitness Journey
First off - what is deloading?
Fantastic Question! Trevor Folker from MVMT Performance and Rehab explained it well in one of his "Friday Kickstart" emails. He says that a de-load week is this:
"A deload week, taken every 8 weeks or so, is a planned period of reduced training intensity and volume."
Okay so what the heck does that even mean? Well basically when a person trains SUPER hard over the course of 6-8 weeks there is something I call cumulative fatigue. Your joints get tired, your muscles get tired because they never had a chance to fully recover from all the stress, your mind gets tired (yes it does) and wants to sleep more (because you need to heal the microtears in your muscles but you've ignored it so now it will make you), and you cumulate mental stress in relation to training.
So to prevent injury to not only your body, allow the neurological components of training to actually lock in what you're trying to teach it to do (which takes sleep), and give your joints a chance to move through range without excess load - you need to deload your body.
HOW CAN ONE TELL WHEN IT MAY BE TIME TO DELOAD FOR YOUR MESOCYCLE?
Now that length of time to de-load is dependent on the intensity of training, but usually it is every 6-8 weeks. But there are some signs that can tell you if you need a deload week.
REGRESSION: You are unable to do more reps or the same reps with similar weight from the previous week (so you can't do your working sets the same way anymore) consistently and it feels WAY HARDER than normal.
MENTAL EXHAUSTION: If you feel like you're needing a "mental health day" more often than not - you probably need to de-load a bit. If you feel mentally lost when it comes to training. It feels dull, stale, cumbersome. You need to de-load and give your mind time to find a new goal to focus its energy on in the gym.
TOO SORE: Your joints hurt, your muscles hurt, and it's consistent and never fully recovers. Time to de-load.
FATIGUE: You find yourself naturally sleeping through your morning alarm to hit the gym? - Yep, it's time.
We spend so much time in our life inhaling all this stress and tension in our bodies that we forget to exhale and expel that tension out of our bodies. For a lot of athletes it's incredibly difficult to slow down because we tell ourselves, "If I don't do this workout I could be giving my competitors an edge over me." "I want to feel like I did everything I can and this feels lazy to me." "I just want to keep pushing through it."
NO YOU DON'T. NO YOU WON'T. AND NO IT ISN'T LAZY.
Instead of focusing on the feeling of working out but rather focusing on training as a mathematical and scientific equation of sorts. You'll start to realize that it is more strategically advantageous to de-load because the number of days over the long-term that you can train REALLY REALLY HARD is more than if you didn't. And hard training is what stimulates the muscles and encourages them to grow and adapt to new challenges. You can't give your muscles new challenges if you don't recover.
HOW DOES ONE... DELOAD?
It depends on the athlete but normally that means that you show up at the gym for your workout but it will look a little bit more like this.
A) More time doing dynamic warm-ups and mobility drills
B) Half the sets, half the weight - It feels super easy and almost stupid but you're body is warm and mobile
C) Focused energy on static stretching, loaded stretching, balance, and coordination
D) Evaluating movement patterns and range of motion improvements
E) Mental reflection - What's working. What's not working. What do I need to change in my programming?
I personally like to do my deload week as one giant physical evaluation. Each day I focus on different muscle groups and challenge my current range of motion, isometric hold ability, active flexibility, and active eccentric control of the muscles I've been working. I use this to see if the programming is showing any improvements in the way I move and if not, ask the right questions to my physical therapist and/or trainer to make adjustments to my programming.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Because the body is like a rubber band. It can only hold so much stress for so long until it breaks. So if you want to workout for the rest of your life, you need to let it rest. This is more important as we age. But how many times when I was in my mid-twenties first working out and thinking.
"I don't have to stretch when I'm done working out."
"I can train without a warm-up."
"I can workout everyday."
Yeah and then five years later my body is telling me, "GIRL YOU SHOULD HAVE TAKEN MORE REST SO THAT WE DIDN'T HAVE TO MAKE YOU."
You don't want your body to force you to rest. With stiffness, pain, injuries, sleep disorders, and many other issues you can run into and trust me none of those are fun to deal with.
So be kind to your mind and body and let it rest. Do it for yourself as an investment in your long-term health. You'll be fine, and stronger for it!
