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I was recently asked if I incorporate deloads into my own personal training regimen. Now, had I been asked this question a year ago, I would’ve SCREAMED “yes”, before I even finished reading the question…
But my answer was “Right now, no I don’t. I don’t need to.”
And that’s because my “life landscape” has changed. My training is
- not the same, and
- not “as big” of priority in my life anymore.
I’M A DAD NOW. And a “full time” one at that — home all day, every day with the baby.
Don’t get me wrong, I still LOVE training and I DO still prioritize my fitness. But last year at this time I was working out for ~1.5 hours a day 6 days a week. Now I workout for ~40 minutes 3x per week.
So I want to revisit a topic I wrote about a few years ago called the Fitness-Fatigue Model to explain why these shifts in my life have deemed training deloads “unnecessary”…
A Short Summary…
As you train (effectively), you drive positive physiological adaptations — strength, hypertrophy, endurance, etc.
In real life, these adaptations are seen in increases in your training performance: being able to lift more weight, do more reps, run further/longer, etc. This is an increase in “FITNESS.”
But “effective” training comes with a cost. Because it's HARD, it is FATIGUING — both in the obvious sense where the muscles you use in an individual workout get tired from using them — but also in the “big picture” sense where your entire body gets a bit run down from accumulated systemic fatigue from “consistently working hard.”
At some point, said accumulated fatigue would be high enough that it starts masking your fitness level in decreases in your training performance (not being able to lift the same weight, reps dropping off, pace slowing, etc).
And if something isn’t done about it – we’d start to lose some of those physiological adaptations because our bodies, unfortunately, abide by the “use it or lose it” principle.
So, we deload.
We spend a few sessions, a week, a few weeks, etc. training at lower volumes, lower intensities, and/or lower training frequencies to allow some of that fatigue to dissipate — so that we can then start training effectively again in order to drive more positive adaptation.
Examples of How to Lower Fatigue
Volume Reduction:
3x10@100 lbs becomes 2x10@100 lbs.
Intensity doesn’t change, but less overall work is performed.
Intensity Reduction:
3x10@100 lbs becomes 3x10@90 lbs OR 3x8@100 lbs OR 3x8@90 lbs.
Volume stays the same, but sets are “easier” or further from failure.
Combination:
3x10@100 lbs becomes 2x10@90 lbs OR 2x8@100 lbs OR 2x8 @ 90 lbs
Both volume and intensity are reduced.
Frequency Reduction:
3x10 on day one and 3x12 on day two becomes one session with 3-4 sets of 10–12
(Load can also be reduced if fatigue is really elevated.)
Anyway, Back to My Story…
In my current life landscape, I am eating enough and training at a low enough volume and frequency level that my accumulated fatigue isn’t much of a concern.
Sure, because each session I do is hard, I end up a bit sore and it takes a few days to fully recover … but I have plenty of those days to recover as full rest days right now!
Fatigue doesn’t accumulate as much … certainly not enough to start masking my performance.
So, although my fitness is going up at a slower pace (from training less) — I’m able to consistently improve/increase my training performance without needing to “do less” for a bit.
Now, The Real Question:
“Do YOU Need to Deload YOUR Training?”
And to find that answer – look at YOUR life landscape:
- How much are you eating?
- How much are you training?
- How hard are you training?
- How is your recovery?
- Is your training performance increasing/improving?
If you’re not training often enough or hard enough [and don’t feel bad if you’re not… MOST people aren’t… most have kids… full time jobs… etc]
for your progress to be compromised from the inability to overload your training…
Then you probably don’t need to deload either.
Hope this helps!
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