Why 1 week of lighter training matters.

De-loading helps counteract fatigue to help you get stronger results.

De-loading: A lighter stint of training (a few sessions or an entire week or so depending on the circumstances). But why do we work this in to our programmes?

Progressive overload (adding more weight over time, adding more reps, adding more sets etc) is the principle we always talk about in training when it comes to getting stronger. However, if we could all just keep adding a touch of weight and adding a few reps every week without ever having to back off we'd all be benching 100kg within a year by taking an empty bar and adding 1.25kg each side every week, right?

If only!

Appropriate rest is just as important as the training itself. You get stronger by adapting to your training but only if you can recover from it. You don't get stronger by continually forcing yourself to knock your pan in day in day out (and if you've tried this approach then you'll know it leaves you spinning your wheels at best and at worst your body keeps the score and forces you to stop through injury or fatigue).

If you're drastically overdue a deload then you might start experiencing a stall in your strength, aches and pains, increased muscle soreness/taking longer to recover from it, change in appetite, far less motivation to train, feeling generally run down/sleeping in..... all in all, feeling pretty burnt out.

If you experience this then it's worth taking a week to knock some volume off your sessions. Reduce your working sets and lift a lot less weight. 

It sounds counterproductive (especially if your brain is like mine and tells you that you're a wasting your time unless you push it to the max)... But you have to let your body back off.

We automatically programme this into our APEXers training cycles and it allows us to manage our clients fatigue much better.

As someone who always kind of thinks I'm an exception to the rule (I have this voice in my head that says if I rest or back off then I'm failing) I can be guilty of running into brick walls with my training.

I don't always take recovery seriously and it can be a pattern we see in clients too, especially when we are led to believe that unless we feel absolutely trashed after a workout then it's not been a good one....

So, if you're burnt out and can't remember the last time you took your foot off the pedal consider a deload. Instead of going into next week tired, sore, beat up and with low motivation you'll be fresh, strong and ready to ramp it back up.

Rest is part of any decent programme. Appreciate it, treat it with the same respect you treat a heavy training session, don't skip it.