I’ve recently noticed that my motivation to go to the gym is completely down the drain.
My lifts aren’t going up, in fact, they’re starting to go down. I was on the fast track to hitting all my PRs when suddenly, I couldn’t even get up 6kgs less than my PR weight. In spite of all of this, I usually get 7 to 8 hrs of sleep every night and I consistently hit my protein goals everyday.
So if my recovery and diet are consistently on point, what could cause my lifts plummet? The answer is accumulated fatigue.
As a natural, unenhanced lifter, there’s only so much that a good night’s sleep and high protein diet can do. Joint overuse, depleted energy stores and unrepaired muscle microtears are normal, but get bigger over time and affect your performance badly. A natural body simply can’t keep up.
THE SOLUTION: DELOAD WEEK
To try and resolve my declined performance, I’ve put myself on a deload week.
As of today, I’m currently smack in the middle of my deload week. I started it on Saturday, the 25th of July and I’ll get back to the gym on Saturday, the 1st of August. One week of recovery.
A Deload Week is essentially a week dedicated to rest and recovery.
During this week, you put aside your strength and hypertrophy goals. You dont train until failure, you dont go for PRs; you simply recover.
Two ways to do a deload:
-
Cut Your Volume and Weight: Do your normal routine, but reduce everything by half. So if you do 4 sets, do 2 instead. If your PR is 40kg, only lift 20kg. Don’t go to failure. This is called active recovery. You can also cut it by anything between 30% to 50%, but 50% is just easier maths, so do that.
-
Gym Hiatus: Stay away from gym for a whole week. I go for this method because I personally can’t justify being in the gym and not going all out. It also helps me build up motivation - by the time day 5 or 6 of the deload rolls around, I’m itching to get back in the gym. That being said, I still try to do some form of cardio during the deload (exercise bike or walking).
SIGNS YOU NEED TO DELOAD
| Symptom | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Recovery slows down | You stay sore for more days after a workout |
| Your pumps are smaller / non-existent | You notice that you’re not getting as much blood flow or increased size during a lift |
| Your lifts start stagnating / declining | You’re not hitting PRs, you’re stuck on a weight, or it looks like you’re getting weaker |
| Zero drive/Mental Fatigue | You can usually force yourself into the gym, but now you really can’t be bothered. |
| Inflammation is building up | You feel puffy, bloated and your joints are uncomfortable most of the time |
| You’ve been training consistently for more than 4 - 6 weeks straight | Deloads are usually scheduled after the 4th, 5th or 6th week of a training cycle |
| Sleep poorly | Struggle to fall asleep, wake up feeling tired or just overall poor quality sleep |
| Get sick often | Your immune system is compromised because your body is still busy trying to get of inflammation from training. |
WHY YOU NEED TO DELOAD
1. YOU’RE NOT ENHANCED
You often see fitness influencers spew out gym motivation at you - “Get to the gym right now” or “Success means no breaks” - bla bla bla.
It’s easy for them to say this as performance drugs enhance speed up their recovery to an unnatural extent (this is not good - it leads to terrible side effects).
If you’re a normal ou, not taking any performance-enhancing drugs, you need a break every 4 to 6 weeks - especially if you’re pushing yourself in every gym session.
A full week of rest and recovery helps recover any built-up injuries, inflammation, muscle damage - pretty much anything that negatively affects your gym goals - and brings your body and mind back to baseline.
2. MENTAL FATIGUE
Training to failure, going for PRs, pushing heavy weights, or even intense cardio cause stress on your nervous system.
This stress accumulates over time throughout your training and leads to mental fatigue (low drive, low motivation - just not willing to keep going).
Let’s not forget that we also have stresses in our daily lives - jobs, studies, family, relationships. All of these also cause your nervous to light up. Now add this on top of physical stress (training) - your brain is finished bru. There’s only so much you cant take mentally until the burn out starts to creep in. This affects your performance and can cause stagnations or declines in your lifts.
In a perfect world, a deload week would also mean taking a break from other stressors in your life, but unfortunately, that’s just not possible.
Regularly scheduling a deload week into your training routines let’s your brain at least recover from the physical stress.
3. NO LOSSES, ONLY GAINS
Firstly, you don’t lose muscle when you don’t train for a week. It takes much longer than that for muscle loss to start working (research says around 4 weeks of inactivity). The idea that you get smaller because you haven’t trained for a few days is purely mental and might be more of a body dysmorphia issue.
This study on deload weeks concluded that they can lead to similar increases in muscle hypertrophy and strength-endurance compared to continuous training (training with not breaks).
This means that doing a deload week doesn’t affect your ability to get gains or strength, but helps you recover and get your body back to tip-top shape
What changes during a deload?
Diet:
- Cutting: Stay on your daily calorie intake - don’t change your diet.
- Bulking: Also stay on your daily calorie intake goals. But if you time your carbs around workouts, that’s worth changing. Switch from fast-digesting carbs like rice, bread, simple sugars to more slower-digesting carbs like oats, brown rice, brown bread, high-fiber fruits.
- Maintaining: Same as bulking - switch to slow carbs.
Supplements:
- Pre-Workout: Don’t take it all, you don’t need it.
- Creatine: Take what you usually take.
- Whey Protein: Take it as needed to meet your daily protein target.
- Vitamins: Take what you usually take.
- Pump and Focus Stimulants (like L-Theanine or L-Glutamine): Not necessary to take.
Training:
- Volume: Cut by 30% to 50%
- Weights: Also cut by 30% to 50%
- Failure and PR Training: Don’t train to failure or go for PRs - this defeats the whole point of the deload.
- Cardio: Reduce your intensity and do light cardio (like exercise bike, walking). Do cardio at a ‘conversational pace’ - this means you’re still able to talk clearly during your cardio without huffing and puffing.
