Another cool, new-to-me way to drastically change the loading (or deload) during the middle of a program is to just skip the weights and take a walk with a heavy-ass weight vest or a bunch of chains.
This one seems like it’s 50/50% physical and mental. As a one off that you rarely do, there’s no pressure to perform or improve. You just endure. It’s a “break” from the grind of a tough ass program.
Did 25 miles with combat load…including the Ma Deuce broken into its 3 components, in Infantry School. Total gut check
I do a combo of both of these. Right now do LPP, bro day, lower/upper, bro day. Bro days are typically biceps, calves and delt work, maybe some light conditioning or drills/mobility stuff.
Typically I start with skipping bro days and sleeping in. If my important workouts suffer, I’m feeling burnt out/beat up, or I’m sleeping more but waking up tired… those are my signs for a deload. Typically hit “working weight” for 1 set of fewer reps and cut the assistance. Touch something heavy, get out of there, get back to it next week.
Maybe do this once every 6-10 weeks.
This is a great point. Maybe there is a relationship to how much training mileage you have and how often you need to deload. I know in my 20’s I was not thinking about deloads and only pushing hard every workout. Weirdly though my 20’s was also the time I was least consistent in my training. I would go hard for a few months but then miss some sessions because life happened (that usually meant drink or women or work happened). So I was still getting a deload it just wasn’t planned. 
I don’t care what you call them or how long they last, I think there is value in taking a break from whatever you currently doing, assuming you are doing it with intensity and focus. I also think this break is as much mental as physical. The break or “deload” doesn’t have to be watered down versions of what you’ve been doing, it could be a change in focus. Do KB swings and get ups for a couple weeks. Do only calisthenics for a few weeks. Focus on walking and yoga for a week. Plenty of options.
Another thing from reading these comments: some see a deload as “losing” something, be it adaptations, muscle mass, etc… But you can also see it “gaining” something. Focus on nutrition, mobility, a skill (like jump rope), or whatever. In my experience, you’ll come back to training with a renewed focus.
I’ve been thinking about this since I have a 10 day cruse (on a boat, not the other kind.) coming up.
Maybe this belongs in the bro-science thread, but I’m planning to drive myself into the ground and deplete myself the week before, since I’m just going to eat, drink, sleep, whatever and whenever I want.
So there seem to be two camps - a training deload, where you recover by crusing, but activity maintain, and a life deload where it’s letting your body tell you where you are so you can glean information, reset stress, hormones, get uncomfortable again, ect.
@T3hPwnisher did a great job of trying to put the cruise ship company out of business with massive eating. He can elaborate better than me. But seems like a great way to recover.
Oh, I’m planning to be the only person eating when the other passengers are docked.
This is the “die fat, drunk, and happy” kind of deload.
But I’d be interested to hear his tips.
My wife told me i had to do activities, so I bought a speedo to “accidentally” pack. Might just have to eat fried shrimp and nap all day.
At one point, I was trying to be clever and alternate the workouts to stay fresh. So I’d do the hard legs, then the easy push, then hard pull, etc. The idea was to recover session to session so I could get 6 days in each week. To your point, I found I did a lot worse than when I just did the hard days and more likely than not skipped the easy days.
Totally agree. It’s one of the reasons I think we see companies with unlimited PTO actually show higher productivity than more traditional policies; mental burnout is a real thing no matter what you’re doing. Anyone have kids in today’s era of year-round club sports? They hate their sport by the time they get to high school. We played year-round, too, but different seasons. It wasn’t about time off to sit on our butts, but it let us just do something else. By the time your next season came around, you couldn’t wait to hit that field.
Yes, true, weights have that option. Running would eventually have me needing time off.
So this thread came at a good time for me. I’m feeling pretty battered after 2 months of consistent progression in all lifts at a calorie deficit. Prior to that time I was following videos, and while progressing, it was much slower and well within my comfort zone.
I’m achy now, at least lower body-wise. I have what I think is bursitis in one hip which is now waking me up (happened in my 30’s when I was doing 5 miles most days on a steep mountain road…I think the downhill was a problem). But the discomfort goes beyond just my hip. So seems like time for a deload. But how? Just take a week off? Drop weights down? The latter seems silly given how light the weights I’m using are.
I guess in writing all of this out, probably my answer is a week off, maybe do light cardio.
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Having had both hips replaced (bone on bone), I pray you just need some time off.
Great info on this topic if no one has posted it yet:
When I stop lifting my appetite drops significantly. I went on a cruise about a year ago with the plan to eat all of the beef on the ship. 3 days in, and I just couldn’t do it.
As to the thread, I don’t really plan deloads, but with vacations I get them every couple months. I also have started listening to my body and my brain more as I’ve gotten older. If I am starting to dread training which I normally love, it’s time for an easy week (which I am currently doing). If I am getting joint pain that is consistent week to week, probably take it easy on the lifts that bother the joint for a week. This is probably every 4-6 weeks for me.
I actually think this as a good sign. Exercise and bulking (not the right word, but the first one that comes to mind) force us to push our bodies limits, then catch up. So if your appetite drops, that means that you’ve been pushing yourself.
Also, I’m playing with cheat codes for appetite.
I also like Snoop Dogg.
Thank you! I lean toward recurrent bursitis because sometimes it feels great, and I don’t think that would be the case if the joint was the issue. That’s my hope at least!
@Chris_Shugart very helpful, thanks!
I know you’re all wondering - I decided to do a bit of light cardio followed by the comfort-zone strength video I was doing earlier in the year. It felt nice, so good.
Great thread, @simo74.
Why does Snoop carry an umbrella?
Fo’ drizzle.
That was the case with me for about 4 years. I had days on end with very little pain, and then some aggravation. It just evolved into having worsening bad days, and more of them, and fewer good days.
But I had X-rays done previous and knew that I was getting worsening osteoarthritis for years before it became difficult to work legs, because (get this) my hip joint got so rough that it jerked enough that I felt my knees hurt catching and trying to dampen the jerk.
I don’t really think of it as a deload anymore, but as a period of “overreaching” followed by a period of “underreaching”. There’s an average amount of work you can recover from, and you spend some time doing “too much” and then an equal amount of time doing “too little”.
For much of the past year I used double progression, which essentially has deloads built in. When you hit the top of the rep range and add weight, the number of reps resets and overall load (weight x reps) goes down. A literal deload.
I have a few lifts where I’ve continued to progress every session for a year now. Genuinely surprised it’s continued like that.
The main ranges I’ve used are 5-10, 6-12, 10-20. All of these double the amount of reps before restarting.
I still train most accessories this way.
More recently I’ve been playing with some ideas from Sheiko and Pavel.
Pavel has a program that’s basically just a series of linear progression cycles with 5s. You work to a new 5RM then reset to 70% of that and repeat. Keeps you within roughly 65-90% 1RM, and you never overreach too much. First couple sessions after the reset serve as a “deload”.
Sheiko introduced me to the idea of variability. There are “high load”, “medium load” and “low load” days. Every session is different than last time, and random. If it was high last time, it will be randomly low or medium this time.
With 3 sessions a week, you end up with some weeks where it’s high-medium-high (overreaching) and others that are low-medium-low (underreaching). So with the randomization you get hard weeks and “deload” weeks. Not really planned, but just probabilistic.
So I’m now using a combination of those. Volume changes randomly, but the weight follows linear progression cycles (per lift).
Combined, it ends up being a fairly complex undulating load, with some days and weeks hard to recover. Other weeks help your body play catchup.
Deloads “just happen”. As long as the averages aren’t too intense, the whole thing is manageable.
Here’s a couple graphs. Some people/coaches use tonnage as a proxy for “recoverability”, though I’m starting to lean toward INOL as a better measure. Graphs of both.
Quantitatively, I’ve added 40 pounds to my 5RM in 9 weeks. Diet has been a moderate to hard deficit for the last half. Some weeks were pretty rough, but on average, not too bad.
I admit, this is far too mathy for some.
