If we are to get to the core of it,
what is the difference between ‘deloading’ compared to taking a few days to fully recover?
the term ‘deloading’ rubs me the wrong way, and I discussed this with a friend, and his opinion was that ‘deloading’ is in essence a prolonged recovery method.
Would you agree?
What pros/cons do you see to me NOT de-loading when missing and eating+sleeping 1or2 days then coming back to hit PRs?
When you deload, you are still practicing the movement and allowing it to stay grooved in your motor pathways, ensuring you don’t regress in the skill of the movement.
When I avoided deloading, I stalled. When I started having scheduled deloads again, I progressed.
Elitefts has a good article on this that they just posted
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
When you deload, you are still practicing the movement and allowing it to stay grooved in your motor pathways, ensuring you don’t regress in the skill of the movement.
[/quote]
fair, but are you saying two days of full recovery(no stress on the body)is enough to eliminate/diminsh these pathways in a consistent trainee?
Is this the biggest reason to de-load vs all-out-recovery?
[quote]Claudan wrote:
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
When you deload, you are still practicing the movement and allowing it to stay grooved in your motor pathways, ensuring you don’t regress in the skill of the movement.
[/quote]
fair, but are you saying two days of full recovery(no stress on the body)is enough to eliminate/diminsh these pathways in a consistent trainee?
Is this the biggest reason to de-load vs all-out-recovery?
[/quote]
I am saying that two days spent actively not practicing a skill is worse than two days spent actively practicing a skill. Especially when you add it up over the period of 20 years of training.
Ultimately, the reason to deload is that it makes you bigger and stronger. If you don’t find that to be the case, definitely don’t do it.
[quote]chobbs wrote:
Elitefts has a good article on this that they just posted [/quote]
I insta-googled it, thx.
Dizenzo seems to be more inline with my thinking. Obviously I understand there is nothing wrong with de-loading, I get that. I’m still thinking I would prefer taking 2 full days off, and come back balls-to-the-wall, rather than spend 2-4 sessions de-loading.
[quote]Claudan wrote:
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
When you deload, you are still practicing the movement and allowing it to stay grooved in your motor pathways, ensuring you don’t regress in the skill of the movement.
[/quote]
fair, but are you saying two days of full recovery(no stress on the body)is enough to eliminate/diminsh these pathways in a consistent trainee?
Is this the biggest reason to de-load vs all-out-recovery?
[/quote]
It would take some time to dig up actual posts, but in CT’s forum, he’s mentioned several times that anything longer than a 2 day break from training has shown noticeably diminished performance. Taking two non-consecutive days off would be better than two (or more) together.
This also assumes very high levels of performance in the first place.
I do know that when I played piano regularly, a break of anything more than a couple days would actually screw with the skill. Short frequent practice seemed to work better at building/maintaining the skill (which is largely neurological) than longer infrequent practice.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s parallels.
Consistently taking more than 2 days off, yeah sure you’ll see decreased performance. But if you do it once every 2-3 months, is that really a big deal… giving your joints and CNS some extended relief? Big deal seeking a supercompensation effect in the muscle? IDK man. I used to think 50% delaods were a waste but I do finally realize its not meant to be stressful for a reason. I just need to practice the motion and get a pump. It also sometimes can re- sensitize yourself to a heavier training stimulus. Any strength you “lost” on a deload comes right back within a week.
its starting to resonate
[quote]Claudan wrote:
I’m still thinking I would prefer taking 2 full days off[/quote]
Isn’t that what the weekend is for? No joke, but that’s kinda my first impression. Two back-to-back days of zero exercise is definitely something that can be done every week of the year, no problem at all.
The idea of deloading is really most relevant when the focus is on strength or performance. If the training is strictly, or even primarily, for muscle building, there’s no real need for deload period. There might be an “offseason”, even for recreational lifters like most of us, where the weights and volume are changed for a few months, but there’s no technical deload because in that context, any benefits wouldn’t necessarily outweigh the time lost simply training hard and recovering “as normal.”
That said, Vince Gironda did write a little bit about “train for 21 days, rest 7”, basically taking a full week’s rest (rest, not deload) each month to break out of a plateau. And Saxon and Sandow both advocated taking periodic breaks to use lighter weights when the heavy weight work got stale. Simple deload principles. So the idea has been around for a long time, but it’s not a must-do for all lifters in all circumstances.