I have read so many times how good is rest and backing off weeks. You come back bigger, stronger and more motivated. Blah blah blah…
I always lose strength when I come back. I eat enough when recovering, I even gain some weight, but still come back weaker. I sleep 9-10 hours, don’t drink alchohol… what is wrong with me? What am I doing wrong or not doing? Now it wastes a couple of weeks of mine to get back my old strength level.
I’m with you on this one…sorry, but I don’t have advice, but am interested in what people have to say.
It’s the same with me.
Aren’t you supposed to have a full day’s rest rather than just overnight?
It can depend a bit.
If you mean “backing off” by not getting to the gym for a couple weeks while gorging over the holidays, that is bad news.
If you don’t eat protein to support your muscles, perhaps “dieting”, you might find they are catabolizing while you are “resting”.
I think you’d have to give more details about what you mean by “resting” and “backing off” to get more helpful answers.
maybe you arent training hard enough to need a back off week
same here-it’s normal; your body just needs some time to get back into the swing of things-stay positive.
I think I do train hard enough, I gain weight and strength, can’t see any extra fat yet, I am trying to do clean bulking.
My “backing off” was like this: last training on thursday, 1 week full rest. Next thursday and friday some sets with 60-70% normal resistance for upper and lower body. Again 4 days off and training started. During this, I still ate like I did when I was training, gained some weight due that. It was enough protein, moderate carbs and fat. I kept off from christmas food and sweets.
I hoped to bust out more reps than 1,5 week ago, but no, even less.
Btw an other guy who trains just his chest and arms was talking about how much he drank alchohol during new year and he had gained some strength and knocked out many more reps than last time.
That made me so angry that the ones who are not dedicated at all do better than ones who are. Not fair 
I was thinking it is not OK to lose strength when in articles the trainers say you should gain strength. Is it?
Btw I try to take a easy recovering week after every 6-8 weeks.
[quote]redsox348984 wrote:
maybe you arent training hard enough to need a back off week[/quote]
My first thought
[quote]Mr.Y wrote:
I think I do train hard enough, I gain weight and strength, can’t see any extra fat yet, I am trying to do clean bulking.
My “backing off” was like this: last training on thursday, 1 week full rest. Next thursday and friday some sets with 60-70% normal resistance for upper and lower body. Again 4 days off and training started. During this, I still ate like I did when I was training, gained some weight due that. It was enough protein, moderate carbs and fat. I kept off from christmas food and sweets.
I hoped to bust out more reps than 1,5 week ago, but no, even less.
Btw an other guy who trains just his chest and arms was talking about how much he drank alchohol during new year and he had gained some strength and knocked out many more reps than last time.
That made me so angry that the ones who are not dedicated at all do better than ones who are. Not fair
I was thinking it is not OK to lose strength when in articles the trainers say you should gain strength. Is it?
Btw I try to take a easy recovering week after every 6-8 weeks.[/quote]
Try not to compare yourself to others, especially easy gainers like your friend. Life isn’t fair. You probably are training hard enough, and a back off week every 3 or 4 weeks is better than 6-8 in most cases.
[quote]Mr.Y wrote:
…
My “backing off” was like this: last training on thursday, 1 week full rest…[/quote]
I think thats ur issue right there. If u train say ur pectoral muscle, and don’t touch them for 6-days, then yes they will weaken. I had the same thing happen to me when I did split training, on separate days. Sometimes 5 or more days would pass before I hit the same muscle group. I then change my workout so I hit the same muscle group at least 2X a week. Now that is made easier since I introduced D-Lifts, O-Lifts, Back/Front/Overhead squats.
Also you should consider that most Olympic lifters and strenght athletes rest for 24-48hrs, not 6 days.
Yeah, on the “back off” thing, I thought “backing off” meant reducing your volume and so forth, not staying out of the gym.
Staying away from the gym is a “week off”… 
i was going to start a thread dealing with a similar question. i am wondering which lift people lose the most strength in after a lay off. admittedly mine was too long, about two months. all of my lifts suffered but dead lifts about killed me today. i could not do near what i used to. hope this does not ruin the thread, but i am interested to hear your thoughts.
Last time I did so. I did my 2 upper and 2 lower body trainings, just lower volume and lower weights. The next week, I felt motivated and thought I have gained some strength with recovery, but didn’t. That is why this time I took a week off, some light trainings and back to action. But this didn’t work either.
How should I do that, or should a “perfect” one look like?
What do you think by not training hard enough? That I don’t try or I got low volume or what? I sometimes try even too hard and fail the lift. When I am not gaining strength anymore, can’t add weight or reps for some weeks, that shows I need a recovering week, doesn’t it?
To the last guy: I didn’t lose much on upper body push and pull compared to squats. Squats were awful.