Ever have those days where everything feels super heavy and your warm up is just ridiculously sluggish? You’re feeling beat up, tired, cranky, and just don’t want to hit the gym. Well naturally people will say that you may need to take a de-load week.
A de-load is typically when the person cuts the volume and intensity of their workouts for the week. Theoretically allowing for super compensation and coming back even stronger. However is cutting down the intensity and volume by half the most optimal way for you to train and maintain your performance gains?
Our Thoughts
It’s all too common for people to say that you should de-load every x4-5 weeks. That’s the cookie cutter statement many personal trainers and performance coaches give out. This is the thing, most people don’t actually need to de-load maybe focus on other aspects FIRST. Granted a de-load week may not hurt you but it may not be the most optimal choice.
Diet
Your diet is part of what fuels your training. If you eat like shit but want to perform well, welllll that probably won’t happen. Your diet and performance are very synergistic. For example if you’re on a low carb/calorie diet but keep your training at a high intensity and volume, your performance will bound to plummet.
However, if you diet correctly and fuel your training properly, more than likely your performance will thrive. Those that are dieting down but keep their calories and carbs around the workout will more than likely still perform at an optimal level for training.
Sleep
Sleep is one of the MOST underrated and cheapest methods to help fuel your performance and recover. If you had a bad workout, instead of taking time off, focus on getting more sleep. Not just more sleep but QUALITY sleep!
That means going to bed earlier. I can’t find the study right now, however there was a study that showed the difference in rest between those that slept 8 hours from 11pm-7am vs. 3am-11am. The study showed those that slept from 11pm-7am were much more rested vs. the 3am-11am despite the same exact hours of rest. Take home, go to bed at a regular time 🙂
If your diet and sleep is on point, THEN maybe take down the intensity and volume. With that said, instead of taking the famous week off because you’re “overtrained“, first try one training session with lower intensity and/or volume. If you’re still feeling beat up maybe cut one of your workouts out and replace it with a recovery day. The follow workouts should be focused on slowly building yourself back up to your intensity. Hopefully by the following week you should be good to go and feeling even stronger!
Conclusion
The take home point is that most people don’t actually need a de-load WEEK but should make other adjustments. We at Fusion Performance Training recommend to focus on your diet, rest, and then look at your workouts.
Of course, you can take the de-load week, if you need it. However, ask yourself if this is the most optimal way to recover and maintain your hard strength and performance gains?
Stay strong,
Team Fusion Trained