In the fitness field personal trainers and strength coaches give a general statement that you should back off your training every x3-4 weeks. During this time, the trainee is asked to do a de-load week where they back off of total volume and intensity and focus on mobility and flexibility work to promote recovery.
Subjectivity
The truth is a general outline like this works when you’re at the University level that spreads you thin, via coaching many different teams with big groups of athletes in each session- 20:1 athlete : strength coach. This makes it difficult to obtain feed back from each athlete and individualize their programs. While on paper some may assume this is simple, it’s quite difficult to coach multiple teams, update their programs, and then monitor each individual athletes recovery and progress. I’m not saying it can’t be done but I am saying it’s very difficult, therefore using a general template is usually the preferred method based on their teams current focus.
Photo by Maria Mayobre
Smaller Groups
When you have more control over rest, recovery, and able to get feedback then it’s easier to decide to scale back and how much to scale back. But before you de-load, I would suggest you look at the athlete and personal training clients recovery process, then determine if theres other methods best to utilize, such as their sleep patterns.
Sleep is of THE most effective ways to increase your recovery. If you’re not getting enough sleep, stressed from work, and then expected to perform at a high level you’re probably going to be in trouble. This is where some personal trainers may see a slope in performance and then decide it’s time to scale back. However if the personal trainer reinforces the importance of sleep and rest then this could fix the long term issue and hopefully allow the athlete/client to perform at optimal levels = results!
De-Load Progression
If it’s time to de-load, a typical a week is generally prescribed to cut everything by 50%, both in intensity and volume. While this may work for some, I’ve personally found this to be too much of a cut and therefore extending our training a bit too far from the program.
For our athletes, generally speaking, we’ll first lower down ONE day of training and then get feedback based on how the athlete is feeling. If the athlete is still feeling beat up they’ll either take one full day off, do a recovery day, or take another lower intensity/volume day. At that point if they are starting to feel better, then we’ll start to increase the intensity/volume, progress based on how much we took off, and get back on the game plan.
Example:
Day 1- Felt beat up so we cut the percentages down from 85% to 70%.
Day 2- still feeling beat up so cut the percentages down to 60% and focused on recovery work at the end of the session
Day 3- feeling better so took the intensity back up to 70%.
Day 4- feeling good so took the intensity up to 80% but slowly increasing total volume.
*during this time we’re still emphasizing sleep (9+hrs) and good nutrition.
Conclusion
My end point is to understand that TRUE overtraining is VERY hard to do. Usually your lack of performance can be related to rest and maybe your program where you progressed too quickly and your joints weren’t ready to handle it- therefore feeling “achy”. In the end, look at the whole picture and take it one step at a time, you don’t have to take a FULL week off and so on. Of course if this has worked for you prior, then by all means go for it.
I also have to state that there is also a BIG difference between those that are using PED’s and those that are not. It’s clearly understood that if you’re using drugs, then you’ll have a significant advantage over natural athletes. So those that are influenced by watching youtube and some fitness figures, please keep this in mind before you try to attempt anything that you see.
Train smart,