Managing a strength training program is like steering a ship on the stormy sea. You may have a general idea of where you’re going, but sometimes the waves are wild, the wind is whipping and you get blown off course. The goal if for the coach and lifter to collaborate and make the best possible decisions together based on how the lifter is feeling and performing. This includes when to deload so the lifter can reduce fatigue for sustained progress.
I’ve gotten in the habit in recent years of deloading lifters less often, which has been overwhelmingly beneficial for the majority of our lifters. While it’s fine to take pre-scheduled deloads (usually every 4-5 weeks), we’ve found that unless you’re really fatigued, it tends to disrupt momentum more than anything. Many of our lifters tend to peak after 4-6 exposures to a similar stimulus (i.e., you can add weight to the bar for 4-6 consecutive workouts before plateauing), so if we always deload every fourth week, many of our lifters are leaving gains on the table and switching things up too soon.
However, waiting too long to deload can be even more problematic. Fatigue, loss of interest in training, and potential for injury all increase when you leave your foot on the gas for too long. So we’re always keeping a lookout for the telltale signs of burnout and overtraining.
Here are four things I watch out for:
You Dread Training
Refer to last week’s video where I discuss how common it is to NOT want to train.
Overtraining tends to manifest mentally before it does physically. Even if your body doesn’t feel worn out, if the mere thought of going to the gym and training hard makes you want to crawl back into bed and under the covers, you might need a deload.
Enthusiasm and excitement for training are huge predictors of success. Again, that’s why I ask my lifters so many damn questions: to figure out what makes you tick, what you enjoy doing and what you dislike doing, to understand your ‘why,’ all in the name of helping you fall in love with the training process. Once that enthusiasm starts to wane, we have to save that spark fast, like a marriage counselor in a bad romcom.
If lifting is the LAST thing you feel like doing, take a deload. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.
Your Performance Regresses for 2 Consecutive Weeks
You can’t hit the panic button every time you see a reduction in performance. Your 8 RPE top set is down by 10 pounds, you hit 2 fewer reps on an RIR set at the same weight as last week – these are probably just flukes and you’ll likely rebound next time. But if you have back-to-back lousy training weeks where performance is down across the board, it’s probably time to deload.
I use the rule of 2 weeks because I’ve seen way too many lifters over the years experience the slingshot affect: several weeks of steady progress, followed by one rough week, then skyrocket to new levels of strength the next week. I can’t explain it scientifically, but I’ve seen it so many times that I’ve learned not to freak out and pull the plug on a training plan after one week of poor performance because a comeback is likely around the corner.
This is another reason why I love using weekly undulation where the set-and-rep schedule changes on a 3-4 week wave. A bad week is far less consequential if you know that you’re changing something next week so you don’t feel as much pressure to “fix” last week’s poor performance. For example, here’s a common 3-week wave we use for the heavy top set on our main lifts:
Week 1: 1×5 @ 9 RPE
Week 2: 1×4 @ 9 RPE
Week 3: 1×3 @ 9 RPE
On the fourth week, go back to 1×5, rinse and repeat. If you know 67% of the time you’re dropping the rep range next week, you’re less likely to freak out about a bad week because you’re probably going to be able to go heavier anyway.
So one bad week, stay the course. Two bad weeks, deload, hit the reset button and keep trucking.
There’s No Logical Next Step
Whenever I update programs, I generally want the lifter to accomplish one (or more) of three things:
- Add weight
- Do more reps
- Do the same thing as last week but at a lower RPE
That’s progressive overload. If you accomplish one or more of those things on a regular basis, you’re gonna get stronger.
But sometimes, there’s just nowhere to go. Every once in a while, I sit down to look at a program and feel like John Travolta’s character looking for the intercom in Pulp Fiction.
I look back several weeks, try to find the lowest hanging fruit for progression, and ultimately decide it’s best to deload so we can create a new starting point.
This is also an indicator that perhaps it’s time to change the phase of training that a lifter is in. For example, in a hypertrophy phase, it feels cruel and unusual to add more volume once lifters are already doing 5-6 working sets of a given exercise. Best to deload, increase the loading significantly, and start a phase focused on strength in lower rep ranges.
Muscle Soreness Shifts to Joint Soreness
You can argue about the efficacy of muscle soreness as an indicator of effective training, but once your joints are what’s aching after a workout, it may be time to back off.
Soreness in the belly of a muscle is a sign of appropriate exercise selection and execution. For example, sore quads and glutes after a squat workout suggest you’re loading the movement effectively. But if your knees throb and you can’t tie your shoes without your lower back screaming at you, maybe we’ve gone too far.
An example: we increased our pull-up frequency from 2 days to 3 days per week with our Level 1 lifters in our group training sessions. Pull-ups take lots of practice and tend to respond well to high frequency. It worked well for a while, but after about 8 weeks, like clockwork, several of our lifters developed soreness in their neck, shoulders and/or elbows. We don’t schedule deloads for everyone all at once because not everyone keeps the same training schedule, but these specific lifters took it easy for a week or so before returning to their normal routine.
See the Signs
If you’re a lifter, let your coach know when you’re experiencing any of these four situations. And if you’re a coach, ask your lifter the right questions to spot these red flags before fatigue gets out of hand.