What: A deload is a planned reduction in how hard you’re working out for a short period of time – both reducing volume (how many sets and reps you do) and intensity (how heavy the weight is and how close you’re going to your maximum capacity). This can also apply to cardio – how far you’re going, how fast you’re going.
Why: Working out is a stress on your body. You use and stress your body so that it responds with growth in strength and size. If you’re working out hard enough to make your body change, you’re accumulating stress and fatigue over time. This isn’t soreness from one workout, but the impact of many workouts over weeks at a time.
It is possible to push through and keep going even through that accumulated stress, or to set your workouts to a lower level so they don’t cause much stress. Beginners might not be able to work hard enough to stress themselves very much, and can go longer between deloads. Over time, though, this can be a drag and can even lead to injury if you’re stressing yourself enough and just working through.
It is much more effective to plan work and deloads this into your schedule: work hard for a period – a bit over your long term capabilities – and then have a planned reduction of work (the deload) – a bit under your long term capabilities – so that the body has a chance to fully recover and come back fresh, excited, and ready to hit it hard again.
It’s also more effective to do reduced work vs. taking time off entirely. Reduced work allows you to maintain the exercise habit, moves blood and nutrients through your muscles and keeps everything running. The fatigue will come off very quickly during that week and you’ll have to hold yourself back from working harder than planned. That’s good – you’ll be very eager to hit it hard again the next week.
How: You don’t want to work too hard for too long, but you also don’t want to be deloading too frequently and not getting enough work in. Deloading every four to six weeks is a good period for most people. Set up your plan for ramping work over those four to six weeks – start easier, then make the last week before your deload very hard. You’ll be able to push through the hard week with the knowledge that you’re going to be deloading the next week. The technical word for this sort of program design is “periodization” or “periodized”.
For your deload week, do the same exercises and overall workout plan, but reduce volume by 50-70% and reduce intensity by 30-50%. So if you were doing 3 sets of 12 reps for 100lb, during your deload week you might do the same exercise for 1 or 2 sets of 10 reps at 70lb. It should feel ridiculously easy and you’ll be in and out of the gym quickly during deload week. And you’ll be keyed up to get back at it the next week!