Deload week: when to take one and what to cut

What is a deload week?

A deload is a planned easy week: the same exercises and the same weights, with far fewer sets. It lets built-up fatigue clear, so the strength underneath can show on the bar. It is not time off, and it is not a reward for a hard training block (a plan of several weeks).

In short: keep the weights, cut the sets to about 60%, keep the rep targets and train on your usual days.

When do you need one?

There are 2 reasons to deload, and they work differently.

Scheduled

In a training block of 6 weeks or more, the last week is a deload. You take it because the plan is ending, not because you feel bad. This version works best, because it comes before the problem does.

When the signs pile up

Take one when these signs stack up over a week or 2:

• your main lifts are falling, not rising, even though sleep and food are normal
• you are still sore when that muscle's next session comes around
• warm-up weights feel heavier than they used to
• sleep, appetite or mood dropped with no other explanation
• joints ache in places that were fine a month ago

One rough session is not a signal. A pattern across a week is.

What to cut and what to leave

The common mistake is cutting the weight instead of the sets. Doing all your sets with light weights leaves the fatigue in place and takes away the practice with heavy weight.

How long and how often?

One week, every 6 to 12 weeks for most people. Newer lifters can often go longer between deloads, because the weights they lift cause less whole-body fatigue. The closer to failure you train and the heavier you lift, the sooner you need one.

If you finish a deload and still feel flat, the deload is not the problem. Look at sleep, food and stress before you write another training week.

What a deload is not

• Not a week off. Stopping for a week costs you the habit, which is the expensive part, and gives back very little that an easy week does not.
• Not a test week. Do not check whether it worked by maxing out at the end of it.
• Not a failure. The lifters who never deload are the ones who take 4 unplanned weeks off later with a sore shoulder.

How Trackist handles the deload

Trackist writes plans of 4 to 12 weeks. Any plan of 6 weeks or more ends with a deload week. Trackist multiplies every set count by 0.6 and rounds down, with at least one set left. Reps, rest and exercises stay the same.

The week is marked on the Workouts tab, and the weight suggestion goes quiet for it, so nothing tells you to add weight in the week you are meant to recover. If the plan felt easy and you want the full week, you can skip the deload once it is the current week. Every exercise goes back to its full set count. There is no undo, which is how a decision should feel.

Before the first set of each session, you rate your sleep, soreness and energy from 1 to 5. Trackist never changes a weight because of it. The answers go to the coach and to your recap, so a run of low scores is easy to spot. When the plan ends, you get a recap of it, and the coach writes the next plan from what happened.

If the whole plan feels wrong, not just tired, read what to do when a plan is too hard.