The Deload: Everything You Need Know

When you’re trying hard to gain muscle and strength, you must train with a high level of effort, dedication, and intent. You also need a sufficient amount of volume to stimulate physiological adaptations. That type and amount of training can take its toll on both the body and the nervous system. Old injuries can flare up, new ones can start to appear, and delayed onset muscle soreness might linger longer than usual. You might even begin to notice that your libido, along with your motivation to train, plummets. Not surprisingly, your mood might also start to sour. Enter the deload, the solution to all training problems! You decrease training stress by reducing the weights you’re lifting, the number of sets you’re doing, or the days you’re spending in the gym. You can even exchange your exercises for less demanding ones. You do that for a week and then you feel better. Performance starts to go up again. But… What if you’re feeling fine? What if you’re showing no signs of fatigue or stagnation, or no aches or pains? Should you deload just because a training plan instructs you to? Wouldn’t it be more useful to keep training hard and continue to ride the gains train? What does a deload even do, precisely? Let’s consider all those questions, along with examining some of the best ways to accomplish a successful deload. What Happens When You Deload The old theory about deloading has to do with a phenomenon called supercompensation. You overload the body so that there’s a decrement in performance and then you allow it to rest. Nutrient levels and neurotransmitter levels supposedly swing back up and end up higher than they would typically be, allowing you to get a boost in performance. But that only happens to glycogen stores, not to the factors that play a crucial role in lifting performance. As such, the method is moderately useful for endurance sports, but not so much for lifting. Strength training performance is just not as reliant on glycogen stores as endurance activities. And unless your carb levels are extremely low, you likely will not achieve the level of glycogen depletion that would lead to supercompensation. Deloading also doesn’t supercompensate neurotransmitter levels, but it is true that a deload will help if you’re noticing symptoms of fatigue and your performance is going down. It has to do with beta-adrenergic receptor sensitivity. These are the receptors that interact with adrenaline to excite the nervous system. When they’re activated, your mental awareness and focus increases, you’re more competitive and energetic, and your heart beats faster and stronger. Activated receptors also allow your muscles to contract harder and faster so you’re more efficient at executing movements. If your training is excessive, or if the combination of exercise and day-to-day stress is high, cortisol goes up and these receptors can downregulate. This down-regulation means that you lose your capacity to respond to your adrenaline and your motivation, focus, and performance go down. When you include a deloading week in a weight-training program, the beta-adrenergic receptors recover the lost sensitivity and once again respond more strongly to adrenaline. This will increase strength, speed, motivation, and focus, among other things. So Should I Deload? Deloading is a tool. It’s used to recover beta-adrenergic sensitivity reduced by high cortisol levels. If you don’t suffer from such an issue, the deload won’t do anything for your performance. The training factors that can increase cortisol are: Volume. One of the main functions of cortisol is the mobilization of stored energy. More work means a greater need for fuel, which requires a more significant release of cortisol, which then increases adrenaline. Intensiveness. The harder you push a set, the more stressful it becomes. The closer you go to failure, the more cortisol you release. Psychological stress. When a load or an exercise intimidates you, it can also create a stress response that will lead to higher cortisol levels. Examples include attempting a PR or having a previous injury that makes you insecure about doing a movement. Neurological demands. The more familiar and efficient you are with an exercise, the less stressful it is on the nervous system. More complex movements, however, require a greater focus and mental awareness and in turn create stress. Density. Shorter rest intervals also lead to higher adrenaline levels, which require a more significant release of cortisol. A training program that has a high level of several of these factors is more likely to cause “overtraining.” If you only check one or two of these boxes, your chances of getting into an overtraining state are much lower. But let’s look at how the average lifter works out. I’m talking about the regular Joe you see at the commercial gym. They usually do not push hard, using perhaps a RPE (rate of perceived exertion) of around 7. They pretty much stick to “comfortable”
Origin: The Deload: Everything You Need Know

Tip: Know Your Triggers

All of us have trigger foods. These are foods that send us spiraling right into the seventh circle of gluttony hell. Those triggers vary greatly from person to person. This is one area where I’d define foods as being “good” or “bad” based on your reaction to eating them. Contextually, a bad food is one that meets the seventh circle criteria when you’re trying to get lean. It’s up to you to be aware of what foods cause you to eat more even after you’ve had your fill. For me, it’s basically anything that doesn’t fall under the bro-diet umbrella. So basically anything that’s not eggs, oatmeal, rice, chicken, etc. I don’t just eat a slice of pizza; I eat four pizzas. I don’t just eat one doughnut; I clean out the bakery. Some people CAN just have two Oreos. They’re called sociopaths and they feel nothing, have no emotions, and lack empathy. It’s up to you to identify your trigger foods and eliminate them during the time that you’re trying to have a high degree of compliance. No, this isn’t something you have to do forever. But if you’re wanting to shed fat and you don’t want to screw it up, then just eliminate the foods that cause those problems. Beware the Scarcity Effect This is one obstacle to look out for. It’s when we end up wanting something because of the perceived lack of availability. The less access we have to something, the more we tend to crave it. This can be a lethal combination when it comes to trigger foods. The solution to replace those trigger foods with foods that are “close enough.” If you love pizza, try a thin crust or cauliflower option using toppings that are higher in protein and lower in calories: grilled chicken instead of sausage, extra veggies, half the cheese, etc. If you love cookies and brownies, try the low fat and/or low carb recipes for those foods. If it’s easier for you to just abstain all together, then do that. But figure out what you need to do to stop short-circuiting the fat loss process by giving in to your trigger
Origin: Tip: Know Your Triggers

Fear of Muscle: What Women Need to Know

Although great strides have been made in the war against female fear of muscle, or myophobia (CrossFit deserves much of the credit), muscle is still often regarded with curious suspicion and sometimes outright distrust in female fitness circles. Sure, on some level, most women these days understand that muscle can have value, but there’s still a significant amount of (unnecessary) trepidation about becoming overly muscular. On a certain level, women’s mistrust of muscle makes sense. After all, one of the most immediately recognizable masculine traits is conspicuous muscularity, a trait most women want to avoid. But muscle is certainly not a universally masculine feature. Beyond that, the inescapable truth is that women with the most admired physiques also tend to be significantly more muscular than the average woman. So let’s clear up the misconceptions and concerns that women often have about building muscle. 5 Things Some Women Don’t Understand Muscle is very difficult for women to acquire. This is especially true for women who are older and/or dieting. Any muscle you do gain is acquired very gradually – there will always be plenty of time to apply the brakes if you feel you’re becoming too muscular. Most women find that if and when they do build new muscle, they like it much more than they imagined. But, if they end up not liking it, no problem! It’s very easy to lose. Muscle is what gets (and keeps) you lean. It’s commonly known that men can eat more than women without consequence, even if you match them for bodyweight. More muscle is the main reason why. Muscle and Metabolism Interestingly, many people tend to think of metabolism as a mysterious external force, kinda like gravity – you can’t touch it, you can’t see it, but darn it, it sure comes to a screeching halt right after your 40th birthday, doesn’t it? (Your metabolism, not gravity.) Mmm, not really. “Metabolism” simply refers mainly to your energy expenditure. There are four primary categories: “Basal” metabolism:This is the amount of energy you need to survive. You need a minimal amount of energy to keep all of your organs functioning and to maintain key survival functions such as consciousness, respiration, temperature maintenance, and so on. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (N.E.A.T.):This is the additional energy you need to perform any and all activity excluding formal exercise. This includes walking, work activities (from relatively sedentary work to manual labor), sitting and rising from chairs, pacing, fidgeting, household chores, literally any activity that isn’t “exercise.” Exercise Activity:The energy you need to perform, and recover from, any type of formal exercise. Thermic Effect Of Food (T.E.F):Whenever you eat food, it requires a certain amount of energy to process (digest, absorb, eliminate) that food. It takes between 5 and 15% of the calories in carbs and fats to process them. Protein requires a bit more work to process, requiring between 20 and 35% of its calories. All that being said, muscle beneficially affects total metabolic rate in three different ways: The training required to build additional muscle requires energy, both to perform, and also to recover from. Once acquired, this new muscle requires you to expend additional energy on a daily basis simply to maintain the new muscle. Both basal metabolism and NEAT increase. When you have more muscle, all activities are easier to perform, making it likely that you’ll do more of these activities, which of course, requires additional energy. So, gaining as much muscle as possible has a powerful impact on metabolic rate. Still, some women might have some psychological barriers to overcome. Why Women Think They’re Getting Too Big When They’re Not The Thanksgiving Dinner Effect Have you ever felt disgustingly fat after a huge holiday feast? Of course you have, but you haven’t gained ANY measurable fat after a single meal, no matter how gluttonous it may have been. But your attention has been diverted to your stomach, because it’s stuffed full of food. So you feel fat. The same phenomenon applies to lifting weights. Both during and after a workout, your muscles will burn from lactic acid accumulation and swell with blood. Both of these phenomenon focus your attention to your working muscles, which are now temporarily bigger due to being pumped. The Knee Surgery Effect I never noticed knee scars until I had knee surgery. But, the very day I got out of the hospital, amazingly, everyone suddenly had knee scars. Well, not really, but it’s just that I suddenly started thinking a lot about knees and knee surgery, which caused me to start noticing people’s knees and their scars. Similarly, when women start training, say, their legs, they often start feeling, noticing, and observing their legs, and often with the suspicion that muscle is being gained. And, needless to say, if a woman experiences a pump for the first time ever, she’s likely to mistake it for
Origin: Fear of Muscle: What Women Need to Know

Tip: Methods vs. Mechanisms. Know the Difference

What’s Your Main Goal in the Gym? Think of your primary goal. Now, how are you going to achieve that goal? There are two steps: Seek out others who were successful in reaching that goal. Next, isolate the behaviors and/or methods that these people have in common, rather than what they did differently. (That last part is crucial.) Fat Loss Goals A great example of this is fat loss. If you look at 100 people who lost a significant amount of weight, perhaps some of them used Weight Watchers, some went low carb, while others focused on eating “clean” foods. At first glance this seems confusing, but if you dig a little deeper you realize that all these people found a way to consistently eat fewer calories long enough to achieve their weight loss. In this example, there are various methods, but only a single mechanism. If you need to drop some fat and you’re debating whether or not to go vegan or use intermittent fasting, for example, do some serious thinking about which method you’re more likely to do consistently. Does that mean that all weight-loss methods are equally effective? Certainly not, but a “less effective” method that you’ll do is preferable to a more effective method that you won’t (or can’t) do. Training Goals You might notice that some successful bodybuilders use bro-splits while others use a push/pull split. Some use lower reps, others high reps. Some use mostly free weights, others focus on machines. Some use forced reps, others don’t. If you focus on these various methods, however, you’ll be blinded by the fog that prevents you from seeing the underlying mechanisms of success: brutally hard work for long periods of
Origin: Tip: Methods vs. Mechanisms. Know the Difference

Tip: 7 Things Smart Lifters Know

If you’ve been training for a decent amount of time, you’ve made some mistakes. It’s part of the process. But doing your homework can definitely save you some time and energy. It would be nice if there existed a simple answer or method to get us to our goals in the shortest possible time, but in reality we have to spend time under the bar and learn what makes our unique profile tick. With that in mind, here are some things to avoid, some things to think about, and some ideas to try out. 1 – Sometimes less is more. Try time-capping your training sessions at 60 minutes. Training for longer than 60 minutes might decrease serum testosterone levels and increase cortisol, at least if you’re hitting it hard and not taking 20-minute rest breaks between sets. 2 – Identify and stick to a goal. If you have training ADD then you’ve probably felt like your goals change biweekly. Avoiding this mistake is important if you’re ever going to make progress. Pick your goal and stick to it for at least 12 weeks and then reassess. The same goes for programs. It’s easy to get distracted by the “next best thing,” but that can lead to never knowing if a program is actually the right fit for you. Within 3-4 weeks you should be able to tell if that’s the case, but rotating programs weekly or biweekly won’t serve this purpose. 3 – Narrow your exercise choices. Today we have access to a lot of info, and that can be a handicap. We overthink what exercises to perform. Your workout will be much more efficient if you narrow it down to 4-5 movements and call it day. Your session should consist of a core lift, two to three accessory movements, and some direct ab work. 4 – Realize that not all experts are really experts. Access to information comes very easily on the internet, and if you have a great physique you’re an “expert.” Do your homework on the people you’re taking advice from. Having a great physique doesn’t mean you’re qualified to write individual training programs. 5 – Avoid the “one size fits all” approach. Having a one-size-fits-all program would make life easier, but unfortunately this just isn’t the case. Even if you have a coach, you have to experiment and find out where you’re weakest. Even the best coach may not be able to figure that out. Trying a program you found online is okay, but remember that just because a program worked for your friend doesn’t mean it’ll be the right fit for you. 6 – Do the boring work. Many lifters avoid the work they need the most because it doesn’t look cool on paper. That could be unilateral work, sled work, or weighted carries. This work goes a long way for everyone, regardless of your current level of experience. You’re only as good as your weakest link. If you don’t spend time building your base and bringing up your lagging muscle groups, you run the risk of injury. This work should be as high of a priority as anything else you do. 7 – Always be a student. We’re never done learning. As much as we know, there will always be people that know more. Find experts that know more than you do. Study their work, read their books, and experiment. Successful lifters know that they don’t know
Origin: Tip: 7 Things Smart Lifters Know