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Deload

Also called deload week, deloading, light week, back-off week

A deload is a short planned spell of easier training, usually a week, with less weight, fewer sets or both.

12Wk 114Wk 216Wk 318Wk 49Wk 5
Week 5: 9 sets, a lighter week. Weekly sets for one muscle over five weeks: 12, 14, 16, 18, then 9. The fifth week, half the sets of the fourth, is the deload.

In plain words

A deload is planned, which is what separates it from a week when life got in the way. You decide ahead of time to take weight off, drop sets, or both, and you decide when normal training comes back. A 2023 consensus study put the question to expert strength and physique coaches over three rounds, 34 in the first and 21 in the last, and proposed calling it "a period of reduced training stress". In that paper deloads are generally taken every four to six weeks for about seven days, though some run a single session and some two weeks. The same authors call deloading under-researched: this is coaching practice more than tested science.

An example

Count the working sets one muscle gets each week across a five-week block: 12, 14, 16, 18, then 9. For four weeks the sets climb. The fifth week has half the sets of the fourth, and that is the deload. Here the cut comes out of sets; another deload could take it off the weight instead.

Often confused with

Plateau A plateau is a lift that has stopped improving; a deload is a planned easy spell, often used when that happens.
Plateau A plateau is a stretch of training in which a lift stops improving: session after session, no more weight and no more reps.
Periodization Periodization is planning training in blocks of weeks, changing the sets, reps and weight from block to block on purpose.
Mesocycle A mesocycle is a block of several weeks of training planned as one unit, often four to six weeks ending in a lighter one.
Volume Volume is how much training you do, counted either as the number of hard sets for a muscle in a week or as weight × reps added up across sets.
MRV MRV stands for maximum recoverable volume: the most weekly sets for a muscle you can do and still recover from.

Go deeper

Progressive overload, explained with a log What progressive overload is, five ways to add load ranked by how easy they are to write down, and one month of squats in a log with the sums done. Updated

Sources

  1. Bell et al. 2023. Integrating deloading into strength and physique sports training programmes: an international Delphi consensus approach. Sports Med Open 9(1):87 Read

Updated . How these pages are researched and corrected: editorial policy. Every term in the glossary.