Deload week: when you need one and how to plan it

A deload is a short, deliberate drop in how hard you train. An international panel of experienced strength and bodybuilding coaches agreed on a definition along those lines: a period of reduced training stress meant to lower physical and mental fatigue and prepare you for the next period of training (Bell et al. 2023). You still train, with the same movements, but the week asks clearly less of you.

A deload is not a week off: you keep training, only easier. It is not a taper either. Before a competition, lifters cut volume over one to two weeks to peak on a given day (Travis et al. 2020). A deload is part of ordinary training, and you go straight back to your normal work after it.

On a plan: you decide in advance, for example one easier week after every four to six hard ones. In interviews, coaches said a deload usually lasts 5 to 7 days and comes every 4 to 6 weeks (Bell et al. 2022). In a survey of 246 competitive lifters, a deload came every 5.6 weeks and lasted 6.4 days on average (Rogerson et al. 2024). Put the week where it suits your life: a busy week at work or a trip is a good time.

When needed: you train as usual and deload when several of the signs below have lasted a week or two. In the same survey, 47% deloaded only on a plan, 39% combined a plan with deloading when needed, and 13% deloaded only when they felt they needed it.

Signs that a deload week may help:

• Your weights or reps have stalled or dropped for two or three sessions in a row, although you sleep and eat as usual.
• Your usual weights feel clearly heavier than they should.
• Soreness from one session is still there at the next.
• Joints, tendons or old injuries ache during or after training.
• You sleep worse or feel tired all day.
• You no longer look forward to training.

No single sign proves you need a deload; one bad session is normal. Sharp pain, or pain that does not go away, is not a reason to deload: stop that exercise and see a doctor or physiotherapist.

Coaches agree more on how to deload than on whether it helps. In a three-round consensus study, experienced coaches agreed that a deload can lower volume, lower effort (more reps in reserve) or both, keep the same exercises, and be planned in advance or taken when needed (Bell et al. 2023).

Practice looks the same. Of 246 competitive lifters, 79% cut their weekly sets, 84% lowered the load on their main lifts and 85% left more reps in reserve during a deload (Rogerson et al. 2024).

The only controlled trial of a one-week deload that we know of tested a full week off rather than an easier week. Thirty-nine trained adults followed a nine-week program, and half of them stopped training completely in week 5. Leg muscle growth was about the same in both groups, but those who kept training probably gained more lower-body strength (Coleman et al. 2024).

So a deload is a reasonable, widely used way to manage fatigue, not a proven way to build more muscle or strength. The consensus authors write that it is unknown whether deloading improves adaptation to training (Bell et al. 2023). The figures on this page come from coaches' views, a survey of mostly powerlifters and one trial, and we know of no study that compares an easier week with training straight through.

Strengthara does not schedule deloads. A block holds your program, nutrition plan and check-ins; it has no dates, no length and no deload week, and the app never changes your weights for you. You decide when to deload and how.

In the deload week, do your usual workouts and log the sets you actually do: fewer sets, or the lighter weights you planned. Each workout keeps its sets, reps and RIR as written, so only that week's logged sessions change.

When you return, remember that Last time shows the most recent time you did an exercise, which is now the deload week. Open the Logbook, find the session from the week before the deload and start from those weights.