I Hate Deloads - Building Intentful Low Stress Microcycles

If you’re like me, you hate the idea of deloading or tapering.  It’s boring, unexciting, and leaves me uninspired.  Deloads betray themselves by lowering arousal rate and subsequently intention.  On top of that, while traditional deloads may facilitate recovery and leave a lot of people fresh, they also have the downside of potentially removing too much stimulus, leaving us feeling recovered but unprepared for the next week of training.   I personally may have skipped more deloads in my time than I have completed as written.  I have been battling this conundrum for a few years with my own programming, while trying to take the lessons learned and apply them systematically to client programming.   

The main problem we run into is that, well, deloads and tapers work.  Some kind of reduction in training stress relative to recent training history, whether through adjustments in volume, intensity, or both, should allow peoples central, peripheral, and soft tissue systems to recover more, reducing fatigue, allowing people to continue training at higher volumes and intensities during subsequent training blocks, aiding long term consistency and development.  When done correctly, deloads should also restore some of the athlete sensitivity to hard training, hopefully yielding improved response from the subsequent training block. 

Traditional Deload

Traditional deloads typically involve a 5%-10% reduction in relative, absolute, or average training intensity, and a 20%-40% reduction in training volume, whether you are quantifying volume as tonnage, number of lifts, or number of hard sets.  This could be as simple as going from 5x5 at 75% to 3x4 at 70%.  Or it might mean something more aggressive like going from 5x2 at 80%, to 2x8 at 65%. 

The problem I have run into time and time again, whether it is in my own training, or with non-compliant clients, is that deloads are boring or they seem like a waste of time.  Why would I ever want to train less hard?  I am here to become the biggest and strongest version of myself, not some candy ass who needs to take a light day.  I have personally skipped deloads, changed programs, ignored what was written, or just did what I would rather do on the fly.  I have experienced clients do this as well, going heavier than prescribed, changing sets, reps, RPEs, or hitting a rep max because “I felt good”.  Well yeah, that is the point of the deload.  Often, we regret making these decisions, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are probably making these decisions because we are dopamine junkies who cannot bear the idea of not working as hard as possible to chase the gainz.  Worse yet, some people think it is more acceptable to skip deload sessions entirely, because it is “just a deload”.  This further impacts the problem we have where people come back from deloads feeling detrained or weak.  How do we make deloads interesting enough that we feel like we are not wasting our time, enter the session with high intention, work hard, but still lower the training stimulus for a period, reducing fatigue while facilitating growth and adaptation?

Reload

The first great idea was introduced to me by a friend, co-worker and training partner of mine, Nikkolas Trillo, aka Panda Powerlifting.  Click-Clack.  On a reload week the weight still goes up, but there is a sharp reduction in volume and the relative intensity of each given set.  Cutting workload and proximity to failure is an easier pill to swallow if the weight goes up.  Something as simple as going from 5x5 at 75% to 3x2 at 80% still scratches the load progression itch, facilitates recovery, and transitions well into the next block.  I find a reload strategy to be very effective if you are transitioning from a higher rep, hypertrophy based, accumulation style training block and into a more strength based, lower rep, intensification style training block.  You can easily follow 4-5 sets of 6-8 reps on the 65%-70% range with 2-3 sets of 3-5 reps in the 70-75% and it will satisfy the criteria of a reduced workload, smaller training stimulus, while keeping individual intention high, the training stimulus novel, and introing the individual into the next block of training. 

AMRAP Performance Week

The next strategy I used came to me while I was training in the bunker during covid.  I was having the same issue; I was too bored to execute a programmed deload or reload strategy.  I specifically remember setting up to train, looking at the plan for the day, and skipping the week entirely, moving on to my next training week. I realize that at some point you just need to do the program as written, but during this uncertain time I was also leaning into the idea that I could be experiment a bit more and try to learn something about myself that I might apply to my clients.  This led me down a training cycle where every planned low stress microcycle was some kind of amrap week.  An example workout at the time might be something like x3 at RPE 8, followed by 3x8 at 67%.  A lot of the time I would just take the weight used for my backoff sets and do it for 1 set to failure after an overwarmup single. I also played with either repeating the same amrap weight from a previous deload week, or I would choose a weight that helped me transition to the next block.  This would scratch the itch of high effort hard training, while satisfying a reduction in absolute intensity, and training volume, keeping intention high while hopefully allowing for some improved recovery.  I know there are some coaches that regularly use AMRAPs at 80% for their lower volume weeks as a way of measuring performance improvement from block to block.  I was successful in implementing this strategy with a few clients who were having similar issues to me, the desire to chase dopamine was stronger than their ability to delay gratification, so we gamed the system, allowing them to have one all out bout of high effort while still reducing the training stimulus.  AMRAP weeks keep things fun, novel, and if nothing else they leave you feeling good with a sick pump. 

Washout Week or Pivot Block

I owe the idea of a Washout Week or a Pivot Block to Godfather Mike T.  The main idea behind a washout week is that we adjust not only the volumes and intensities, but we vary exercise selection, movement patterns, and energy systems to some degree as well.  Assuming you are doing some kind of higher specificity training plan, say Comp Squat x1 at RPE7, followed by 3x4 at 78%, your washout week might be to High Bar Squat 3 sets of 10 ramping from RPE 6-7 up to RPE 8-9.  You could even go further than that and do something like Belt Squat Myo Reps, or drop sets, or something of that nature.  Think about movements and energy systems (rep schemes) that are not trained very often, as they are lower priority, but you would like to maintain some level of capability with.  Because powerlifting training is heavy basically all the time, the washout weeks become a time of lower absolute loads, lower set counts, higher RPEs, shorter rest periods, and higher proximity to failure.  If you stumble on the idea that you feel like you are training underwater, where you feel like you are drowning because you can’t catch your breath under the load, then you are on the right track.  The main argument for this style of training week or block is that it restores our sensitivity to the aforementioned heaviness of training.  At some point the repeated bouts effect, the idea that our body responds less and less to a given stimulus the more often it is presented, takes its toll and we no longer respond to the training.  Leaving us feeling like we are in a position where we either need to add intensity, or volume or both.  Mike T argues that you can strategically pull specificity away from a training program, almost allowing some detraining to occur, maintaining lower priority qualities, address weak points, avoid training staleness and monotony, hopefully improving joint robustness, all the while setting individuals up to get more out of their regular powerlifting training.

Intro Weeks

The problem that I personally run into with washouts and pivot blocks is that I don’t want to do them for very long.  I prefer a more traditional powerlifting style of training, which is why I am drawn to the sport in the first place.  Quite frankly, I want to squat and deadlift heavy-ish in the 4-8 rep range.  This is my favourite thing to do in the gym.  I also feel like if I vary movement and load selection too much, it doesn’t agree with my body very well, sometimes we try so hard to keep movements novel that our body is unprepared for the loading through that novel range of motion, and it ends up doing more bad than good.  Either that, or I come back to regular training, and I feel like I need to relearn how to squat.  This problem exists with clients as well, it is hard to feel like you are getting better at the powerlifts in the 1-5 rep range if you are not doing it.  So rather than a 2-week (or more) washout period, I have clients do a 1-week washout, followed by a 1-week intro to the next block.  The intro week is very similar to the planned block of training, but it might just have slightly less intensity, and maybe 1 less set per movement.  This allows the client to ease into the next block with a workload that should be more than manageable while allowing the individual to start building momentum within the new plan. 

Taper

Our last form of low stress week is our classic taper heading into competition.  Tapering used to mean doing almost next to nothing the week of the meet, but a strategy like that has become less and less popular over the years as while it leaves people feeling fresh on meet day, it doesn’t necessarily lead to high performance on the platform.  The struggle of the taper is riding the line between doing enough specific work to maintain as much fitness as possible, while lowering the total workload enough to reduce fatigue in hopes of expressing a high performance on competition day.  A classic taper that I try with most of my clients heading into their first competition is to hit their Squat and Benchpress opener 5-7 days out, with little to no back off volume, followed by an easy mid-week session to keep movements sharp, and then adding an additional day of complete rest heading into the comp.  If you normally train Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, this can be as simple as foregoing the Friday session knowing that an extra day of rest will do you good.  From there it is a matter of seeing how different individuals respond to different taper strategies.  Some people perform better when they carry a bit more fatigue and train right into a competition. A smaller, shorter, more efficient lifter might need a strategy like that.  An example that comes to mind is the benchpress specialist with a high arch who needs to touch heavier weights and train their benchpress more often heading into a competition.  While a lifter on the opposite end of the spectrum, say a taller, larger, conventional deadlifter might need a more aggressive taper that starts further away from competition.  I have my own biases and tendencies but at the end of the day you will need to figure out what works best for you. 

Deloads don’t have to suck. You just need to build in intent. Whether it’s a reload, AMRAP, washout, intro, or taper—structure your low-stress weeks in a way that keeps you engaged and performing at your best.

Chase long-term gains, not short-term pains.