De-loading

Ever since this health scare (I talked about in the cardio post), I’ve re-evaluated a lot of things. I’ve always wanted to take a week or so to deload but I like training heavy and with 100% intensity. It almost feels like a waste of time for me to put in partial effort in the gym. However, this is not the case! Deloading is important; it helps your body heal and gives your joints a break. Let’s say you’ve been training hard and heavy for 8 weeks, giving it absolutely everything. In that 9^th week, you start to feel tired all the time, even upon waking, depressed, and sick. You can’t understand why, your nutrition is spot on and so is your rest, nothing’s changed. Well, it just might be time for you to do a deload! I’ve known about this for a long time but I’ve been very reluctant to do it. I only take time off from training when I’m forced to. Things such as injury, sickness, or vacations and etc are the only things that keep me from training. If you’re like me and hate taking time off this is one of those things you probably will love because you get to keep training. The way I approach deloading is:

• Do the same split I normally would
• Reduce Volume by 50%
• Reduce Weights by 50%
• Stay on the same diet

The thing with deloading is, you don’t want your body to feel sore or to feel beat up. Doing 50% allows you to keep putting blood in the muscle so that you don’t come back and feel terrible and your strength hasn’t dropped significantly.  You’ll come back feeling rejuvenated and want to hit some new PRs and destroy some weights! I’ve recently just started doing this. I’m going to do this every 9^th week. Depending on the person you can do this every 8 – 12 weeks. Doesn’t really matter, but it is important to deload a bit. We need to remember that our bodies are not machines and you can’t expect to be training at 150% all year long and constantly hitting new PRs and growing. The body demands rest. After you hammer out the deload week you’ll be ready to get big, strong, fit and healthy! “You win some, you lose some. But you live, you live to fight another day” - Mr.Jones (Friday 1995 - The movie)   Ryan is a business graduate who found his passion in fitness. He’s always on the Internet trying to learn more about bodybuilding, training, and dieting. When he’s not learning, you can find him either in the kitchen preparing a meal, eating, watching the UFC or at the gym trying to break a new PR. Ryan is also a big advocate of social networking websites such as twitter because they allow for people of all social and economical statuses to communicate.