Most CrossFit Programs never have a deload. And, by and large, I think the traditional week-long deload is a monumental change in fitness with not a lot of change in your daily habits. I’m not some random schmuck off the street blowing hot air for shits and gigs I have seen this in all major sports and at Olympic training centers around the world.
I’ve been in the strength and conditioning game for a long time and, through inordinate amounts of trial and error, as well as research I’ve realized that the traditional deload needs change but also needs to start happening in CrossFit Gyms around the world.
To understand why, let’s start here.
What Is a Deload?
A deload is a purposeful reduction in training volume & intensity for the purposes of recovery, injury prevention, and improved performance.
The concept of deloading stems from the law of super compensation. In sport since theory, supercompensation is the post training period during which the trained function/parameter has a higher performance capacity than it did prior to the training period.
Supercompensation represents the training process in 3 major phases.
Phase 1: Application of Stress
The applied stress is comprised of the workout in question and everything therein. For example, when talking about the applied stress, you can be referring to an individual repetition, an entire set, or even the workout as a whole. The stress (workout) causes fatigue, muscular damage, etc which necessitates the second phase.
Phase 2: Recovery
Be it active rest between sets, an entire day of rest between workouts, or a whole week geared towards recovery, phase 2 allows the body to recover and regenerate back to baseline.
Phase 3: Supercompensation
The 3rd phase, sometimes referred to as the rebound phase is when the body effectively rebounds from a fatigued state to a new, higher level of performance.
How Does This Relate to a Deload?
The deload is phase 2: the recovery phase.
Created with the intentions of aiding recovery, avoiding overuse injuries, and realizing a higher level of performance, the traditional deload week is often touted as an essential component of everyone’s training program. But not always looked at for the General Population. Which might be the people who need it most!
What Does the Traditional Deload Week Look Like?
A typical deload week is loosely based around the following three guidelines:
1. One full and pre-planned week of little-to-no training stress following three weeks of relatively high training volumes and intensities.
2. Do not exceed 40-70% of your one repetition maximum (1RM) the entire week.
3. Emphasize mobility drills, soft tissue work, non-strenuous bodyweight exercises, and maybe a light test.
Is the Traditional Deload Good For Anyone?
Of course! Everyone can benefit from this style of programming and mostly those that train real hard all the time.
To name a few:
1. Professional Athletes: Not to be confused with high level weight lifters, professional athletes greatly benefit from utilizing the traditional deload. Reason being, the main priority when coaching pro athletes is to minimize the risk of injury while maintaining/improving performance. In this case, deloading every fourth week is a simple and effective strategy to reduce stress on the body while still getting a sufficient training effect.
2. Old(er) and Experienced Lifters: The older we get the harder it becomes to adequately recover from strength training. As such, when working with older (think 30yrs+) and experienced lifters it’s smart to incorporate the traditional deload as a means of preventing overuse injuries while simultaneously improving performance. I’d note, an older individual with little-to-no strength training experience likely doesn’t need to deload as the weights they’re handling won’t be anywhere near challenging enough.
3. Trainees with Recurring Injuries: If a lifter is continually getting hurt over and over again…they should first check their exercise technique and general programming strategies as that’s where they’re probably screwing up. That being said, with individuals who appear to be more injury-prone, incorporating a traditional deload is a smart strategy to use in order to reduce their risk of pain and injury.