Maintain Consistency... Get Better Results with Deloading

This week is a deload week for myself and my buddy. You do a complete workout for four or five weeks, and then do complete a week of the same workout, but only two-three sets of each exercise. Since we had just focused on strength and hypertrophy we both should be able to add weight and push ourselves per set a little harder because we are doing only half the sets.

The point of a deload week is to tax the system, but let it rebuild because a new workout microcycle is going to start the following week. You want progressive overload, but you also want to stay away from overtraining. If you maintain a high intensity program, whatever the goal, for around eight weeks, you are going to burn out... stop going to the gym, become worse than you were to start with.

There is greater effectiveness to doing less sets for one week, than being hardcare for two straight months and then falling off the bandwagon and quit setting goals.

You need to continue going to the gym, lifting at home, running outside, playing pickup basketball, but about every four-six weeks cut the duration down. It is harder than you think. On the deload weeks I would want to do more sets. My buddy helped me focus on the big picture and I have found out that having a deload week helped my body recover better AND it made me want it more. Want to hit my goals... want to set higher goals... want to better myself. The monday after a deload week I hit the weights with a new intensity because of two reasons: 1) I am starting a new workout: new number of sets, reps, %-age of my max, maybe even new exercises
2) I spent the last week completing half of the workout I usually do

The Monday after a deload week I am hungry to get better