Going to deload for a week. Am I doing it right?

[Geoff Bischoff]

Coach;

71", 218lbs, Recent work: SQ 375x5, 417x1 [rehabbing adductor injury now; last working weight 305]. DL 430x5, 485x1. PRS 195x5, 227x1. BN 300x5, 325x2 (1RM unk).

LP is done, I'm in week 21 of a 4day Texas Method (breaks for two competitions, but mostly progression. I'm still on fahves in my second runout).

Life stress has been crushing for a few weeks, but I've trained alongside it with no issues. Last week, it all came to a head (deadline stuff; life isn't crashing down around me, I'm just wicked busy this season), culminating in a marathon weekend that saw me editing a 107-page document I have to defend before a council, and composing an additional 14 pages of stuff for other folks. Mentally I'm wrekt but physically I've been fine.

Until today. Went in for volume day. Didn't want to go, but I never want to do volume day. Today though, I abandoned squats during warmup because nothing was going right (squats are in the dumps because I'm doing adductor rehab [Will Morris protocol]. Today I showed no signs of injury recovery over the weekend; pain wasn't re-baselining after sets even with the empty bar). On press, I got 1x5 of my projected 5x5 and thought, "there's no way I'm doing that 4 more times." Mental and physical fatigue are ganging up on me. So ... I don't want to quit, but I need to take a knee. I've got an opportunity to do so this week, in and out of the gym.

If I understand SS deload philosophy, I'm at the right spot for it. And further, I think SS model deload is reduce volume but maintain some intensity.

So I'm thinking, with intensity days coming up, but no volume from today to drive them:

Wednesday: INSTEAD of DL 435x5, SQ 275x5x2: Do DL 405x1x2, SQ 225x5x2 (injury permitting)
Thursday: INSTEAD of PRS 200x5, BN 250x5x3: Do PRS 175x5, BN 225x5x3
Friday: Intensity squat day: Continue rehab squat.

If goal = Dissipate fatigue, Mitigate strength loss, does that ^ hit the mark?

Thanks coach.

[Michael Wolf]

If you've never really deloaded before, there's no way to say for sure. Like programming, people respond a little differently and 4-5 months into intermediate land, those individual differences are not yet SUPER important but they do start to make some difference. But in short, that seems fairly reasonable. I'd probably do 405x1 and 375x3 on the DL, 180x3x3 on the PR.

[Geoff Bischoff]

Thanks coach!

I got this message after I'd already begun to execute a different line of action (you told me you've got a wicked queue; sorry for giving you effectively zero response time). As a data point: I thought, "Well, if deload = reduce volume, maintain intensity, what if I maintain ALL the intensity and ditch ALL the volume?"

Result: New 5rep PR on deadlift (and almost nothing else that day), New 5rep PR on press (and almost nothing else that day). For context:

Executed working reps, across two workouts: 19

Executed working reps same period, if unmodified: 75

So my "deload" ended up being a volume-reduc to roughly 25%, with intensity maintained at 100% (of programmed). Perhaps I shall regret this in the coming weeks. If so, next time I'll scale V and I both, along the lines you recommended.

[Michael Wolf]

The idea of the deload is generally to allow for recovery and dissipation of fatigue without detraining so much that you have to spend a bunch of time ramping back up. The latter might be fine for a meet or 1RM test day or whatever, but isn't super productive as a regular part of your training, because you then spend an inordinate amount of time ramping back up. That's why we usually recommend a significant but not drastic cut on the volume. You need enough cut to allow for the recovery but not so much that you detrain your work capacity and ability to do the workouts that contribute to your long term development. Those aren't big concerns for novices and really early intermediates, because they don't have or need much work capacity or total stress to make progress yet anyway. But the longer you train, the more stress you need, the more you're walking the knife's edge, as PPST explains.

I suspect you more or less peaked, but depending how much fatigue you had built up and your overall response to deloading - which we have no data for yet - you might be fine. Or you might need a bunch of time to ramp back up to your previous workouts. Either way, you learned something about your response to training and deloading.