Deloading vs. Taking Time Off

do you think there's any distinctive difference in deloading versus taking a week off depends what we're talking about if we're talking about bodybuilders if you're, if you're bodybuilding, I usually don't use deloads because we try to build that in again. Like we have, we have to think about what, what is weight training to a bodybuilder? I mean, what's the point? What is the weight training doing? Stimulus to grow muscle, right? So it's like it, you kind of look at it from a Goldilocks perspective that I can do, you know, too little work and I'm not gaining it fast enough, or I can do way too much work and gain a lot in a short period of time. And then the fucking wheels fall off the bus. Yeah. Or I can figure out what's good right in the middle. Like what's a good range that I can stay in and continuously make, uh, make progress without needing to deload or take a week off. Now, if we're talking about strength athletes, a completely different animal, because we're using a lot heavier weight. We're using usually more complex lifts and you're going to probably need deloads because with a bodybuilder, we're mainly leveraging a certain amount of volume and enough intensity, enough load to make that volume create hypertrophy. With a strength athlete, we're thinking about intensity instead. And now how much volume do I need with that intensity to now get stronger? So it's, it's slightly different way that you would look at it. We're both using barbell movements. We're both using machines. We're both using external loading to create a stimulus. But the types of stimulus we're trying to do are completely different. One of them is more bashing on the nervous system, joint compression, wear and tear, highly specific to a goal like Olympic lifting, powerlifting, strongman. The other one is a very generalized, nonspecific thing. It's only specific to building muscle and putting muscle in the right places. So I feel like if you know yourself and your volume is correct, you can bodybuild and probably never really need a deload unless you really start pushing it really hard. The closer proximity to failure you get to, the more you're going to need to think about deloading. But if you're somebody who does, you know, RPE at eight, you're doing like RAR two for all your exercises and your volume makes sense, you probably won't need a deload unless you're just metabolically tired and fatigued. Yeah. Yeah. I actually encountered this place. I guess I recently found out that I am someone who actually tends to train pretty relatively hard compared to the average. So I actually needed to take some time off this last week. um but instead of doing i did a deload for maybe one muscle group but honestly the rest of it was just taking one to two extra days off and then also on my normal training days i didn't really push i feel like it was maybe 80 to 90 percent of what how hard i normally train and i'm like at this place where i finally feel like i'm not breaking to pieces yeah it was at a point where literally like i felt like everything like my body was literally breaking down and my my left shoulders issues were just exacerbating to the point that was kind of ridiculous and i started having pains almost throughout my body which was kind of ridiculous because it's like how the fuck am i having place pains in my left forearm and in my shoulder but also like in you know my lumbar here and all these other areas it just kind of happened all together but i always wonder whether or not like should i be following these programs or what my coach says where i should just be taking like an extra day off or another day off? Or should I be calculating a proper deload with like 66 of my load or something else You know and say that the thing It it hard to answer because everybody different Right So I think probably the best thing to do is listen to your body and don ignore things But then that has a negative aspect too because right when you start feeling things might be what going to push you through that next level So it's the timing of starting to overreach so I can slingshot and hit a new level. But then you have to be picky about how long you let that go on. So if you see the check engine light, you see a check engine light in your car pop on, you could probably get away with driving that a little more. But if you drive it just one day past, your engine blows. So it's like, okay, I'm starting to feel some joint pain, my mood issues, my appetite, my sleep. Okay, don't freak out. Maybe give it a few more days after that and then take a break. yeah at that point i would say either take a full week off which most competitive bodybuilders fucking lose their minds if they can't go to the gym right but or just go to the gym and just have fun like go in there with no plan and just go on some of your favorite machines and just get a little bit of a pump a little bit of a sweat but don't take that week that seriously just keep the keep the rust knocked off okay yeah i like that i like that um it's a good perspective i think that's the thing I've noticed in bodybuilding is I used to be so scientific and like strict with my shit and trying to write everything down and I still do but I've listened a lot more to how I feel and realize that this is actually some kind of um there's a validity in the way that I feel and I shouldn't ignore it because sometimes it is true so like for example in the past I always felt like I feel like I respond better to higher reps or higher volume I don't know why but people will tell me they do this and I'm doing too much, but I just don't feel like it's too much. If I feel like I respond well, I feel like I see results and I feel like I can take it. I don't feel like it hurts my body. I can go this, this much. And then I got my testing done and it said the whole thing about like, you're an endurance athlete. That's where you specialize. You're not, you don't specialize in strength because of your fibers. And it run true with me. I was like, this is exactly how I felt for the last decade. So I'm just starting to realize that a lot of these things that I'll hear these Olympian coaches speak of. Like, for example, if you ever hear Patrick Tour talking on a podcast or during a speech, he's very scientific about his approaches, but the way that he explains things is also very artistic in a way. Like he'll express that you, and you understand this too, because I know you have talked about lifestyle factors. I know you have talked about stress and how that can literally hinder all the gains and how you yourself have gotten clients to get their sleep hygiene and their diet in check and all of a sudden their power lifts will shoot up. And this is just something that it's kind of hard to distinctively communicate through data or quantities. Sometimes you just need to get better sleep or you just need to focus on sleeping a little bit longer or maybe not eating too much food before bed. I don't know, just so many fucking different variables. A lot of things people don't, they don't pay attention. They just train. Like you get a coach and you're just training and you put all your trust in the coach. But like part of that onus is on you to recognize and talk to your coach about how I feel. Like, man, like my elbow is really starting to not feel great. The coach needs to know that because that's a data point. And then he looks back and says, well, yeah, it looks like you've lost some reps and some strength on, say, triceps extension. Like, okay, something's definitely going on. So now we have to figure out, is it your shoulders, your hand, wrist, is your elbow? What's going on? But what most people will do is they'll just push through it. They'll just put some ointment on their arm. They'll put a sleeve on, and they'll just keep fucking training until they get to the point where they can't do anything. and now we have to figure out like what have you done to yourself but that's what what's what i like about bodybuilding too and powerlifting most of these things that are they're not team sports they're individual they're individual journeys and it's the growth you get in learning so much about yourself but if you're paying attention but that's the key thing is pay attention to how you feel and then take that subjective feeling and match it up with the with the actual data that you're getting in like my performance is dropping or this is happening my hrv is dropping my heart rate's going up my blood pressure is going up okay what does that tell you i've probably pushed it starting to push it past what i can actually reasonably recover from okay we need to mash the breakdown we've been on the gas pedal too long and drugs drugs amplify this stuff one of the probably the amplify what they amplify everything it's like one of the one of the problems i've seen in the past a lot is someone starts taking drugs and they don understand that most of these drugs create rapid hypertrophy rapid muscle gain But that doesn necessarily mean that it making your joints more robust So let's say somebody gets on a cycle of anadrol or D-ball and testosterone. Just typical strength and mass size. And all of a sudden, they're pushing 40 more pounds on their bench. And they get really excited. And no one's there to tell them, hey, I know you're excited because you hit this big 40-pound PR. And I know you're like, I want a 60 pound PR, but just keep in mind, your joints are still catching up and they'll keep pushing it. And then they tear something. And it's like now, now they're, they're new PR is a zero PR because they can't do the movement anymore anyways. So a lot of people won't pay attention to what's happening. They won't pay attention to, yeah, I'm growing really quickly in one area. but is there a consequence on another area I haven't thought about? And they don't think about that until something starts to hurt or they're prohibited from doing a certain movement because they're in pain. Yeah.