The truth about deloading

     I have not deloaded since Feb 2015.

     Ultimately deloading is a fancy way to say, "I need a break before I can dial it back up again".  In reality, I did Fran the other day and I needed to "deload" for about 15 minutes before I could think about doing anything else.  My partners left....(pussies)

     Years ago, I was training Mon Tues, Thur, Fri, Sat.  Of those days, I was waking up at 4:50am M,Tu,Th,F.  I found that after about 3 weeks at it I needed a whole week to "deload".  I was shot and so it was a needed rest week.

     Do you really need to deload for a whole week?  Do you even need to deload for a day?  Not necessarily.  It depends on your program, your anatomy and physiology, and your sleep and nutrition.  There is no 1 size fits all.

     When a person tells you that you need a rest or deload week and they don't know all of those factors, they are basically telling you what "they" do.  In the words of Donnie Thompson, "be your own coach"!

Factors in recovery

How old are you?
Are you sleeping enough?
Are you eating enough?
Are you taking steroids?
Is your body healthy?

Age matters.  When you are younger, consider that you are on natural steroids.  You have hormones secreting that allow you to repair tissue better, absorb nutrients better, and you likely have healthy joints.  (And you probably don't have the same stresses as us old people-kids, mortgage, thinning hair, etc...)

Sleep.  When I changed the routine from M,Tu,Th,F,Sat to M,W,F,Sat,  I went from limited sleep 4 days a week (and honestly I couldn't really sleep in W at that point) to limited sleep only 3 days a week.  And sleep matters.

Food.  I started paying attention to my protein (and overall calorie) intake when I started the RP diet last year.  It made a difference in my tissue rebuilding and energy.

Steroids.  If you are taking them, good for you.  Likely you are recovering like a teenager.  :)

Healthy joints.  At my advanced age (ha!) I have bad joints all over the place.  By limiting my days that I train on consecutive days, I've found that my body feels WAY better and far less beat up.

Hard training days per month

     When I was training 5 days a week, I was needing a deload every 4th week.  So in reality I was training hard 15 days a month.  Now I never need a deload week and train 4 days a week.  That's 16 hard training days a month.  Hmmm....

     So really I think that if you are getting enough sleep and food and giving your joints the right kind of rest between sessions, you can "train as much as you can still recover".  If I didn't work for a living (necessitating me to train week days at 530am) and have a family that liked me to be home at night, shoot I'd train everyday!  I think that if you are smart and INDIVIDUAL in your programming and recovery efforts then you should be able to maximize your training without much worry!

     One size never fits all.

My month on RP Strength diet

     I am 5’10” and 175-180.  I didn’t want to gain or lose any weight.  I just wanted to clean up and learn how to eat.  So I reached out to Nick at RP and he was immediately responsive back and forth with me.  He advised me to purchase the cutting template and enter 180 lbs but just eat the base diet.


     There are 4 diets, base, cuts 1,2, and 3.  The idea is to start on the base, then move to the cut diets which reduce calories just enough each time to spur on fat loss.  They also have a massing template that has 3 massing phases where calories are slowly added to gain muscle.

     Anyhow, I realized almost immediately I had not been eating enough food/quality calories.  I felt like I was stuffing myself with the amount of meals/food I was eating.  The other thing that happened was that I accidentally printed out cut #3 sheet for my training days.  I still felt like I was eating a ton, but I started getting pretty lean fast.  I did this (ate base on three rest days and cut 3 on my four training days) accidentally for about 10 days.  Once I realized this, I switched to base for all of the days and REALLY felt that I was stuffing myself.  But my weight stayed around 177-180.  I was shocked.

     In the beginning I was meal prepping hard.  Cooking a ton of food and having it ready to roll eating big breakfasts, etc….  Now I feel like I’ve got it kind of dialed in and so I will bring left overs from the night before’s dinner for a meal or 2 while at work or I’ll go grab something at wholefoods or wherever.  For breakfasts a lot of times I’ll have fruit and a protein/carb shake to get the meal in.  I’m fairly lean still (for sure more than before I started) and my weight is mostly pegged at 178-180.
     The way they do things is calculate your BMR (easy to find on line) then use a multiple for how much calories to eat on rest days vs training days (also easy to find on line).  They take your body weight and figure out protein intake (.8-1g per lb) and then same with carbs (roughly .5 rest days 1.5 training days).  Split the macros up into 5-6 meals and then fill in the rest of the calories with fat calories.

     The only thing that is slightly complicated is their nutrient timing.  That is pretty cool and it’s a matter of “when in the day do you train?” and based on that they have a ton of scenarios for how to eat around training.  The one thing that is in EVERY plan in the casein protein shake at bedtime.  That’s to preserve muscle throughout the night as you sleep due to its slow breakdown/absorption.  

     There is for sure a difference in a diet for performance and for health.  If you work hard at it, you can make this one both.  It is not paleo, but is paleo friendly.  I find myself eating more starches that I had in the past, but also a boat load more protein.  And the pre and intra workout shakes are VERY good for training endurance.  I don’t eat lean beef like they say to, because its hard to find that grass fed, so I just cut back my supplemental fat since the beef has plenty.  It’s part art as well as science and I think it’s been a very worthwhile investment.

Rest days/weeks, deloading, active rest (updated)

          First of all let's be VERY clear, there is no universal one size fits all.  The biggest factor in the discovery of what you need regarding rest is genetics... period-and then nutrition (of which the interaction of such largely relates to your genetics).  And by this I essentially mean hormonal interactions that allow for muscle and CNS recovery.  That being said:

Rest days

What is a rest day: A rest day is to equip your body to continue training that week at your maximum potential while still meeting your training goals for that week.  Rich Froning is famous for never taking them.

When should you take a rest day:  Conventionally, most people advocate 2 rest days a week.  When I first started CF I couldn't train more than 1 day in a row.   Granted I was 40 years old, but I still felt too sore to go again the next day.  This lasted for a month or two and finally I was able to go on consecutive days.  You should rest when you are not going to have productive training by going in.  (And don't be a baby about it either....)

Most folks (Outlaw, CompetitorsTraining, Invictus....) advocate 3 days on 1 day off training cycles.  The reason is well established that people tend to have the best output and recovery with no more than 3 days in a row.

*HOWEVER, as an over 40 athlete, I've found that minimizing my consecutive training days has been VERY helpful in allowing me to maintain joint health and training intensity.  So I now train M,W,F,Sat*

Active rest

I'm not much for doing much on a scheduled rest day (Maybe cuz I'm 40+.....)  I prefer to actually really rest.  Or just do mobility or get a massage or something that is very low stress on the body.  Other folks can stay physically and mentally fired up for the week's training even though they are getting out and doing something active (hiking, cardio, sports, low intensity training, etc...).  If this is you, then you're either suffering with anxiety and NEED to do something everyday or you're just genetically lucky to be able to recover in spite of training everyday.  Or you are holding yourself back maybe??

Rest weeks (deload weeks)

The hidden secret: I believe this is a critical key to long term performance.  Having periodic deload or rest weeks.  I used to do it every 4th week.  Now that I don't train consecutive days and only 4 days a week, I seem to only need one every 2-3 months or so.  4 weeks may be about the soonest you want to do it though.  Others prefer taking rest or deload weeks at longer intervals that every 4 weeks.  But I'm surprised at how many folks don't schedule them and just wait until they are fried (or injured).

What is a deload or rest week: This is a week that I catch up big time on my sleep.  I sleep in everyday and if I go to the gym, it's to do low tension stuff (Snatch work is great because it is so fast you are barely exposing your body to load and the movement is over), skill work (DU's, MU's, TTB, HS walking, etc...), or technique work (at no more than 60% max loads).  I also like to focus on things I don't do all the time, muscle snatches, sotts presses behind and in front, crossover symmetry, etc...

Why do you need one: The purpose is to rest your individual muscles, joints, and overall central nervous system.  I can't tell you what my wrists used to feel like after 3 weeks of heavy Olympic lifting and handstand work.  My joints needed a rest.  And my body as a whole was often just on the cusp of feeling "done" after 3 hard weeks.  Of course that all changed when I changed my days per week and really focused on recovering in between sessions.  Mentally the rest week feels so good and if I stay out of the gym, by the following week I am charging the gate to get back at it and my sessions are super intense and productive.  If I go into the gym, I tend to go so light that I'm excited to sling heavy iron again.

Everyday rest

In line with this subject.  You have to make sure you are scheduling your sleep hours each week just like how you schedule your training sessions.  Research just came out recently that I read that said you actually can "catch up" on sleep on the weekends.  So now I try to sleep in on Tue Thurs and  and grab naps on Sat/Sun to ensure I'm recovering adequately.

Good luck and happy resting!

Weight loss strategies-updated

      It's not as if people don't know what they need to do to eat right and exercise.  It's coming up with a system that you can stick with that is the problem.  So we came up with some ideas in the form of guidelines or rules.

     Rule 1: Don't eat after 7pm.  The idea is to engage in a 12 hour fasting period and get all of your eating done by 7pm at night.  Teas and coffees are fine after 7pm and before 7am.

     Rule 2: Find an amount of weekly cardiovascular exercise you can handle fairly easily.  For some it's 15 miles of running a week, for others its 60-90 minutes.  The point is find where you are at and then maybe stretch the amount a tiny bit so its still manageable.  Now make sure that you get your miles or your time in every week.

     Rule 3: Do you have a sweet tooth?  Do you love your afternoon cocktail/wine?  Find those empty calories you are ingesting and place a limit on them like only 4 of the 7 days a week or only one or the other.  But come up with a plan to limit them but not eliminate them (everyone needs a treat from time to time).

     Rule 4: Speaking of empty calories....by now I think we all agree that white flour, white rice, and white potatoes are more calorie than nutrients.  Breads, pastas, etc....need to be eliminated if possible, and at the very least limited.  I prefer to not allow them at all but this may be your hardest rule if you love your carbs, so maybe just limit them to 3-4 days of the week.

     Rule 5: Weigh yourself morning and night.  Lots of people are 100% against this idea.  But I think that it helps you to see where you are at and make choices for the next day as well as see the impact of your day's choices.  Usually there is a slight difference in the 1st thing and last thing weights, just start to see that and react accordingly.

This is the key to the entire system-You may break any rule you like, you will just need to add 10 minutes or 1 mile of running to your weekly total.  That's per rule broken.  If you decide to have a late night snack of bread pudding....there's potentially 3 rules in 1 if you are over the weekly allowance already.  So choose wisely!

     Try this but one caveat: Don't increase your running mileage to fast!!!