An article written by USAPL heavy hitter Jeff Fiss

I constantly go back in forth with folks about the benefits or perceived benefits of “deloading”. Jim Wendler wrote a great article about this that I frequently review whenever I get the itch to scratch training. Deloading is basically to take a break from extreme training. But how beneficial is it really? I think it all depends on the individual. Much of my training is instinctive…meaning I don’t follow a set schedule of sets and reps. I do have a basic outline for training lined up in advance for a contest, but it gets changed about 1000 times.
When you do extremely heavy training week in and week out, the body definitely feels it. Joints are aching, muscles are sore, the mind is tired….the list goes on and on. But how beneficial is it to “go light” so to speak in training if indeed you are a strength athlete? There are a couple of ways to look at this, and this is only my opinion:

1. Going light is a waste. I think Ricky Crain said it best. Going light does nothing to get you any stronger, so it’s only wasted work. Doing 3 sets of 10 with a weight that is 50% of your best 10RM is just not productive to me.

2. Going light still taxes overtrained muscles and tendons. Like it or not, inflammation is still getting “inflamed” by doing work. Tendinitis and bursitis have been dubbed “overuse” injuries….so what, you are going to continue to use them more??
A thought on speed/dynamic work: Speed work is supposed to be done at maximum effort, meaning you must exert maximal force against a barbell that only weighs 40-60% of your 1RM. If you do speed work correctly and not coast through it as a “light day”, you should be pretty beat after doing speed sets if you were exerting maximum force against a barbell to get it moving as fast as possible. This will tax muscles if done correctly.

3. When it hurts, don’t do it. I’d rather have NO training than a crappy half-assed session.

So what do you do when you just aren’t up to snuff to train heavy? Take it as an opportunity to work some other areas of your training…..
1. GPP or General Physical Preparedness can be worked. Pulling a sled for distance is a great way to help stay in shape while you heal up and give you mind a break from heavy training. It’s not specific to the classic lifts and it can help bring up weaknesses in lagging muscle groups.
2. Flexibility. Take some time to work on some tight muscles that may be holding back some of your lifts. I have tight hamstrings for example, so I take an extra couple minutes per day to lightly stretch these muscles after they have been warmed up from a shower or a light walk.
3. Pre-hab work. Do some high reps with a moderate weight to flush some blood into some injured muscles or joints. These should be movements that aren’t normally performed in practice, such as internal/external rotation exercises for the rotator cuff, or some reverse hypers for a sore low back. Doing light squats, benches, or deadlifts when those are the things that got you burned out is not smart to me.
4. Delay training a day or two….if you aren’t up to snuff to train heavy, why not just put it off a day or two to get that extra day’s rest? You’d be surprised at how much better you will feel after an extra day or two of rest, and it will keep your body guessing by throwing different days at it instead of the same old Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday routine. You can always cycle back around to get on track with training.
These are just some of the things I think about during a long training cycle that pushes me both mentally and physically. I’m not saying that “going light” is necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t think it’s always a good thing either. I opt for special exercises to bring my recovery up instead of the normal grinding exercises that got me beat down to begin with. Like it or not, heavy weights still have to be done to get stronger, and going light is not going to get you any stronger. Just me thinking out loud here, I could be wrong.

-Fiss