Because strength training breaks down your muscles in order to become stronger, you need to take your foot off the gas once in a while, says Tatiana Lampa, CPT, a certified personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist. It helps your body recover, prevents injuries, improves your performance in the long run, and more.

Deload weeks are crucial to your overall wellbeing—but there’s a right way to add one to your routine. Ahead, trainers spill their best advice for taking a load off.

Meet the experts: Almoni Ellis, CPT, is a NASM-certified personal trainer based in Virginia and founder of MoFit coaching programs. Tatiana Lampa, CPT, is a certified personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist and the founder and creator of the Training with T app and Move Better program.

Why Deloading Is The Key To Better Gains

Deloading is an opportunity for you to reset, helping you become stronger in the long run. Here are the benefits of deloading, according to trainers:

• Prevent injuries. Instead of pushing for heavier weight when your body is fatigued, a deload week “allows your body to take some time off to make sure that it is recovered to make sure that injuries don’t occur, so you have more in the tank to give later down the line,” says Ellis.
• Decrease stress in the mind and body. “Heavy lifting adds stress to the body and increases cortisol levels,” says Ellis. Taking a pause on lifting the absolute heaviest weights you can will pause that internal process, decreasing stress.

• Improve performance. Integrating a period of reduced training stress, like a decrease in training volume or intensity, can actually help enhance future performances, according to 2023 research in Sports Medicine-Open. This is because you allow your muscles time to recover, which will help them become stronger and more adaptable down the line.
• Reduce fatigue. Deloading can also help you feel less tired, according to a 2022 study in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, as it prepares and recovers your muscles even better for future workouts. Oftentimes “after that deload week, you’ll feel more energetic and actually surprise yourself by lifting heavier,” Lampa says.

How To Tell If Deloading Makes Sense For Your Training

Anyone can—and should—do a deload week, even if you’re a beginner, experts agree. “You could be a runner, you could be a powerlifter, you could just be training for life,” says Ellis. If you exercise and you get to the point where you’re having a hard week, you can’t lift as heavy, or it feels like you’re getting little petty injuries here and there (like a minor ankle sprain), then you should deload.

Here are some other signs that you should add a deload week to your training routine, according to Ellis and Lampa:

• You’re starting to get sick
• You can’t lift as heavy as normal or progress
• You’re exhausted and don’t feel recovered, no matter how much you sleep
• Your muscles are still sore for days after workouts
• You’re bored with your workouts
• Your performance in the gym is is declining overall

How To Incorporate A Deload Week, Based On Your Routine

Deloading looks different for everyone, depending on what type of workouts you usually do, the intensity, and how your body feels. Here are some ideas for how to deload, and you can mix and match any of them to tailor your deload week to you, Ellis says. Just listen to your body and make sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard.

• Reduce volume. This means decreasing your reps, sets, or weight if you’re lifting, and mileage if you’re a runner. Let’s say you usually do five sets of squats for five sets each with 180 pounds. You could do three sets instead of five, or reduce your load to 100 pounds instead, Ellis says. And if you average 15 to 20 miles a week when running, just run one or two recovery runs of a few miles each, Lampa says.

• Lengthen rest periods. Depending on your workout goals, you may be waiting for between 30 seconds to five minutes to begin your next set. Ellis says you can increase your normal rest duration by one or two minutes during a deload week, or you can wait for your heart rate to lessen, giving you the chance to catch your breath and feel like you can hold a conversation again.
• Move at a decreased rate of perceived exertion (RPE). When you’re doing an intense workout that gets your heart rate up, cardio especially, you can measure the effort you’re putting in through your RPE. One is very easy, like you’re lying on the couch, and 10 means you’re giving your all, and you’re completely out of breath. During a deload week, make sure all workouts are held at a conversation pace, which is a four or five out of 10, Ellis says.
• Try low-impact activities. If you just need a break from higher-intensity workouts, supplement one (or a few) of your days with lower-impact workouts, like cycling, walking, or Pilates, Lampa says. Plus, it’s fun to add variety to your workout plan. It’s “good to add in different other exercise modalities to switch it up,” Ellis says.

• Substitute moves. If your leg day includes tough moves where you lift heavy weights, like a deadlift, try an alternative exercise that uses the same movement pattern of the hinge, like a good morning or kettlebell swing, Lampa says. That way, you’re “still generating power, but we don’t have to load as much,” she says.
• Take time off. Yes, it’s still a deload week even if it’s not technically a complete week of working out. You can take up to seven days off, if your body is craving it, Lampa says. This is the week to not push it, so time off is completely acceptable—and even encouraged.

How To Fit A Deload Week Into Your Gym Schedule

How often you deload depends on your program, exercise experience, and training frequency, but here are some general ranges to follow, according to Ellis and Lampa:

• If you’re a newbie: Deload every six to eight weeks, Lampa says. You’re “just getting into your rhythm,” so spacing out your deload weeks will allow you to strengthen your body before moving on to heavier loads, she says.
• If you’re a casual exerciser: Listen to your body. If you’re someone who likes to lift weights on your own and attend a few group fitness classes during the week, but you’re not training for any competitions or following a strict program, just see how you feel, Ellis says. “Your body will tell you when it’s time to deload,” she says. “Do what feels good in those weeks.” However, four to eight weeks is still a good guideline to follow for everyone, Lampa adds.
• If you’re a more advanced athlete: Add a deload week every four to six weeks, because you’re likely lifting heavier weights than a beginner, Lampa says. This range allows you to take a week to rest once a month, which is a good cadence regardless of what type of training you’re doing, Ellis says.

What Should Come Next After Your Deload Week

Don’t just jump back into your regular programming willy-nilly after a rest period—you’ll want to gradually ramp your volume and workouts back up so your body doesn’t take on too much right away.

First, look at your programming and consider your progress over the past weeks before your last deload session, Ellis says. Think of whether there were any goals you set out to accomplish. If you did, great—onto the next goal. If you didn’t, head into your first week post-deload exercising at a lower intensity, then, increase the intensity as the weeks go on until the next deload sesh, she says.

For instance, say you really want to nail a pull-up. Maybe you’ve been working on assisted, controlled pull-ups over the past six weeks, reducing the amount of assistance every week. Then, during your deload week, you increase the resistance a bit more—or skip pull-ups altogether. The week after, you might ease back in by doing lat pull-downs to increase your pull strength before fully jumping back into pull-ups the following week.

Pro tip: Write down how you feel before, during, and after your deload week, Lampa says. That way, you can keep track of how your body reacts to deload weeks, and if you need to change anything in the future, like scaling back even more during the deload week, or trying something different.

Say you still worked out during your deload week, but you just lightened up your volume. Then, after deloading, you feel like your lifts aren’t as great as you thought they’d be. That’s “probably a sign that you should have just taken that full week off,” Lampa says.

Remember that along with your deload week, you should also prioritize getting seven to nine hours of sleep, staying hydrated, and eating healthily (with lots of protein!), to maximize your recovery, Lampa says. And the good news is that you can choose your own adventure when it comes to deload weeks. When all else fails, listening to your body is the name of the (deloading) game.