Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to bounce forward with me, Tip Haul.
Speaker 1: I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians the land on
Speaker 1: which I'm recording this podcast, the waundry people of the
Speaker 1: cooler Nation. I pay my respects to elders past and present.
Speaker 1: Carrie had a great question, what is a dload week.
Speaker 1: I've been told by a trainer before that I need
Speaker 1: to deload in my workouts. They said, go crazy, eat
Speaker 1: what you want for a week, no exercise, and then
Speaker 1: come back and we'll have tricked your body and you'll
Speaker 1: end up stronger than when you work out again.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I trust this advice.
Speaker 1: Help, Oh Carrie, Okay, that sounds fantastic, Like just go crazy,
Speaker 1: eat what you want, no exercise, and come back and
Speaker 1: you'll be stronger than before.
Speaker 2: Fantastic.
Speaker 1: A dload is definitely my jam and a deload week.
Speaker 1: It is firstly well planned out, and it's a well
Speaker 1: planned reduction in exercise intensity and volume, and it's commonly
Speaker 1: incorporated into training programs to facilitate recovery and prevent overtraining.
Speaker 1: And this whole concept is particularly relevant in strength training
Speaker 1: or endurance sports and any physical training kind of routine
Speaker 1: that involves high intensity or high volume periods.
Speaker 2: So it's really important.
Speaker 1: Let's look at the purpose of a deload week and
Speaker 1: then how you might integrate it or yeah, because I
Speaker 1: don't agree with everything your trainer has said. So first
Speaker 1: of all, the purpose of a deload week is all
Speaker 1: about recovery. So you've got intense training, it puts a
Speaker 1: lot of stress on your muscles, a lot of stress
Speaker 1: on your nervous system and your connective tissues. So deload
Speaker 1: week allows these systems to recover, to repair, and it's
Speaker 1: crucial for preventing injuries and that long term fatigue, that
Speaker 1: nervous system just shutting down and going I've got nothing.
Speaker 1: So then you've got but also performance improvement. So by
Speaker 1: incorporating periods of lighter training, you know, particularly athletes can
Speaker 1: avoid plateaus and they can then have the dload week
Speaker 1: maintain and even improve performance by allowing the body to
Speaker 1: adapt to the training load and then coming back. And
Speaker 1: then you've got the really important thing, which I reckon
Speaker 1: is amazing, the mental recovery. Continuous high intensity training can
Speaker 1: be mentally exhausting, so dload week can also serve as
Speaker 1: a mental break and help you to stay mentally fresh
Speaker 1: and just give you motivation. So how then do you
Speaker 1: implement all of this? So you've got to look at
Speaker 1: a reduction in intensity or volume. So there are a
Speaker 1: few ways to structure a deload week. You can reduce weights,
Speaker 1: reduce you're lifting by forty to sixty percent of your
Speaker 1: usual loads, and just maintain the number of repetitions and sets,
Speaker 1: so just bring the way down.
Speaker 2: Or you can reduce volume.
Speaker 1: That's another way to approach, to keep the intensity the same,
Speaker 1: the same amount of weights lifted, but reduce the volume
Speaker 1: so fewer sets and fewer reps. So instead of reducing
Speaker 1: the weights, you're reducing the reps and the sets. And
Speaker 1: then you can also reduce frequencies. So maybe you train
Speaker 1: three four times a week, so maybe as a dload week,
Speaker 1: you just train twice and you're recovering more. And the
Speaker 1: other way you can do a deload week is by
Speaker 1: switching out your more intense exercises for less intense exercises.
Speaker 1: Maybe focusing on different body parts can also bring a break.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've been really focused on lower body and now
Speaker 1: you're going to do a bit of core and upper
Speaker 1: body and just give the lower body a rest, so
Speaker 1: that's another way of doing it. Timing of deload weeks
Speaker 1: are really important, so you've got dload weeks are typically
Speaker 1: scheduled every three to six weeks, depending on the train
Speaker 1: intensity of like you know, this is I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like an athlete here, but the frequency can be based
Speaker 1: on age, experience, your overall physical condition, and also looking
Speaker 1: at the signs of needing a dload week. So are
Speaker 1: you overtraining and having decreased the performance, persistent fatigue, reduced enthusiasm, motivation,
Speaker 1: Are all these things happening to you, then definitely you
Speaker 1: do need a dload or more recovery. There are some considerations,
Speaker 1: so you've got to look at the specific needs of
Speaker 1: the individual and these can be very widely depending on
Speaker 1: the athlete's needs or the person's goals and sport they're
Speaker 1: training for. So what a powerlifter might need is very
Speaker 1: different to a marathon runner, very different to a mum.
Speaker 1: But you know, you've got to look at what are
Speaker 1: your needs and what are your goal and balance those goals.
Speaker 1: It's important to progress and get the benefit of that recovery.
Speaker 2: So you want to have your.
Speaker 1: Dload weeks very planned and strategic to maximize both. So
Speaker 1: incorporating dload weeks is really good into your program. I
Speaker 1: agree with that, and they are key to having long
Speaker 1: term progression and health in any kind of regime. If
Speaker 1: you just want to put a bit of lean muscle on,
Speaker 1: if you're like you know, like me, like a mum,
Speaker 1: just want to put a bit of lean muscle on. Yes,
Speaker 1: definitely need deload weeks every now and then. If you're
Speaker 1: an athlete, yes, absolutely a week off a stringent diet plan.
Speaker 1: If you're talking diet now, eat whatever you want. Your
Speaker 1: trainer said can boost your metabolism and help. But I'm
Speaker 1: not too sure of the science of this one. So
Speaker 1: if you've been in a calorie deficit for a very
Speaker 1: long time, it can be good for the metabolism and
Speaker 1: read it a bit and a great bring great psychological
Speaker 1: relief to just eat more calories.
Speaker 2: But I think eat whatever you want.
Speaker 1: In my experience, that can be harmful because you get
Speaker 1: that kind of binge mentality of the all or nothing
Speaker 1: attitude where you're either on a diet or a regime,
Speaker 1: or then you're off the diet doing whatever you want
Speaker 1: eating it. You don't want that all or nothing. You
Speaker 1: want this to be strategically planned. So if you're eating
Speaker 1: I don't know, fourteen hundred calories a day, you might
Speaker 1: want to increase that to two thousand calories, but just
Speaker 1: you know, up your protein, up your carbs, you know,
Speaker 1: be a little bit strategic about it. And in my
Speaker 1: experienced diet breaks do work the best when they're strategic.
Speaker 1: So you really want to prevent that metabolic slow down
Speaker 1: by being on diets for a long period of time anyway,
Speaker 1: because it can lead to decrease in metabolic rate and
Speaker 1: that survival mechanism where the body becomes more efficient in
Speaker 1: using energy and going, oh my gosh, we're in famine.
Speaker 1: I better slow down everything, and it can affect your hormones.
Speaker 1: So having a bit of a break from your usual
Speaker 1: regime with food for a week or so can rebalance
Speaker 1: levels of important hormones affected by a calorie deficit that
Speaker 1: you've been in for a very long time. And I'm
Speaker 1: assuming that this is a long calorie deficit, so such
Speaker 1: as letum, which regulates your hunger hormones, and cortisol, which
Speaker 1: is your stress hormones. So all those things can be recalibrated,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, I think mental health like having a
Speaker 1: bit of psychological relief from a diet break, where if
Speaker 1: you're on reduced calories, you're going to feel fatigued. You know,
Speaker 1: you're going to feel exhausted. So having a little break
Speaker 1: can alleviate that feeling of deprivation and fatigue and improve
Speaker 1: your mood and well being. So it's very important that
Speaker 1: you do do this, and it's also very important because
Speaker 1: it helps your adherence to a diet. So allowing the
Speaker 1: occasional indulgence or having a week where you're just a
Speaker 1: little bit more flexible, you're less likely to feel trapped
Speaker 1: in a diet, and therefore you're going to be more
Speaker 1: successful long term because you know, hey, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go a little hard here with a mini cut, and
Speaker 1: then in three weeks I'm going to have a diet
Speaker 1: break and then I'm going to go back on. And
Speaker 1: you always have this thing coming where you feel like
Speaker 1: it's strategic, it's planned, you know what you're doing, you
Speaker 1: know why you're doing it, and it's not just like
Speaker 1: have a week off and eat whatever you want. It's
Speaker 1: strategically planned and you're replenishing your energy stores, replenish glycogen
Speaker 1: stores in muscles, you'd feel really good, feel really strong.
Speaker 1: It's going to increase your physical performance in everyday activities
Speaker 1: as well as exercise, and the diet breaks just flood
Speaker 1: your body with nutrients and make sure all your needs
Speaker 1: are being met.
Speaker 2: And it's really really good, and.
Speaker 1: It reduces that risk of muscle loss, which is really important.
Speaker 1: So you calorie restriction, especially significant long calorie restriction can
Speaker 1: lead to muscle loss, so diet break can maintain that
Speaker 1: muscle mass and break that cycle and just make sure
Speaker 1: you're not losing muscle. So I guess diet breaks a
Speaker 1: really good tool, and dload weeks are really good tools.
Speaker 1: But my main message here is make sure that they
Speaker 1: are strategic, that you're not doing all or nothing attitude
Speaker 1: and having that mentality around exercise and food, that the
Speaker 1: ragime that you're originally on isn't too strict that you
Speaker 1: need a diet break. If you need a diet break,
Speaker 1: I think you need to ask yourself the question why why,
Speaker 1: Because maybe you being in such a long term dieting
Speaker 1: mentality is not serving you. So that's one thing. Having
Speaker 1: a dload week from intense training, or maybe you've been
Speaker 1: going hard. I'm going hard at the moment. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to increase my muscle mass, so I'm doing four strength
Speaker 1: sessions a week. I'm having a little bit of creatin supplement,
Speaker 1: I'm having lots of protein. I'm really trying to kick
Speaker 1: off my forties by mitigating any perimenopause symptoms and things
Speaker 1: like that. And I feel like i need a bit
Speaker 1: of a dload week soon because I've been going hard,
Speaker 1: and that will just mean going down to two sessions
Speaker 1: a week instead of four and concentrating more on core
Speaker 1: and upper body because I've been doing more lower body.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's the way you do.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be complicated, but there does need
Speaker 1: to be an overarching plan. It can't be just stop
Speaker 1: exercising and eat whatever you want, because that is not
Speaker 1: a plan and it will set you back psychologically. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening to Bounce Forward. I love having
Speaker 1: your company, So please dm me on Instagram at tip
Speaker 1: Hole Underscore XO and let me know what topics and
Speaker 1: questions you'd love me to answer. Don't forget to rate
Speaker 1: and review me on your podcast at speak soon.
Speaker 2: Happy Days,