Lifting thread

[Idolater]

... Weight training at least every two weeks is what you should be thinking if you're thinking of weight training. You can do it more frequently, just listen to your connective tissues. When they complain, listen to them. They're never malingering.

De-load is when you take 75% of your 1RM, and then cut it in half. Do two sets, six reps each. Do them well.

This is what you do when your connective tissues, your joints, are sad, or injured. De-load is how you recover best.

De-load makes it so that, as your joints heal and restore, they do it in the context of weight training, and not in the context of just sitting around.

Both conditions, sitting around, and de-load, promote healing and restoration. But de-load promotes it in a weight training direction.

So you're all ready to get back to regular weight training, after you're done recovering and refreshing and renewing your joints and connective tissues, after de-load.

You can de-load for as long as you want, but if you take two weeks or less, you won't lose any muscularity or strength.

De-load is like your finger on the pulse of your recovery. You can feel how it's going very clearly during de-load.

You should also be eating at a caloric balance (or surplus) when healing your connective tissues. iow don't be dieting for fat loss when recovering your connective tissues. Eat at caloric balance, meaning, maintain your body weight. You can diet when your connective tissues feel good, but don't skimp on nutrition when you're trying to renew and refresh connective tissues.

While longer sleep helps, I've found that it's the number of nights sleep that helps more than how long you sleep during the night.

De-load is also good for recovering from anything else, like an illness. If you're recovering from or suffering with an illness, and it makes you weak, then de-load while you recover, it will give you insight into how you're coming along, beyond just how you generally, systemically feel. It will also be how you feel weight training, which is a different aspect of how to feel.