Nathanael: Ladies and gentlemen, what
is going on and welcome to another video. My name is Nathanael Morton and I am a sports performance
trainer who specializes in basketball players. In today's video, we're going to talk about
how and when you should do a deload week. We're going to talk about what a deload week is,
we're going to talk about how to properly do it, we're going to talk about when to do it,
and if you personally need to take a deload week. Nathanael:
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comment sections within the first 60 minutes. Nathanael:
So guys, what is a deload week? A deload week is a week of training that is less intense than your
normal training. And the reason why we would do a deload week is to recover the muscles,
recover the tendons, but most importantly, to recover, rest and give the central nervous
system a break so that it can build back up, so that you come back after that deload week fresh
and ready to go. Nathanael:
When should you do a deload week? Let's talk about the when before we talk about the how, because the
how to do a deload week is really the meat and potatoes of this video. So when you should do a
deload week is usually every four to eight weeks of your training. So if you've been training for
four to eight weeks, six weeks is really that magic number, and by magic, I don't mean magic
at all. You really base it off how you feel, how sluggish or tired you feel or don't feel,
but every four to eight weeks is usually a good timeframe for when you should take
a deload week. And I do want to put a little caveat in here. You don't have to take a full
week. Sometimes you just need a deload day. Sometimes you need a deload two or three days,
but sometimes you need that full deload week to really recover your central nervous system.
Nathanael: If you are feeling especially tired and sluggish,
and your vertical jump is starting to go down and down, and a couple of weeks ago, you were jumping
really high, but now you see you're not really getting as high as you were a couple of weeks ago,
you may need a deload week. You may just need to allow your tendons, your muscles,
your central nervous system to recover and build back up bigger, stronger, faster, more explosive.
Because remember, whenever we are doing our workouts, we are breaking our muscles down,
breaking our tendons down, breaking our central nervous system down to cause a stimulus to cause
an adaptation in our body. Nathanael:
We want to do that so that our body is forced to adapt and get bigger, stronger, faster,
more explosive, but after doing that for a while and four to eight weeks, it might be time for a
small deload to allow your body to recover from all of the work that you have doing. And usually,
after a deload week, you come back jumping much higher. Your one rep max or your PRs,
your lifts are stronger. You are moving the weight faster, you are more explosive, you feel better,
because that's what a deload is meant to do if you do it properly. So, that is what a deload is. That
is when to do a deload. Nathanael:
Now let's talk about how to properly do a deload. And I'm going to go ahead and get the whiteboard
out for this one, because I also want to talk about the difference between a deload week
and a rest week, because you don't want to take a full rest week. A deload week is different,
so let's get the whiteboard and let's get to it. Nathanael:
All right, so here we have a rest week and here we have a deload week. The number one difference
between a rest week and a deload week is that with a rest week, you are doing no workouts.
It's a complete rest week. No workouts. All that you are doing is resting, recovering,
getting your one gram of protein per pound of body weight, drinking your gallon of water,
making sure that you were doing everything for recovery, but you are not doing any workouts.
Nathanael: During a deload week, you are
still doing your workouts, but you're doing it at less intensity, less load, about 50% of the load
that you would do for a normal workout, so it just means use less weight, okay? So you're doing the
same sets, the same amount of reps, you are doing the same exercises, you're just doing less load,
less weight than you would normally do, because the point of a deload week is recovery,
okay? We're not trying to go to failure, we're not trying to break down our muscles, our tendons, our
central nervous system, so we're not going super intense. We are doing half of the load that we
normally do, just going through the motions, going through the same sets, reps and exercises so that
we can get that recovery, so that we can get that rest and build up bigger, stronger, faster, and
more explosive so that we are fresh at the end of the deload week. So, the major difference between
a rest week and a deload week is with a rest week, there are no workouts and with a deload week,
you are doing less weight and less intensity. Nathanael:
Now, I do want to point out, doing no workouts, taking a complete rest week is going to be great
for your muscles, your tendons, your central nervous system to build back up bigger, stronger,
faster, and more explosive. This is going to help you with rest and recovery, right? But I think the
major problem that I have with no workouts and the major benefit of doing a deload week with
less weight and less load, less intensity, is that one of the best ways to recover your muscles,
one of the prerequisites for optimal recovery is blood flow. And if you're just sitting there doing
no workouts, you're not getting much blood flow. You're literally just sitting there resting. So
it's great, but if we do less weight, less load, we still do the same sets, reps, exercises, but we
are loading with less intensity, we are getting that blood flow. We are still working out so
that blood flow is going to help us with rest and recovery so that we get bigger, stronger, faster,
more explosive, and come back fresher after that deload then if we would have taken a week of rest.
Nathanael: The next difference between a rest week
and a deload week, and this is my biggest problem. This is my biggest issue with taking a rest week,
as opposed to a deload week, is with a rest week, since you're doing no workouts, you're not
firing the motor patterns. You're not firing the skill circuits that you would be if you are still
doing the same workout, sets, reps and exercises. So think about vertical jump. Vertical jump
is a skill. Ball handling is a skill, shooting as a skill. Think about when you take two weeks
off of shooting, okay? If you're a real hooper, you probably can't remember the
last time that you didn't play basketball for two weeks, but think about taking weeks off of
basketball. You come back and you're shooting, you're like, I'm a little bit rusty." Okay,
it's the same thing for a vertical jump. Vertical jump is a skill, okay? It's a skill. So you need
to practice jumping a lot. Nathanael:
So if you take a full rest week and you're not firing those motor patterns, you start... skill
circuits get rusty quick, okay? A week of not firing those motor patterns, those skill circuits,
you're going to see the... You're going to feel rusty from not jumping. Now that's not to say
that a rest week is going to decrease inches on your vertical, no, it'll come right back.
You aren't going to lose anything on your vertical in a week. You're just, if you haven't fired those
patterns for a week, you're going to go and you're going to jump again and your brain is going to be
like, "Wait, we have to remember what to do again for jumping. Oh yeah. He wants us
to jump like this," but if you keep jumping during your deload week then you are still
firing those skill circuits, you're still firing those motor patterns in your brain.
Nathanael: Now you don't want to be jumping at max intensity.
During a deload week, you don't want to be doing full dunk sessions, okay? You want to jump at 50%.
Just practice your approaches without fatiguing yourself and breaking yourself down. That's a
major thing. You don't want to be breaking yourself down. You want to be building yourself up
recovering during a deload week. So my major issue with the rest week is that you get no firing of
the motor patterns or the skill circuits in your brain and you do during a deload week.
All right? So we have no firing of the motor patterns and here we have firing of motor
patterns. So these are the two main reasons why I don't like rest weeks and the two main reasons why
I prefer deload weeks as opposed to rest weeks. Nathanael:
So just to go over everything and summarize right here,
a deload week is a week of training that you do every four to eight weeks, normally around
six weeks is good to recover your muscles, your tendons, and mainly your central nervous system
so that you come back more fresh after that week of training, and then you continue with
the rest of your hard, intense training. You take a deload week if you're feeling tired or sluggish,
or your vertical jumps, you're just not jumping as high as you were a few weeks ago,
you take a deload week if you think you need recovery for your central nervous system.
Nathanael: In some of you who are younger and you
don't know your body super well yet, sometimes it is good to take a deload week anyways. And
you normally see your highest jumps after your deload week if you do your deload week properly
using less load, but still firing the brain circuits, the motor patterns that you need to. So,
really quickly, why does Isaiah Rivera jump so high? I'd argue that... Well,
we could argue it's many things. He can produce a lot of force in a very short amount of time,
but as opposed to that, or I should say, in addition to that, he fires his skill circuits
over and over and over. Nathanael:
If you follow Isaiah Rivera, that dude loves dunk sessions. That dude loves to jump. Me myself,
I like training a lot more. I like coaching a lot more. I like dunk sessions, I like jump sessions,
but not like Isaiah Rivera. That dude is like a kid in the candy store when he walks
into a basketball court. He's doing the legs, he's behind, he's pow. He's doing it all. Isaiah Rivera
loves it, but every time he does a dunk session, he is firing the skill circuits of dunking. So,
let's say this is running and this is jumping up to dunk, okay? This is a skill circuit right here.
And when you fire a skill circuit, you myelinate that skill circuit, it's called myelin. It's
in your brain, it wraps your neural fibers. And the more that you myelinate and wrap your neuro
fibers, the better you get at that skill. Nathanael:
So every time he does a dunk session, boom, he wraps it around a layer of myelin,
then he does another one, wraps it around. Every time you do a dunk session, Isaiah Rivera, boom,
wraps it around, wraps it around. So Isaiah Ramirez brain circuits
are like this. They're myelinated as heck. And then you have other people who can't jump as high,
their brain circuits look like this, okay? So who's going to jump higher? The person with wraps
and wraps and wraps a myelin around your brain circuits, firing those... I just threw my marker,
but I have the cap still. Firing those circuits over and over and over and over and over and over.
It's a skill. Nathanael:
And if you take a rest week, you're not firing those motor patterns, so you're going to come back
a little bit rusty. "Why ain't I jumping as high?" But if you take less load and you do a deload week
and you're not jumping max intensity, but you're still firing those skill circuits then you're
going to come back after deload week when you do jump max intensity, and you're going to be...
You're going to be dunking on everybody. Nathanael:
So this is what a deload week is, when to do a deload week, and how to properly do a deload week.
Still do your same normal week of training, use less load, less intensity, go through the motions,
make sure that you are still firing the circuits, you'll come back fresher,
your tendons will be rebuilt, your muscles will be fully recovered, your central nervous system
will be fully recovered and fresh and you will dunk like Isaiah Rivera. Okay, you won't jump
that high, but you'll be jumping higher than you were when you felt sluggish and tired.
Nathanael: That's it. Make sure that you comment
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Nathanael: (singing)