What is a deload week, and how often should you take one?

A deload week is a planned week of easier training: fewer sets, a little less weight and sets stopped further from failure, so the fatigue from your hard weeks can fade before the next block. Coaches generally deload every 4 to 6 weeks, for about a week at a time. In STRONG, every fifth week is a deload by default.

By the STRONG team · Updated October 2026

What is a deload week?

Twenty-one strength and physique coaches from several countries voted over three rounds in a 2023 Delphi study and agreed on this definition: "Deloading is a period of reduced training stress designed to mitigate physiological and psychological fatigue, promote recovery, and enhance preparedness for subsequent training."

They left the method open: fewer reps per set or fewer sets per session, a lower percentage of your one-rep max, or stopping each set further from failure. By the final round, every coach on the panel agreed that a deload can cut sets. Athletes do much the same in practice. Those surveyed in 2024 cut volume and weight during a deload but kept training on their usual days.

How often should you deload?

Most coaches deload every 4 to 6 weeks, according to the coach interviews the 2023 paper draws on; the panel itself didn't set a schedule. The 246 competitive strength and physique athletes in the 2024 survey averaged one deload every 5.6 weeks. Neither source tested whether one interval works better than another, so start in that range and, after a few blocks, move the deload a week earlier or later depending on how your last hard week went.

Do you need a deload week?

The only trial we found compared a week off with no break at all. In a 2024 randomized trial published in PeerJ, 39 trained adults (29 men, 10 women) followed a 9-week program. One group trained straight through; the other took the middle week completely off. The week-off group gained slightly less lower-body strength, and their lower-body muscle growth was similar. The trial didn't test a lighter week.

We schedule a lighter week instead of a week off, so you keep training on your usual days with fewer sets, less weight and an easier effort. Whether that avoids the small strength cost of a full break hasn't been tested.

Say you're in week four of a block. The squat weight that moved fine two weeks ago has felt heavier for three sessions running, and your last set has been a grind every time. In STRONG, the following week is already a deload, so you don't have to make that call in the middle of a bad week.

Where the deload falls in a STRONG program

This is how STRONG plans it: by default, a program runs in repeating five-week blocks, and the final week of a program is a test week.

In the deload week, the main lift gets about 60% of its usual sets and every other lift about half. The weight drops to about 90% of what you normally lift. The target effort is RPE 6 on the 1-to-10 effort scale, and the weight doesn't go up that week, however easy the sets feel. Warm-ups shrink too: before your first lift you do only the two heaviest warm-up sets.

A sample deload week workout

Take a lower-body session: squats for 5 sets of 8 at 50 kg (about 110 lb), then Romanian deadlifts and lunges for 4 sets each. In the deload week you squat 3 sets of 8 at 45 kg (about 99 lb) and do 2 sets each of Romanian deadlifts and lunges at about 90% of their usual weight, every set at around RPE 6. The week after, normal progression picks up again: once every working set reaches the top of its rep range at RPE 8 or less, the weight goes up next time by 1 kg (about 2.2 lb) on upper-body lifts or 2.5 kg (about 5.5 lb) on lower-body lifts, or the smallest step your equipment allows. The progressive overload guide covers those rules in detail.

If you write your own program

Pick the deload week before the block starts and put it in your plan, so you don't talk yourself out of it on a week when you feel good. That week, keep your exercises and training days, cut your sets roughly in half (a little less on your main lift), take about 10% off the weight, and end each set while it still feels easy. Don't add weight, and go back to your normal sets the week after.

Deload week vs. lighter period days vs. rest days

All three mean doing less, which is why people mix them up.

A very light day is close to a one-day deload. The difference is what sets each one off. A deload follows the program's calendar, and lighter days follow your cycle and the energy answers you gave. The full lighter-day rules are in working out when you're tired before your period, and the bleeding days are covered in working out on your period.

Deload for women: timing the week around your cycle

In a 2021 study of 6,812 exercising women recruited through Strava, none of them on combined hormonal birth control, 86.2% reported tiredness or fatigue as a cycle symptom. If a fixed calendar puts a loading week on the days you usually feel worst and the deload two weeks later, you end up doing your full program when your energy is lowest.

If you tell STRONG your energy drops noticeably or a lot, the planner places an easy week (the app's name for a deload) around every predicted period, where you choose: the week before your period, the week it starts, or half of each. Some limits keep the program from sliding into a string of easy weeks. With fewer than 2 loading weeks since your last break, that week is a lighter week instead (one set fewer, same weights), you never get two breaks in a row, and in very long cycles a deload is forced after 5 loading weeks. If your energy hardly drops, a deload that's due moves onto your period week. Your cycle data stays on your phone and is not uploaded, and you can delete it in Settings.

A deload is for training fatigue. If your period stops or becomes irregular while you're training hard or eating less, see a doctor. The NHS advises getting checked after 3 missed periods in a row and lists doing too much exercise and sudden weight loss among the causes. The IOC describes Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs) as a syndrome of health and performance problems caused by eating too little for the training you do. The NHS also lists heavy periods that affect your life, severe pain during your periods and bleeding between periods as reasons to see a doctor.