Instead of scheduling in deloads for your training, look at your life. Look at the calendar and see if life will give you that deload. It may even happen unexpectedly, and that's what I wanna talk about today. Welcome to the Whits and Weights podcast. I'm your host, phillip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition. We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in.

When it comes to your strength training schedule, many programs have what's called a deload programmed in or suggested at a certain point. A deload is simply a week where you reduce the intensity of your training. Let's say you train four days a week. On a deload, you might only train two or three and you might cut out half of the movements or reduce the intensity a little bit on the main lifts. That's just an example. Now some programs will say go ahead and take a deload every fifth week, or if you feel like a deload is needed after six, eight, 10 weeks, go ahead and take it. Other programs might say don't even take a deload unless you absolutely need it. Now, there's not really a right or wrong answer. It really comes down to your level of built up fatigue and stress. But here's what I want you to consider Life will often give you those deloads without you needing to program in, whether those are vacations, illnesses, holidays. There are all sorts of reasons where, if you look at your calendar ahead for the next six months, you may be able to intelligently structure your programming calendar so that that week is a deload.

And the reason I bring this up is because people often stress about what to do if they're gonna go on vacation for a week. Should I go find a gym? Do I bring my bands? Often the easiest answer is just don't train, just take a break, just relax. If you're really into it and you wanna find a gym and you wanna go there and it's not gonna interfere with your plans for the vacation. And I've done that once or twice where my brother, my father, we all went to the gym together. It was a fun experience and it didn't really take away from the vacation because we were doing it together.

But if you're out, hold away on your own in a gym when you could be enjoying the local sites, the sounds, social experiences with your friends and family. That might not be a trade-off you want. So look at that week as an opportunity to just not train. Are you gonna detrain significantly? Of course not. You're probably not gonna lose any strength and muscle at all, to be honest, for just a week and then you can get back to it.

The other cool thing about doing it that way is taking a break lets you learn about your body and whether certain things were beating you up. You know your squats and your deadlifts. Maybe they were giving you low back fatigue that wasn't going away, and now that it has, you get that information and when you get back to your training you can see if that was a thing. So life gives you deloads. Look at your calendar, train smart and make it work for you, and that's the essence of sustainable living. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights. If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.