Why More Work Isn't Getting You Better Results

00:00I think a lot of people need to hear this because they avoid DLO weeks. Not that they don't understand them intellectually, it is that they are generally afraid of them. There's a lot of fear of losing progress. This is the reality of that. Meaningful detraining, measurable loss of strength and muscle does not begin to occur until two, three, four weeks of incomplete inactivity with no training stimulus whatsoever. whatsoever. So a single week of reduced volume training does not cause muscle loss, not even close.

00:35Most women come back from a DLO week feeling and performing better than before they even did. What's going on, everyone? Hey, you guys, welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show, where we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. Today is a topic that I haven't talked about in a really long time. I'm not going to talk about mindset. We're not going to talk about nutrition.

01:06We're going to talk about training for once. I think it's been a little bit of time since I've dove into the training workout conversations with you guys. So today I want to bring to y'all a valuable concept within the fitness space, which is a DLO week. Now, if you've never heard of a DLO week, some of you guys may be thinking that it's a week of easier training, and that may sound like an excuse to slack off.

01:36And that sounds like, you know, something that people already do when they're not committed enough, and it sounds like something that, you know, would set me back. But maybe some of you guys that are more advanced have heard of this topic before, but have been unsure how to incorporate it into your training schedule, and have also struggled with the mindset aspect of you go so hard for so long that you'd feel like you're going to lose your progress if you take a step back for a week.

02:07Now, I'm going to spend, you know, the next so many minutes in this episode with you guys completely dismantling that type of thinking because a DLO week is not a break for your progress. It is what I believe like a non-negotiable part of it. And the women who skip it, they're not training harder than the women who actually take it. The women that are skipping it are training less intelligently, and over time that gap is going to show up in their results, in their body aches, and even possibly an injury.

02:41So today we're going to talk about what a DLO week actually is, what is happening in your body, and how to make it just a part of your routine. How to know when you need one, exactly what to do during one, and also like why you're maybe so afraid of it and what the fear is actually costing you, okay? So I just want to start with a clear definition on what it actually is. Because again, there could be some confusion within the fitness space around

03:13and resistance training around DLOADing and where it comes from and why. So understanding it is obviously very important. So a DLOAD week is a planned intentional period of reduced training designed to allow your body to fully recover, to adapt, and to come back stronger. It is not a week off. It is not you quitting. It is not you, you know, being lazy and just putting a fancy name on it. It is a strategic reduction in training volume in your intensity or in both.

03:49So you could just do a reduction in your training volume, meaning you lower reps and sets, and we'll get into the tactical side of it. Or you just lower in your intensity, meaning you just go with lighter weights and higher reps. Or you can do both. And it typically lasts a whole week. And that is built into a training program as a deliberate tool for long-term progress. Now the key here is planned. The key word here is planned. A DLOAD week is not what happens when you get sick and you miss a week of training.

04:24It is not the week that you skip because, oh, life just gets busy. Now, depending on where you're at in your season of training, you know, if I'm more working with you like personally one-on-one or if you're inside of Warrior Babe, you can put unplanned training or DLOAD weeks in, but majority of the time, and that's just because you're making it sustainable, you're making it, you know, you're recognizing that it is intentional if you do that.

04:54But for majority of it, they are planned. It is a schedule intentional part of your program. And it's, you know, it's meant to, we're going to get all into all of that. But I want to talk about an analogy. I want to talk about, like, I want you to hold on to this analogy for the entire episode. I want you to imagine that your training is like pulling back a bowstring. And every week of you, of progressive, challenging, you know, you're going in,

05:26you're doing your workouts, you pull that string back further. So you're pulling more, you're putting more tension, you're putting more load, you're putting more stimulus on this, on this arrow, on this bowstring, right? And that tension is what produces results. But a bowstring held at that maximum tension indefinitely does not shoot an arrow further. It's just going to snap, or it will lose its elasticity, or, you know, the person holding it, that person's arm is going to go out, cause injury.

05:59So the deload is the moment that you realize, the moment that you release, and you do it intentionally, you can control, but you're releasing, the moment that you release, before you pull back again. So all that bow and arrow. So deload is the moment that you release it, and you're doing it intentionally and controlled, before you pull back even further and something bad happens. And that release is what allows that next pull then, to then go a little bit further.

06:29And then, then the last pull. Does that make sense? So you're allowing each time when you release it, and then you go into the following week, you're pulling that, you're pulling it back, you're pulling it back, you're pulling it back, and you're getting to, you're producing results this way. Without the deload, you're, you are not consistently pulling harder. You are wearing out that system that makes pulling even possible. So I want you to just like, if you would love, like I love thinking about that way in terms of, that analogy is because it makes my brain paint the pictures in my mind.

07:01And I work really well off of being able to do that. Now, let me just get a little bit deeper with you guys. Because I think once you understand what is actually happening under the surface, like internally, with your body, the deload stops feeling optional, and it starts to feel extremely obvious. If you are just, every, every training session that you do creates some type of fatigue. That is by design. The training stimulus has to be challenging enough to create a response, right?

07:34But fatigue also masks the fitness program that you're doing. When you are training hard week after week without a recovery period, your body is accumulating this fatigue faster than it can clear it. So what that looks like in practice is your strength feels flat, even though you have, you've been consistent. Meaning your workouts are harder than they should. Your motivation to train is less, is lower than it is usually. You feel beat up. You're, you're not getting, you're not getting weaker,

08:05but you're getting more fatigued. And that fatigue is hiding the fitness gains that you've actually been building underneath of it. The deload clears that fatigue. So over time, this is, you're accumulating fatigue over time. When you throw in a deload, it's clearing that fatigue out. And what then emerges on the other side is, you know, it's where that, that, that, that, that strength or that, that energy, that motivation has always, it's always been there, but now it's visible because that fatigue is gone. Right? Is that making sense? Then there's this,

08:37there's a cycle. There's what I call it a super composite, composite, compensation cycle. And it's a concept that makes deloading make complete sense. So when you apply a training stimulus to your body, your performance temporarily drops, right? Because the workout creates fatigue and micro trauma to the muscle tissue, creating those muscle fiber tears. Then given that adequate recovery, your body rebuilds to a slightly higher level than it was before.

09:07Now this is called super compensation. This is how adaptation works. This is how you get stronger, but super, this, this concept, super compensation requires recovery time. If you apply the next training stimulus before the recovery and the cycle completes, you interrupt it. So you get some adaptation, but not as much as you would have if you had allowed the full cycle to happen.

09:37And when this happens week after week, week, month after month, you accumulate than a fitness debt. So you are, you are always slightly under treated and over trained at the same time. And then results are slow and plateaus happen and injuries creep in. This is why what a deal week gives your body the time that needs to complete that super compensation cycle. Not just from, you know, the last workout, but from the accumulated training stress of the last several weeks.

10:10So think about that. Like you are going into, you're constantly, you're, you're applying some of this to your body and then your performance is temporarily dropping and you're constantly doing that over time. And then you throw in a deal of week, which then will allow you to come back a little bit stronger and stronger than you were before. That's the cycle. But if you just keep going and keep going and keep going, you're going to put yourself into this fitness debt. Now, so that's why you need to,

10:41a deal of week has to be a part of this complete cycle. And then this, let's talk about your nervous system for a second, because I don't think this one gets talked about enough. Your muscles recover relatively quickly within the 48 to 72 hours from most women with adequate nutrition, right? But your central nervous system, the neurological system that coordinates and drives your training recovers much more slowly.

11:13So, and I've experienced this in my training before, chronic heavy lift training without having adequate recovery creates basically fatigue within your central nervous system that looks like you're getting weaker. You're having poor, you're having poor coordination, your, your, your sleep is disrupted. There's more irritability. There's loss of motivation to train. This is where you guys are more advanced and have been doing this for years. They're not signs of you like getting weaker or just having like some type of like mental softness within you.

11:48They are neurological signals that the system is overtaxed. And this is why it's so important that you have these consistent daily weeks in place, because it allows your central nervous system to recover. And then most importantly, to also have the recovery that sleep alone cannot provide. Because even though like a good sleep, the here and there is great, but it does not fully reset your nervous system that is being pushed hard every single day. Quick break. If you're finding this episode helpful so far,

12:18it would mean a lot if you could hit pause for just a second, leave a quick rating or a review or share it with someone who could benefit from it. Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me. And then another thing is muscles aren't the only thing that we're talking about when you're under this type of training stress. You also have your tendons, your ligaments, your joints. They're all, all the,

12:49like the connective tissue that holds everything together. And that's all getting a hit when you're, when you're constantly doing, when you're constantly training and not allowing a break in between. So what a D-Low Week does, it allows that connective tissue to catch up. And it is one of the most effective injury prevention tools available. Not because again, like I don't want people to think that D-Low Weeks are weak or, you know, it's, I'm, I'm not, I'm slacking off. It's, it's letting your body in the supporting structures of your body stay healthy enough

13:23to handle the training that you're asking of them long-term. I want you to think of it like that. So how do you know you need one? Because there are two ways to approach D-Loading. There's programmed, and then there's also audio regulated. Both work. Understanding both of them though, gives you flexibility. So a programmed D-Load is when you build a D-Load week into your training calendar at regular intervals regarding of how, regardless of how you feel. It's the most common approach. Um, and it's done every like four or six or eight weeks of hard training.

13:59Some programs use every like sixth week. The exact frequency, it just depends on you personally. Maybe you're working, if you're working with a coach, they would be the best one to establish this for you. But it depends on your training volume. It depends on your intensity. It depends on your recovery, um, and your life stress too, as well. So the argument for program D-Loading is that it removes the guesswork and the temptation to just skip it. You do not have to feel bad enough to justify the D-Load.

14:31It is just on that schedule, next on your schedule the following week. And it, and because it's planned, you don't, you don't experience it as like a setback. It's just a part of your programs. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss,

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15:33That's WarriorBabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. This is the way that I would highly recommend it. Now, an auto-regulated deload is when you do load based on signals from your body rather than on being on a calendar. And this is what I kind of talked about earlier at the beginning of the episode where like, yeah, there could, you could get sick or you could have life happen and situations happen and busy and, or your body is so sore that you need to take a week off.

16:07You learn to recognize the signals that recovery is falling behind and you respond by pulling back. So specific signs I have watched for people when training them is your strength has been flat or declining for two or more weeks, despite you being consistent and you also being consistent with your nutrition. Your workouts feel significantly harder than they should at weights that used to feel manageable. Your motivation to train.

16:38Now, this is like, you've been in this for a while and you can understand because it's not like, I'm not motivated today. No, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to somebody that's learned how to recognize these signals that recovery is falling behind. And that takes a year is to be able to be intuitive with your body like that. Um, but your motivation to train is generally low. Like not just like a one bad day, but like a persistent, just flatness. You feel sore the time. Um, even in muscles that you didn't really train recently, your sleep is disrupted. You're waking up exhausted. You're more irritable than you used to.

17:09So this is like something that I would pay attention to as your body is trying to tell you something. Any two or three of those together is your body asking for a deload. And the women who ignore those signals are the ones who end up injured, who end up burnt out, or just in some deep acclimated fatigue that they need weeks to recover instead of one. So my recommendation here is you use a program deload week,

17:40basically knowing that your body needs it. So when it comes to this difference of these two, you use a program deload week every six weeks as a default. It's just programmed in there. Or you, at some points throughout your training, and this is probably for a little bit more advanced people, like I said, you use the auto-regulated signals that your body is telling you as an override, meaning if your body is asking for a deload week at like week three instead of week six, and take it at week three.

18:10The schedule is a guide. It's not a rule. So you don't have to be, you know, you don't have to be an all or nothing. Every six weeks I deload. No, your body is telling you that you need to take a break. You take a break at week three. Okay. So, what to actually do during, you can do it multiple ways. You can do reduction in volume, not intensity. We'll talk about that first. So we'll talk about reduction in volume and not intensity. So, I think this is one of the most effective deload strategies for women,

18:42is to cut the training volume, the total amount of work that you do, by roughly like 40 to 60%, while keeping your intensity roughly similar. So what that means is you do fewer sets, you do fewer exercises, you do shorter sessions, but the weights that you use are not dramatically lighter. So why you would keep the intensity is because heavy enough loads are what tell your muscles to maintain their current level of development. Dropping to a very lightweight during a deload can actually send like a,

19:14like a detraining signal telling your body that it, it does not need the muscle that it has been building. Now, you're not going to lose any progress. If you do decide to do less intensity, which is also an option, as I stated earlier, you're not going to lose all your progress in one week. You just may come back the week following. If you do do lighter weight, it may just feel a little bit harder in your first or two sessions coming back, but that's okay. Cause your body's going to adapt. Your muscle is amazing memory. It's going to be right back to it. So yeah,

19:45instead of for volume, instead of doing four sets of squats, you do two. Instead of five exercises in a session, maybe you just do three. Um, instead of training four days and we train three. Ah, sessions are shorter. The total work is less, but the weight on the bar isn't dramatically different. So that's what it means by reducing your volume, not intensity. You can reduce your intensity, which is dropping your weight and not pushing as hard. Um, but keeping the rep range, I would still keep the rep range higher,

20:15which means the volume is a little bit higher because you still want to have some burn or challenge at the end of the set. That's how I would say if it was flipped and you were focusing on keeping your volume relatively the same or a little bit higher and just lowering the weight. You're not going to lose your progress in one week. And I'm going to get to that in a second too. Um, or a deal of a week, you could just keep moving with just less demand. So it's not a couch week, but you do light movement, walking,

20:46swimming, yoga, cycling, anything that supports recovery by increasing blood flow to the muscle. Uh, you're clearing metabolic waste. You're maintaining the movement patterns. Your body has been building. The keyword here is light. It's light, not a hard hike that taxes your legs the day before your, your first workout back. It's just an easy, enjoyable time that is restorative and feels good. During this week, this is where a lot of people get things wrong is you have to pay attention.

21:21To extra attention to your nutrition because training volume is reduced. Some people, some of them feel like they also reduce their food intake. Hear me loud and clear. Ladies do not do this just because you are training like on a reduced level. You do not need to reduce your food intake. Also, your body is an active recovery and adaptation.

21:51During a deal a week, it needs fuel to complete that super compensation process that I talked about. Protein stays the same. Your muscles are rebuilding and protein is what they need to, in order to do that. Your overall calories stay roughly the same, but this is not the week to cut aggressively. This is the week to fuel that. Fuel the hardware that you've been putting in for the last couple of weeks that you've been building. And if there's ever a week to prioritizing getting eight or more hours of sleep,

22:25it is a deload week. Sleep is when the majority of the hormonal and the neurological recovery happens. More sleep during a deload week amplifies the recovery effect significantly. So focus on getting more sleep this week. And then what I would say is let yourself rest. Let yourself be okay. I'm going to get into the mental side of this in a second, but this part is so underrated because part of what a deload week provides is a psychological recovery as well.

22:58A break from the mental discipline of pushing hard, showing up, tracking performance, hitting targets. It's you're giving your permission to enjoy the easier week without the guilt of like, I need to get in the gym. I need to hit this X, Y, and D. It's a lot harder. It's easier said than done. But this mental reset is a part of what makes the comeback next week that much stronger after. Okay. I think a lot of people need to hear this because they avoid delo weeks. Not that they don't understand them intentionally.

23:28Intellectually is that they are generally afraid of them. And I want to just, I want to name that fear directly because that fear is costing you more than a deload ever will. There's a lot of fear of losing progress. Like I just mentioned, the most common fear I hear all the time. If I ease up for a week, I will lose everything that I've built. If I don't let this heavy, I will lose all that I've built. My muscles will shrink. My fitness will disappear. I'll have to start over. This is the reality of that. Meaningful detraining. Measurable loss of strength and muscle.

24:01Does not begin to occur until two, three, four weeks of incomplete inactivity with no training stimulus whatsoever. Whatsoever. So a single week of reduced volume training does not cause muscle loss. Not even close. In fact, because of that cycle I talked about, most women come back from a deload week feeling and performing better than they, than before they even took it. Heard that so many times.

24:32You will not lose your progress. You will just make it stronger coming back. There's also the fear of being seen as not being committed enough. And this is where this narrative in the fitness space talks about like, the dedication looks like this. More harder. Never stop. No days off. And that narrative is exhausting to hear in the space because it's driving people into the ground. Taking a plan easy week feels like admitting you're not serious enough.

25:02But the truth is the most disciplined thing that you can do in a training program is follow it as written, which is including the deloads. Commitment is not the same thing as never resting. Commitment is doing what the long-term game aspect requires of you. And also the long-term health of your body requires of you. And the long-term game requires that you do deloads. Okay. So those are the two, like a few main things I want to talk about. The fear of losing progress and the fear of not being committed enough.

25:36When you come back and what happens on the other side, and I want to close out, you know, this, as we get closer to closing, and I'll say this, your strength goes up. And this is the part that never stops surprising women who do it for the first time. They expect to feel rusty, which you may, it's different for everybody, or week after like an easier week. Instead, they come back majority of the time and hit weights that felt hard before the delo week with, with noticeably more ease. Because the fatigue that was masking their fitness is gone.

26:10Now, like I said earlier, what is, what was always there is now more visible. They just accumulate a fatigue over weeks and weeks of training. You have to give your body this break in order to, you're not getting weaker. You're not getting mentally softer. You're not losing motivation. It's just, you're accumulating this fatigue, and you have to allow this break. So that on the other side of it, you're like, oh yeah, that was just fatigue. Now the fatigue is gone. And now here I am. I'm back. I'm stronger than ever. The motivation returns, the flatness,

26:41and like the grinding feeling that often comes before you do a deload, where training feels like a chore, rather than something that you want to do. That goes away. You, you come back actually wanting to be in the gym. Like that eagerness is not just like, it's not just physiological. It is a physiological signal that your body is, is recovered and ready to go. And your body changes. Like this sounds counterintuitive, but it's one of the most consistent things when we report back after doing a proper deload, we can consistently over time, they look different.

27:11They look more defined, more rested, better because the inflammation and the water retention that associates with chronic training stress has been reduced. So the deload is not a pause in your progress. It is a moment that your progress gets stronger and shows up. So if you haven't implemented a deload week, I would recommend that you do taking this information and strategically placing it and planning intentionally when it will be placed.

27:44If you're somebody that's like, dang, my, my body's in that, like it's telling me if you're more advanced and you have that intuitive understanding of what your body's trying to tell you and the signals that your body's trying to tell you, then I would implement one. Okay. It's planned. A deload week is planned. It's intentional. It's having that reduction in training volume. And it's allowing your nervous system to recover. And it's protecting that connective tissue. It's not optional for women who are training seriously and consistently.

28:15There's a non-negotiable part of long-term progress and, and, and overall long-term health too. So just to like touch on everything we talked about, deload weeks, I would say every like six weeks as a default user body signals. If you're, if you're signaling that disruptive sleep, low motivation, persistent soreness, then an override says to, for you to take it sooner, that take that as an override to do it sooner. So week three, don't go to week six, week three.

28:45All right. And then during a deload, reduce your volume, keep the intensity roughly like similar, or on the flip side, you can keep the volume a little bit higher with higher reps and lighter weight. Make sure you keep the protein, the calories in place. Make sure you prioritize your sleep and let yourself actually rest without feeling any type of guilt. It's okay. It's a part of the process. And if the idea of an easier week, like generally genuinely scares you sit with that because of fear of rest is almost never actually really about fitness until you address that aspect within you.

29:21It will keep you cost. It will keep costing you the very progress that you're working so hard for. All right, you guys, I hope this episode helped you. I hope you have a deeper understanding of deload. I hope that you incorporate them into your training and you understand the importance of them for your, for your overall long-term, the long-term game of lifting weights and changing your body composition. All right. Share this episode with somebody in your life who never takes a rest and never takes a rest week. And where is that like badge of honor that they work out seven days a week, every single week.

29:51Nah, send this to them. All right. She needs this more than she knows. All right. Love y'all. I'll see you in the next episode. Peace out. Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all of the difference, helping more women discover the tools they need to transform the fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review.

30:23I appreciate you so much.

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