You know how they say “sleep on it” for important matters in your life? See a climbing deload week as your body’s way of “sleeping on it”.
Especially if you are a beginner in climbing training, it is tricky to know or understand the benefits of a deload climbing week.
But if you think about it: What do you do when you feel mentally tired and like you need space from your usual routine or even certain people?
I personally switch to less demanding activities, go for a hike or run on my own. By taking space I can better integrate certain thoughts and allow inspiration to kick in. I feel it is the same with a deload week.
“You can’t shoot another bullet until you’ve reloaded the gun” (Quote from fitness and bodybuilding study on deload).
So what exactly is a climbing deload week?
A climbing deload week is when you intentionally reduce training for climbing (volume, power, endurance) so to allow recovery from an intense period. See it as holiday for your body.
There are two types of deload: proactive (strategical) and reactive (self-regulated). Ideally, one should plan their proactive deload weeks throughout their training.
Proactive deloading
This is strategic because you intentionally plan to reduce the intensity, regularity, and volume of your training.
It means it’s part of the training strategy and is already scheduled at the beginning of your training cycle. Its purpose is to maximize performance, break the plateau, and avoid accumulated fatigue that can lead to overtraining.
Reactive deloading
This is imposed by typical symptoms of overtraining and it feels like your climbing progression didn’t go as planned.
Basically is the scenario of someone who’s been keeping the same training pace for weeks – high volume and high intensity without making any changes (rest, taper, deload).
What are the symptoms that I need a deload week?
Assuming you’re a beginner at training and you did not incorporate proactive deload in your routine, reactive symptoms can be:
- Body fatigue
- Slower recovery than usual
- Feeling stuck and moody
- Under your usual max level
Keep in mind, fatigue is a very personal thing also influenced by your ability to cope with stress (both physical and mental). Therefore it is also important to check in with your body and adapt your day whenever you feel like your body is more tired than usual.
Other reasons for taking deload weeks
I do have a good example for it: me! I am writing this article while in the recovery process from a hamstring strain.
That particular day I woke up feeling very tired and not motivated to climb hard although the previous day, on my rest day, I couldn’t wait to get on a certain route! What changed was the fact that in the evening I had dinner with some friends, we ate late, had some drinks and obviously went to sleep late and did not get a proper sleep.
I knew it was particularly bouldery and it didn’t feel right but despite that, I still chose to go simply because I felt excited about it the day before! Wrong! I placed a heel hook and the next thing I heard was two powerful sounds in my hip which ended in me not having any sensation in my left leg and being unable to put weight on it.
Pay attention to your level of fatigue
Your climbing performance can also be influenced by the type of training you are doing (long vs short, endurance vs high-intensity)
In my case, long endurance training makes me very tired towards the end of the session – and hungry. Yet, high-intensity bouldering power sessions don’t get me as tired and I have to pace myself.
I associate climbing efficiency with feeling wasted, which should not happen at the end of a high-intensity training. These might affect the way you feel while climbing but it is not necessarily a bad thing.
That being said, what can help in identifying your needs is asking yourself which boxes you’re filling in and seeing where you’re at. Also, keep in mind training for climbing is a very complex matter and it is hard to label fatigue, both physical and mental.
The best advice I can give is to eat well and pay attention to your body: how you feel during training and after.
What does a climbing deload week look like?
Deloading can vary a lot based on each individual. Depending on your climbing level, predisposition, and other to-be-determined personal factors, your proactive deload week should ideally be programmed once every 5-8 weeks.
However, past the age of 40, the human body adapts and recovers harder and starts losing muscle mass hence stamina and endurance decline. Therefore one should adapt training and climbing sessions accordingly and consider programming a deload week once as 2 or 3 weeks. Remember this timeframe can vary based on climbing level and how you are feeling.
For example, a deload week could mean taking time to do other activities outside climbing. Eric Horst suggests deload days can include hiking, running, belaying, or even tendon activation hangboard with low volume hangs.
Keep in mind your choice of staying active by doing other activities and not stopping completely is also based on habits you already have.
For those who are just starting out training for climbing and are yet unfamiliar with certain aspects of it, it’s probably safest if they integrate deload into their training cycle once at 4 weeks.
In any case, beginner or not, doing around 25% less of your usual training as a form of prevention should be enough for your body to recover and bounce back to a peak and higher motivation level.
In terms of how to change your training this depends on whether you are preventing fatigue of already tired (or something like this):
- Prevention: You can do less volume to decrease the fatigue, but keep the intensity to maintain the quality of your training
- You already feel slightly tired: You can do less intensity and less volume altogether
How to deload for specific symptoms
Less strength and finger soreness
- Reduce fingerboarding (eventually adapt the mm edge to one that feels ok)
- Avoid crimps and use slopers instead
- Work more on big muscles
Worn out and generally fatigued after training
Reduce the volume of your training, both intensity and volume by half
Avoid putting pressure where it hurts and eventually adapt our training
Mild aches, sore muscles or pain
Don’t stop completely. Simply reduce up to 75% (or stop training activities if needed) and do easy climbs for a week. Test, see how it feels, and avoid doing exercises that trigger your pain.
If you feel close to an injury stop all training activity that triggers pain and see a sports specialist or a coach for further advice and guidance on how to safely and effectively train.
Will a deload week help me get better at climbing?
Most certainly it will! Here are the main advantages of deload bouldering:
- Allow your (super stressed) soft tissues to recover, therefore lessening the risk of injury
- Manage fatigue better
- Have the time for that hike you never do because “it’s not a priority”
- Boost your training progression
- Increase your chances of breaking a plateau
What is the science behind deload climbing week?
Although it’s safe to say deloading reduces the risk of overreaching and overtraining, there is not much study on the issue regarding the gains. In the world of climbing, we know more from personal observations, pro-climber experiences, and passionate climbing geeks than actual studies.
However, if you want to dig in more there is a study that documents the “Deloading practices of competitive strength and physique athletes, experiences of deloading, and approaches taken to do it“. As with every study, take it with a pinch of salt.
I quote: “periodised program will make use of unloading phases and cycles to dissipate fatigue and allow for training to continue without maladaptation, or for the cumulative effects of consistent training to be realised within competition. Nonetheless, without sufficient recuperation, performance can become affected by non-functional overreaching and recovery periods are required to reduce the negative consequences of consistent, progressive training.”
Moreover, according to the study Integrating deloading into Strength and Physique Sports Training Programmes:
“There was universal agreement that training volume should be decreased during deloading. Previous literature has shown that undertaking extended periods of high-volume resistance exercise training can result in overreaching and overtraining and that integrating short-term periods of low training volume can still be effective in maintaining or promoting meaningful increases in muscular strength and hypertrophy, even in resistance-trained individuals and competitive strength athletes. This is perhaps why, in part, coaches involved in this study agreed that a minimum effective dose for volume might be adopted during deloading.”
Ready to deload and avoid overtraining?
Between hobbies, life-work balance and so on it’s quite easy to lose track of time and not understand why all of a sudden you are experiencing fatigue. That’s why, to avoid overtraining, educate yourself in tracking your training.
By doing so you’ll have an overall down-to-earth perspective on what you are doing and you’ll also be able to program your proactive training next time!
Read more about overtraining syndromes in our article here.
What is your experience with climbing deload weeks? We’d love you to let us know in the comments.
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