recovery week?

Dan 55

New member
I know taking a solid week off of heavy training is important to break plateaus and continue to make gains and grow but how often should someone take time off? I am talking about someone who trains persistently and heavy.
 
When I was a CrossFitter, I could always tell because I would struggle to improve. If I went a few weeks without going faster/heavier/better, I was overtraining. I had all of the other normal symptoms at this point, especially poor sleep quality.

If you do more conventional lifting, then plateaus are not necessarily from overtraining. I always time myself between sets. Normally, It's to slow me down to the appropriate 2 minutes. When I'm burning out, I feel like the clock is pushing me when I'm not ready. I also just generally don't want to be there.
 
Usually, I take one week off about every 3 months.
Or 12 weeks.
You know your body better than anyone, so whenever you feel exhausted and weaker, just take a good week off. Especially when you see a decline in the weight you've been doing.
But be sure to enjoy the break and hit it harder when you get back to the gym.
 
Dan 55 said:
I know taking a solid week off of heavy training is important to break plateaus and continue to make gains and grow but how often should someone take time off? I am talking about someone who trains persistently and heavy.
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I would recommend after every 8-12 weeks. Definitely don't go too much past 12 weeks before taking a break; even 16 weeks is pushing it. take it from me - I've just had over 33 weeks without a week off any training at all (I know, silly - I didn't realize it was that long), and last week, my body just gave out and said "Nope, week off, mate." If you don't give your body appropriate rest and recovery, it will FORCE you to - like mine did. And once it does that, you're pretty much screwed for quite some time, and have to be careful getting back into it, or else it will keep doing it.

~Team APPNUT
 
^ True

It's better to take a break when you feel like you need one than to keep pushing it. If you burn out your CNS it will take a much longer time to fully recover than had you just taken a week off earlier on.

Peace
 
You know what's weird... I'm powerlifting for like 2 months, and have not plateaued at all. I'm going up 3% every week without missing a beat. Yet, I'm lethargic lately, so I'm taking a week off before going right back to my current schedule.

Usually my performance diminishes before I lose my drive, but I guess there's a first time for everything. It's so hard to waste a week when you're hitting new records :sad:
 
drvinnybombat said:
You know what's weird... I'm powerlifting for like 2 months, and have not plateaued at all. I'm going up 3% every week without missing a beat. Yet, I'm lethargic lately, so I'm taking a week off before going right back to my current schedule.

Usually my performance diminishes before I lose my drive, but I guess there's a first time for everything. It's so hard to waste a week when you're hitting new records :sad:
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thats not weird... you just started lifting. once youve been liftinf for 5+ years you wont be saying the same thing
 
^^ Yeah, unfortunately, I think I may never make it that long. I'm already thinking about going back to CrossFit. I can't help it; it's like crack.
 
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