Deload weeks: the important weeks most runners and cyclists skip
- Emma O'Toole
- Feb 8
- 6 min read
Many runners and cyclists believe that training harder is what makes them fitter, but real progress comes from adaptation, not accumulated fatigue. Deload weeks are a planned reduction in training stress that allow your body to recover, absorb the work you’ve been doing, and prepare for the next block of training. In this article, Emma O’Toole explains what a deload week actually is, how it differs from a recovery week, how often endurance athletes should deload, and what a deload looks like in practice. If you want to train consistently, reduce injury risk, and keep improving long term, deload weeks are not optional, they’re essential.
Strength training for runners and cyclists over 30 is a game-changer for performance, resilience, and long-term health.
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TRAINING BREAKDOWN
"Training alone doesn’t make you fitter, adaptation does."
By Emma O'Toole
Hi there!
I recently mentioned in my free community for runners and cyclists over 30 that I was in a deload week, and I had a lot of questions come in afterwards:
“What did the deload actually look like?”
“How did I know when to do one?”
“What’s the point of them?”
Now, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while, you’ll know I’m not particularly interested in hacks, shortcuts, or “one-hit-wonder” approaches to training.
I am interested in the stuff that works long term (even if it gets labelled as boring).
Deload weeks firmly fall into that category.
Most runners and cyclists either haven’t heard of deloads (or “down weeks”), or they’ve heard the term but don’t really plan them or use them well.
They can be scary in the same way rest days are because it feels like lost time. However, they’re how you maintain your consistency, reduce injury risk, and keep progressing long term.
So in today’s newsletter, I want to walk you through what a deload week actually is, why it matters whether you’re training for an event or just training consistently, and what this looks like in real life.
Training doesn’t make you fitter, adaptation does.
This is always the first thing that I want runners and cyclists to understand.
Your running, cycling and strength training don’t make you fitter on their own; they apply stress to your body and it’s your ability to recover and adapt to that stress that drives improvement.
Now if we layer stress upon stress, week after week, you can likely hazard a guess as to what will happen. In fact, I’m sure a few of your reading this have experienced this…
… You feel a bit flat, a bit heavy-legged, and generally a bit more “meh”.
What often happens here is we see runners and cyclists “push through” or the wheels well and truly come off and they stop training in its entirety.
Enter deload weeks!
What is a deload week?
A deload week is a planned reduction in training stress. Planned being the key word.
You still train, you just reduce what’s driving fatigue:
Total volume
Overall intensity
The structure of your training often stays the same, eg. the days you train, but the stress comes down.
That’s what separates a deload week from a recovery week.
A recovery week is when the pressure comes off training.
This usually happens after a race or key event, at the end of a season or when you recognise you need a break from structured training.
Recovery weeks, (sometimes longer than a week!) are unstructured or lightly structured. They focus on a mental and physical reset and often happen 2-3x per year
Deload weeks, however, sit inside a training block and are there to help you absorb the work you’ve been doing, helping to:
Reduce accumulated fatigue
Restore neuromuscular readiness
Improve movement quality
Lower injury risk
Help you mentally reset without stopping training
Set you up for your next training block
Deload weeks apply whether you’re training for an event or simply training for long-term health, fitness and durability.
If you want to keep training consistently for years to come, deloads matter and you certainly don’t need a race in the diary to justify managing training load properly.
How often should you deload?
There isn’t one perfect answer, but there are well-thought-out structures.
Common approaches include:
3 weeks on / 1 week deload
4 weeks on / 1 week deload
2 weeks on / 1 week deload (work well for masters athletes)
You're not married to a deload structure, it can ebb and flow depending on what you're training for and what other stressors you're facing.
What happens in a deload week?
As mentioned above, you keep the structure of your training, eg. Sunday long run/ride, Tuesday intervals, however you reduce the overall training stress.
That reduction largely comes through decreasing the volume. Often by ~20–50%. eg. your typical 6 hour training week drops to 4 hours. This figure, however, fluctuates depending on experience and your training volume.
Intensity is still maintained in smaller doses.
A quick note on strength training
Deloading is actually discussed more clearly in strength and conditioning research than in endurance literature.
The general consensus defines a deload as a planned period of reduced training stress designed to reduce physiological and psychological fatigue, promote recovery, reduce the risk of overtraining and enhance preparedness for subsequent training.
This is standard periodisation practice.
While the metrics differ (sets, reps and load vs hours, minutes and intensity zones), the principle is exactly the same for endurance athletes:
Planned reductions in training stress allow for adaptation to reduce physical and mental fatigue, promote recovery, reduce the risk of overtraining and enhance preparedness for subsequent training.
That’s why deloads matter when you run, ride and strength train.
What a deload week looks like in practice
Two weeks ago, the week beginning January 22nd, I was in a deload week.
This wasn’t reactive, and it wasn’t because anything was going wrong, it was simply a planned deload at the end of my training block.
I generally work on a 3 weeks on / 1 week deload structure. In this case, that deload came out at just under a 30% reduction in total training volume (around 28%) compared to the average of the previous three weeks.
To put some actual numbers on it:
Week 1: 11 hrs 20 mins
Week 2: 11 hrs 48 mins
Week 3: 12 hrs 05 mins
Deload week: 8 hrs 28 mins
As you can see, I didn’t stop training and intensity was still there, just in smaller doses:
2 × 10-minute Sweet Spot intervals, at a slightly lower % of FTP.
1 mixed Fartlek-style interval session.
Strength training total volume reduced.
Everything else was aerobic development.
In this deload week, I reduced overall volume and training stress enough to allow my body to adapt to the training and give myself a little psychological reset.
Coming off the back of that deload, I started the next block of training last week feeling fresher and more motivated, and in my first key session back I was able to hit a 2 × 20-minute Sweet Spot session comfortably, and it genuinely felt good.
That’s the benefit of a well-timed deload.
How to apply this to your own training
If you’re training consistently, I’d encourage you to look back at your own weeks and ask:
Do you ever deliberately take a down week before building again, or is this forced?
If you look back over the past 12 weeks, can you see obvious dips in volume across your training history?
If and when you “deload”, do you also reduce intensity, or do you try to make up for less volume with harder sessions?
If this raised questions about your own training, I’ve pulled everything I’ve covered here on deload weeks into a clear, simple PDF, which I’ve shared inside my free community for runners and cyclists over 30, click here to join.
It’s the space where I can support you properly with context, questions and ongoing discussion about your running and cycling.
Speak soon!
Emma x
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