Research

Hormonal

A one-week complete cessation from resistance training (detraining) at the midpoint of a 9-week program does not enhance hypertrophy, power, or endurance compared to continuous training, and significantly reduces strength gains.

If your goal is maximizing strength and size, do not take a full week off from training. This study shows that one week of complete rest during a training block blunts strength gains without improving muscle size. If you are fatigued, consider a 'deload' with reduced volume or intensity rather than complete cessation.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
our findings suggest that a 1-week detraining period at the midpoint of a 9-week RT program appears to negatively influence measures of lower body muscle strength but has no effect on lower body hypertrophy, power or local muscular endurance.
Max Coleman et al. · 2023

Why this rating

Randomized controlled trial with direct supervision of lower body training, though the sample size is moderate (n=39) and it is a preprint.

Source

Gaining more from doing less?

Max Coleman et al. · 2023

DOI 10.51224/srxiv.302

preprint · n=39Cited 3×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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