Q: I just ordered and downloaded your e-book, The Art of the Deload. I am going to scour and devour it, I am curious about my situation, I am about to turn 50, I am entering my 22nd year of competitive powerlifting, I am used to linear cycles ( I know, seriously old-school) I have toyed with a Westside type template, where I took their standard Max-effort/Dynamic Effort and rolled it over on a three day program (Mon-Wed-Fri Mon), But, when I jump-started my lifting career last Sept for a Push-Pull meet I went back to the standard linear cycle.

After that long winded intro, here is my dilemma, I have a full meet on the last Sat of April (first time for a full meet in 5 years due to Five knee operations) Would a jump into a deloading cycle help me of hurt me this close to a full meet (Raw, no Gear, and no “Gear”)?

I have already written out and started lifting my typical Cycle, Should I “dance with the girl who brung me” or kick the old girl to the curb and consider a cycle with the deloading weeks built in?

A: Thanks for your email – and your purchase.

As you can probably tell from my e-book, I’m not a fan of linear periodization at all. If you look at the research (Rhea et al from Arizona State), you’ll see that it’s been proven inferior to undulating models on multiple occasions. And, anecdotally, the conjugated periodization have had much more success when they switched away from linear.

And, to be honest, if you’ve had five knee surgeries in five years, you ought to take some PLANNED deloads so that you don’t have to take UNPLANNED ones.

Give this article a read; I think it’d interest you in how I structure my stuff:

You can count backward from the date of your meet.