Physiology

A training plateau is sometimes part of the plan, not a failure

Your body needs time to 'process' the stimulus and actually grow

The supercompensation model describes how the body responds to training stress: after a workout, performance capacity temporarily dips (fatigue), then recovers back to baseline, and — if recovery was complete — rises slightly above baseline, building in a small margin for the future. That 'overshoot' is the actual mechanism behind strength and size gains over time.

The problem is that supercompensation happens on a delay and isn't perfectly predictable: train too frequently without accounting for recovery, and each new session lands before the body has risen above its previous baseline — progress slows or stalls, which feels like a plateau even though you're technically 'doing everything right.'

Deload weeks — a deliberate 5–7 day drop in volume or intensity every 4–8 weeks — work by exploiting exactly this mechanism: they give the body time to fully complete supercompensation on accumulated fatigue, after which the next training block often starts with a noticeable jump in performance instead of treading water.

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