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Depletion Workouts, are designed to drain your muscle's energy reserves to the point of exhaustion.

It involves working a muscle until you deplete its glycogen supply. Glycogen is the carbohydrate energy source produced by your muscles, used for short-term energy releases. Exhausting your muscle's glycogen supply hence means that they are fatigued to the point where they can no longer lift anymore.

Combining a depletion workout with a proper diet leads to gains in lean muscle mass and an increase glycogen load in your muscles.

Proper Routine For Depletion Workouts

Depletion workouts often encompass circuit training or superset workouts where you move from one exercise to another without rest. Short breaks are only taken in between each set of exercises. Your primary goal being to exhaust your target muscles of all their energy.

Good depletion workouts will hence encompass higher reps per set then strength or power training. 15-20 reps per set is an ideal range so you would be using lighter weights as well. The number of sets however depend on each individual and their glycogen load. The human body typically holds 2000 kCals of glycogen. Most lifter perform anywhere from 5 to 7 sets when embarking on a depletion workout routine.

Long-distance runners for example will burn through this at around 20 miles assuming an average 100 kCals/mile burn rate (estimated rate for average person). Once they deplete their glycogen they experience what is commonly known as 'the wall' where their body feels like it can no longer continue.

Testing your glycogen load

An individual's glycogen load and burn rate varies depending on their physical training, basal metabolic rate and eating habits. So naturally those who are on low-carb diets will need to do less sets then those on high-carb diets in order to exhaust themselves. This is because there is less dietary carbohydrates for your body to use in order to produce more glycogen.

In that sense, early morning workouts done before breakfast are a good way to go as this is when your body has the lowest amount of stored carbohydrates. Your goal of exhaustion can then be reached with fewer sets.

Why Do It

The next question is of course "Why put your body through this?"

Draining your muscles of their glycogen load sends a message to your muscles that it is not holding enough glycogen to sustain your body's activity. So the muscle will overcompensate with your next carb intake and hold more nutrients, giving you fuller more packed muscles that have higher and longer lifting capacity.

This is ideal for individuals that want lean muscle mass with more definition as opposed to size.

Reloading from your depletion workout

Reloading from your depletion workout is just as, if not more important than the workout itself. Right after your workout you are looking to take in a large intake of carbs and protein to replenish your energy source and throw your body into an anabolic muscle building state. If balanced right you won't see much in the area of fat gains either. 

Your main intake is carbohydrates. You are looking to consume about 5-7 grams of carbs for every 1lb of body weight.

Protein is also vital in this mix as you will require it to rebuild your muscles. You are looking to consume about 1 gram of protein for every 1lb of body weight.

So for a male who weighs 170 pounds you are looking at  3400 to 4760 calories of carbohydrates and 680 calories of protein on the day of your workout and another load on the day after.

Try to minimise fat intake as this will go straight to building fat and slow your recovery process. Fat is of course unavoidable in your diet, especially when reloading with such high calories, so just try and avoid very high-fat foods like butter and fried items.

Seeing as you have a large carb intake you should be looking at finding the most effective sources. This being starches and some sugary foods.

Avoid fruits and other items that contain fructose corn syrup. This turns to fat quickly and aren't very beneficial for your muscle gains.

Instead choose food that are higher in sucrose like some types of candy and sugary cereals.

Also avoid bulky sources of carbohydrates like oatmeals and rice as your primary source of carbs. Your best in complex carbs are breads, muffins, pasta and some sugary cereals.

Depletion workouts should only complement your regular workout routine, not replace it. Most lifters schedule depletion workouts once every two weeks. They often, time it before weekends so they have time to recover and reload. Also the reload diet involves more fun foods than healthy snacks.

For those looking for quicker gains in lean muscle mass, you can perform depletion workout once a week as well. The main idea being that you leave enough time for your body to recover and rebuild your muscles.

We don't advise performing Depletion Workouts any more often then that, as the reload diet won't give you the proper nutrients and vitamins a balanced diet does. Depletion workouts also prove to be very strenuous on the body and recovery can add undue stress if performed too often.

If done too often or with an improper diet depletion workouts will end up burning muscles instead of fat. So if you do wish to use depletion workouts it, ensure you follow instructions carefully and stick to a proper reload plan.

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