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Deadlift help

0ni

0ni

Registered Rustler
Just finished my latest training cycle and found some interesting things.
I made just three changes this cycle and they were:

>Compressing my 3 hours workouts into 30 minute sessions and upping the frequency to 6 days a week and 8 training sessions
>Dropping deep high bar squats for low bar squats
>Concentrating on the upper back

I made these changes because of time constraints (for first point) and because my strength off the floor was great but had a weak lockout. In the previous training cycle I was doing a shitload of deadlifts against bands and went from 182.5kg to 190kg in 3 weeks. After doing a skills evaluation on Friday I came to the conclusion that I didn't really get the training results that I wanted from that cycle. My pulls now seem to have completely reversed... my lockout is fucking killer, the reps are smooth and there is not even the slightest hitch even when grinding it out. However I am now weak off the floor and not stronger to boot. Only my lockout is stronger which means that I just lock out the weight I can move off the floor better than I can before. My squat went up however, my PR was 130kg but I could only really do 125kg on any given day. That has increased now to 132.5kg.

So really now it is obvious that I need to work on my off the floor strength as it seems to have detrained somewhat while I focused on lockout. I was thinking of making the following changes and was wondering if anyone had any input on it. For the record my max effort deadlifts inch off the floor, speed up until it hits just under my knee then is locked out

>Alternating between full RoM front squats, low bar squats and full RoM high bar squats as my squatting exercise
>Alternating between halting deadlifts, sumo deadlifts (more because I've not done them in a long time than because I think it will help because I have no idea what training effect they will give but will have plenty of room for improvement) and shrugs

With the halting deadlifts, how are these best done? Sets of 1-3 reps with max weight like everything else I do or possibly for heavy sets of 5 with 1 rep left in the tank?

Cheers.
As an aside, deadlifts against bands are awesome for people with a weak lockout and doing them gave me a big increase in a very short amount of time and I recommend them to anyone with a weak lockout
 
I used to be weak off the floor and I don't know why it worked but I did only touch and go deadlifts for a couple months and increased my deadlift by 40kg.

Off the floor is now stronger than lockout.

Never been that keen on halting deads.

I would give deficit deads a go but I haven't been doing them long enough to know what effect they have.
 
Bazza, has your degree of back rounding/ set up changed?

From my limited experiences actually doing deads, up to about 170kg now I'm slow off the floor but fast at lock out, heavier than that I don't have the lat/upper back strength to maintain a completely neutral spine so I round a bit. Helps me break the floor quicker but then my lockout gets f*cked over
 
Yeah when the weight gets heavier I get a bit more upper back rounding which makes lockout harder.

Rack pulls didn't really do anything for lockout but at the moment I think that heavy power shrugs are really strengthening my upperback and helping lockout. Also widening my conventional stance a bit seems to allow me to get my glutes working more in the lockout helping the finish.
 
Bazza20 said:
I used to be weak off the floor and I don't know why it worked but I did only touch and go deadlifts for a couple months and increased my deadlift by 40kg.

Off the floor is now stronger than lockout.

Never been that keen on halting deads.

I would give deficit deads a go but I haven't been doing them long enough to know what effect they have.
Click to expand...

That is an interesting observation because up until the new year I was doing pretty much exclusively touch and go deadlifts. No idea how I can work that into my plan though. Maybe hitting my 1RM then doing a max rep set with 90%

I'm not so keen on deficit deadlifts, probably for the same reason you don't like halting deadlifts. They just felt really awkward for me. Got nothing to lose though so I'll give them a shot
 
Post a vid, you might just need more hamstring strength to start the pull. I personally like deficit deads as well but I would advise you to do conventional deads also (possibly as dynamic assistance) to make sure you don't mess with your form too much.

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with halting deads, I think they're more of a lockout strengthener.
 
Other thing i forgot to say was SLDLs but do them heavy. You should eventually be working with weights close to normal deads.

Also with deficit deads how big is the deficit you used. Don't do too much because that's when it changes the lift too much.
 
El Freako said:
Post a vid, you might just need more hamstring strength to start the pull. I personally like deficit deads as well but I would advise you to do conventional deads also (possibly as dynamic assistance) to make sure you don't mess with your form too much.

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with halting deads, I think they're more of a lockout strengthener.
Click to expand...

Just so we are on the same page, the halting deadlift is where you lift it to above your knees then drop it to the floor again right?

[ame=http://vimeo.com/18022443]Platform: The Halting Deadlift on Vimeo[/ame]

Bazza20 said:
Other thing i forgot to say was SLDLs but do them heavy. You should eventually be working with weights close to normal deads.

Also with deficit deads how big is the deficit you used. Don't do too much because that's when it changes the lift too much.
Click to expand...

I'll give them a go. For deficit deadlifts I just stood on a plate, it just felt like it was putting a whole load of pressure on my lower back
 
I'm very weak when it comes off the floor. It's actually 15kg less than my squat which is kind of weird. I've been doing a fair bit of reading about it and as of this week I will start doing deficit deadlifts as well as snatch deadlifts.
 
oioi said:
I'm very weak when it comes off the floor. It's actually 15kg less than my squat which is kind of weird. I've been doing a fair bit of reading about it and as of this week I will start doing deficit deadlifts as well as snatch deadlifts.
Click to expand...

what's your max squat though?

If you squat less than your deadlift it usually means one of a few things
- you are loose at the bottom of the deadlift
- your grip is failing
- your squats are high

I doubt that your weakness off the floor is actually true weakness, in which case you might be better off working on technique than deficit deads.

Deficit deads are great but they are taxing on your back and probably not the first priority for someone who is already loose at the bottom.
 
strong enough? said:
what's your max squat though?

If you squat less than your deadlift it usually means one of a few things
- you are loose at the bottom of the deadlift
- your grip is failing
- your squats are high

I doubt that your weakness off the floor is actually true weakness, in which case you might be better off working on technique than deficit deads.

Deficit deads are great but they are taxing on your back and probably not the first priority for someone who is already loose at the bottom.
Click to expand...

My squat is 135kg for 5 reps right now and it's climbing up weekly (I had a 8month hiatus from lifting thanks to breaking few bones). My squats are deep, ass to the grass. Well below parallel, but my body mechanics don't lend themselves to deadlifts. Not to mention I've a fair bit of meniscus cut out from front of my left knee.

Because of that injury my squats and deads were always pretty close, my knee is the limiting factor. My PR so far is 160kg squat and 180kg dead.

And no, my grip was never my limit and if I ever hit that limit I have lifting straps.
 
Did RDL today. On my warm-ups I got some trap work in there as well and did a shrug at the top of each rep. My work sets were 3x150, 160, 145kg. Seems like a great exercise and it felt easy on my back, which has been taking a real beating lately so I'm glad for the break lol. Front squat work sets were 1x90, 95, 100, 90, 90, 90kg. I felt like I could have gone higher in weight but I fell forwards slightly and the bar started to slip on the 100kg lol. Not sure how to fix this, hopefully it will improve just by front squatting more

oioi said:
My squat is 135kg for 5 reps right now and it's climbing up weekly (I had a 8month hiatus from lifting thanks to breaking few bones). My squats are deep, ass to the grass. Well below parallel, but my body mechanics don't lend themselves to deadlifts. Not to mention I've a fair bit of meniscus cut out from front of my left knee.

Because of that injury my squats and deads were always pretty close, my knee is the limiting factor. My PR so far is 160kg squat and 180kg dead.

And no, my grip was never my limit and if I ever hit that limit I have lifting straps.
Click to expand...

Serious question, are you asian?
 
My training schedule is squat, press, pull with 1 minute break in between all sets. I just pick an exercise I feel like doing and hit my daily max for the day. I then work out 90% of my top set and see how many reps I have done at 90% or higher. I then load the bar to 90% and do singles until I have done 6 total rep at 90% or above. If I'm doing more than 1 rep per set, I aim for 10 total reps. This takes me about 30 mins to do. I do this 6 days a week for a total of 8 training sessions (double sessions on tuesdays and thursdays)

Squat exercises: Front squat, high bar squat (both full rom), low bar squat
Pull exercises: RDL, SLDL (may as well do both variations and shoot for PR's in both), sumo deadlift, shrugs, deficit deadlifts (will use 15kg plates instead of 20kg plates)
Pressing exercises (for the sake of completion): Bench, strict press, one arm dumbbell push press
 
oioi said:
My squat is 135kg for 5 reps right now and it's climbing up weekly (I had a 8month hiatus from lifting thanks to breaking few bones). My squats are deep, ass to the grass. Well below parallel, but my body mechanics don't lend themselves to deadlifts. Not to mention I've a fair bit of meniscus cut out from front of my left knee.

Because of that injury my squats and deads were always pretty close, my knee is the limiting factor. My PR so far is 160kg squat and 180kg dead.

And no, my grip was never my limit and if I ever hit that limit I have lifting straps.
Click to expand...

So you're dead is 20kg more than your squat. Your initial post suggested the opposite (15kg less). 160sq/180dl is still a bit close but not hugely abnormal. When I pulled a comp 180 my dl 5RM was 160kg, my squat 5rm was 130 and raw squat 1RM was 147.5kg. But I'm not much of a natural squatter. FWIW there's no why it's your knee. Squats are harder on your meniscus than deadlifts due to ROM.
 
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