Dr.
I am having trouble to understand the theory about deadlift. Based on Rip’s theory, dl is too easy to overtrain, that is why in the future people might only deadlift once in three weeks(with halting and rack pull switched). But based on other ssc’s theory(especially from you), one needs to increase the volume and frequency. I understand both theories make sense, and that is exactly I am confused, I don’t know which one is correct, and I do not know how to bring my deadlift up(I can not pull after squat).
Tell us, why can’t you pull after you squat?
I take it you’re still on the novice LP. Once you graduate from this phase, grinding extremely heavy weights every session is not conducive to long-term progress.
In our opinion,
- increasing training volume (and, eventually, frequency when necessary/able), with
- appropriate/commensurate reductions in intensity, and
- regular, periodic exposure to heavy weights (e.g., singles) while still staying away from failure
is our preferred long-term strategy at that point. Once you do that, you’ll find that you can handle more pulling.
Personally, I’m not convinced deadlifts are uniquely fatiguing. I think the reason why certain programs call for pulling only a single heavy set once a week is because they call for increasing the weight constantly and linearly, which quickly makes the intensity very high, which is what actually makes that single set of deadlifts hard to recover from. I think doing a 5RM on squats every week would make squats “uniquely” fatiguing too.
If you realize you don’t have to pull a 5RM every week to make progress, you can dial the weight back down, and train deadlifts similar to other lifts, i.e. more volume and less complete balls-to-the-wall effort.
Charlie:
It makes sense dr. Then is there any way I can add deadlift volume in the texas method?
If you insist on working via the TM program rather than moving towards one of the BM templates advocated here, there are some variations in Jordan’s 12 ways to skin the TM article that would probably be more accommodating to adding DL volume.
My own personal, relatively ignorant experience in my last two instances doing LP after travel/weight loss, when I tried to throw DL at the end of a standard LP workout, my working weight dropped by around 10% which I found untenable. Since I’m not exactly a novice, and no expert, I switched to an A/B that alternated between Squats and DL as the main lower body lift which has resulted in PR’s on squat 3 sets of 5 the past 3 “A” workouts, and I just progressed to matching my DL 5RM PR today.
I will NOT be doing TM or 5/3/1 after running this out, but will be giving The Bridge a go, and if it goes as well as others have reviewed, I expect to throw down $ on some BBM templates. I kinda wish the timing had worked out to take advantage of the Black Friday deal with confidence that yes the RPE/BBM method is for me.
Deadlifts feel uniquely fatiguing to me. It’s mostly the low-back which often feels shot before I’m even done with warm-ups. I don’t know that it’s ONLY deadlifting that causes this. A typical week of BBM-style training also includes lots of paused and tempo squats, as well as pendlay rows, paused deadlifts and mid-shin pulls. For me at least, my lower back is the most fatigued area of the body on a weekly basis. I’m still trying to learn how to manage this, albeit without a coach. It’s also the number 1 reason why I think I need a coach, as I feel there have to be some programming tweaks that would be helpful to me.
I feel the same way after two weeks on the 12 Week Program. I am considering making it a M W F 3day instead of 4. I am 53 which may also contribute to this.
I know this post is almost a week old, but I am having trouble trying to pull more weight. I am currently doing a 5x5 program, but I feel my progression has stalled.