Going to the dark side

Hey BBM team,

I have nearly finished your strength 1 template (week 11) once I have complete it and tested my maxes I think I’m going to give sumo a try as I’m really getting frustrated with conventional after you took a look at my form and said about standing further back and setting my back more I’m still no stronger or better.

and my squat and bench are making great progress
i just can’t Seem to improve my deadlift to the point that my e1rm for squat is 205kg and deadlift 205kg now… my actually 1rm in deadlift is 210kg.

Have had a 210kg deadlift since my 1rm squat was 170kg and now I rep 170kg.

do I stick conventional out ? Or give sumo a try ?

if I am to do sumo when doing deadlift accessory’s should I keep doing them conventional and just do my main deadlift sumo ?

thanks.

If you want to try sumo, that’s cool with me. That said, I’m not sure that I’d expect a massive improvement in a month in your conventional pull either, but I have zero hesitations about you pulling sumo either.

Some variations lend themselves better to sumo than others, e.g. paused deadlifts, pulls from blocks, pulls against bands or chains, etc. compared to RDL, SLDL, and similar. So…it depends.

Thanks Jordan, I think I’m personally just going to stick with conventional as I really do enjoy it but just not seeing the progress like I am with squat and bench.

going to run strength 1 again once I’m finished but replace day 1 exercise 3 with sumo deadlift.

a few other question as I’m now on week 10 And noticed pin work is harder than 2ct paused work for squat and bench is this normal ?

and I also looked at your 3 week peak template and see it also has pin work. What is the reason for pin work? Is it just that it’s more specific to the comp lift ?

Thanks again.

I think that when variations change, the new variations tend to feel harder than the previous variation(s) you got accustomed to.

I like pin work for focusing on the concentric strength for the exercise compared to paused work, which focuses on the isometric portion/strength.