I was watching a video of Mike T answering a question about deadlifting for strength trainees who are not aspiring to be powerlifter. The context was for lifters who feel especially beat up in the lower back, and were looking to alleviate some stress there. This has often been my issue, especially towards the latter part of a training cycle where I start moving out of developmental and into specialization. I often find all my lifts continue to go up (Squats/Bench/Press) but deadlifts start stagnating, and then occasionally regressing.
Anywho, Mike’s comment on a solution for a non-competitor was that maximizing deadlift strength in his view was not all important in the grand scheme of things, and he suggested several possible solutions, such as dropping a work set(s) for supplemental and/or competition deadlifts. He also mentioned dropping either an entire slot, whether that be a supplemental deadlift of perhaps even the competition deadlift itself.
I’m curious what you guys think about this. I’ve hit this wall twice now in my training where deadlifts feel insurmountable. I will likely never compete, and feel like when the stress gets high and I start pushing into PR’s everywhere else, the low back fatigue really start hampering progress on squats which is where I really like to focus. Does something like what Mike suggested for this other lifter seem reasonable to you or would you have an alternate approach?
Also, one approach I’ve considered was doing competition deadlifts like this: 1@8, 5@8, then 2-3 backoff sets with a 10% reduction.
If a person wants a stronger deadlift- a stated goal by their own admission- and it’s not increasing, then the programming needs to change to make that happen. If a trainee doesn’t care about it then removing deadlift training by a little may be fine.
It sounds like your programming needs to be adjusted to reflect your unique response to training.
I think you answered it within your second comment…essentially reduction is fine for those who aren’t concerned about maximizing the deadlift. I’m HOPING however that reducing there would provide greater resources for me to train the other three competition lifts, as well as provide a little more time to do some upper back work and gurl curlz outside of GPP.
Sorry Jordan. Trying to keep things short and sweet so you don’t have to read a novel. Basically, I want to get big and strong. Don’t really care if that means doing deadlifts or not. I figured I would ask about your philosophy around deadlifting with regards to getting big and strong. How necessary is it if one is squatting/pressing/benching and doing heavy upper back work? I don’t want to drop all deadlifting and their variants. I see value in rows, RDL/SDL, rack pulls also. Just wondering if you think it’s okay to reduce deadlifting in some kind of way in my scenario to reduce low back fatigue, and where you would start if so. Note: I work out in a home gym, so don’t have access to things like leg presses to help with low back stress.
Mike T answered this other lifter’s question by suggesting he drop a supplemental deadlift slot, or perhaps the competition deadlift instead. His second choice was reducing comp and supplemental deadlift worksets by one. Just wondering what your take is on a suitable approach?
Deadlifts are good for getting big and “strong” - not sure how we could eschew the deadlift from the definition of “strength”, you know?
If you don’t want to deadlift that’s fine by me, but you’re suggesting that it’s not important to get good at picking stuff up off the ground for general strength. I’d probably disagree with that.
I always use this rationale when telling friends why I think deadlifting is so important: you’re deadlifting with weight all the time. Picking up groceries, moving a big rock in back yard, helping a friend move furniture, etc. these are all fairly close variations on a standard deadlift (and I hate to admit it, because I dislike sumo, but probably closer to a sumo deadlift, a fair amount of the time)
Sure, squat mechanics are useful for natural, unweighted, everyday movement, and they are an excellent tool for building strength. But how often do we perform weighted squats in everyday life? To be clear, I’m not shitting on the squat, and although I’m disproportionately better at deadlift, and likely biased, I think there is something particularly useful about training a movement that is more specific to everyday weighted movement, such as those enumerated above.