Hello, I’m currently on Powerbuilding III week 2 and just finished the deadlift session. Recently I’ve been wanting to switch from conventional to sumo as I believe I would be stronger at it.
My deadlifts recently have been iffy the past month, I’ve been losing some strength and my last program my deadlift basically stayed the same. My lower back has also been feeling fatigued, no pain just general tiredness. It was likely a programming issue in my last program which is why I switched to BBM. It has sort of carried over so I lowered the percentages of my deadlift sets a bit so I hope that works. I only do high bar squats so that shouldn’t be the issue.
I want to switch to sumo but can I even do that during a program since it’s still early? I don’t have any sumo experience either so it might take some time for me to adjust. Should I stick with conventional until I finish the program?
Squat is 430lbs and Deadlift is roughly 510lbs.
Would you be open to training both at the same time? You could do sumo DL’s as either your supplemental lift on Day 1 or main DL, while doing conventional pulls as your main pull or mid shin block pulls for a supplemental lift. Either way would work. I’d favor sumo as your main lift and mid shin block pulls as your supplemental exercise.
Hi Jordan, thanks for the reply. I’d prefer to just train one at this time if possible. The supplemental deadlift I chose on day 1 is the RDL and they’ve felt great, I’m getting a great stimulus out of them. So I was thinking if I can do sumo deadlifts as the main pull on day 4 and RDLs as the supplemental on day 1 if that’s acceptable. But ultimately, if you suggest I do block pulls instead then that’s fine.
It’s totally up to you. Seems like you’re already training both, as you’d be doing a conventional (e.g. RDL) deadlift on Day 1 and sumo on Day 3. That’d be fine!
Ok great! As for the sumo deadlift, do you have any pointers? The next deadlift day has me doing 4 reps @ 7 and doing another 10 reps at the same weight. Do you suggest I follow that assuming I get the form down? If I don’t get the form down, how should I proceed that day?
I would do the programming as listed, being conservative with the load. I have little concern that your form would be so bad as to not make the movement trainable. Give it a try!
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Awesome, thank you Jordan! Appreciate the help.