Last spring, I set out on a quest to do something that I had been putting off for years—improving my horrid deadlift. Fifteen months later, my pull is up over 200 lbs and continues to improve in every cycle.
How did I do this? First, some background information is in order. It all hit me one day last spring. I hadn’t performed the deadlift in months and felt that my training could use a change. As a football player for twelve years, I focused mostly on the Olympic lifts. I had competed dozens of times over the years and had done quite well.
My training was centered on the clean, jerk, snatch, front squat, and various other Olympic-style pulls. I performed the bench, row, and several other assistance exercises, but the Olympic lifts were my main focus. I rarely deadlifted and had stopped for a long time after injuring my back shoveling snow. I couldn’t complain about my results until that fateful spring day. Considering that I regularly cleaned in the mid 300 lbs and did pulls nearing 400 lbs, I figured that I’d be putting at least five wheels on the bar per side. Well, as I worked up, something just wasn’t right. I knocked off 330 lbs, 350 lbs, 380 lbs, and then 400 lbs. To my dismay, 400 lbs felt like pulling an X-wing out of a swamp on Degoba!
Now, 400 lbs might not sound terrible, but I had been training for almost fourteen years. I weighed 252 lbs and benched (at the time) 475 lbs. Hell, I had front squatted 450 lbs for reps. To make matters worse, I had pulled 500 lbs in high school! I was really floored by this and set out to fix the problem.
I read a few of Dave’s articles, including one on the very basics of deadlifting form. It was quite depressing. I found that one of my problems was that I was pulling like an Olympic lifter—shoulders behind the bar, bar close to the shins, and slow off the ground. The first thing that I did was work on my form. I started using sumo style and didn’t go over 315 lbs for three weeks. This helped, but I was still having trouble.
I started reading every article that I could find on Westside-barbell.com and EliteFTS.com, and I watched the Westside Seminar DVDs (worth a million times what I paid for them). It was a lot to digest, especially coming from the old, Western periodization/Olympic lifting school. I know that many trainees in that situation would have suffered paralysis by analysis so I decided to take action. I needed a gateway into this world of conjugate periodization. All I can say is thank God for Joe DeFranco. I read his “Westside for Skinny Bastards” series, printed out the template, and headed straight for the gym.
Early on, my max effort exercises included:
- snatch grip deadlifts
- sumo deadlifts
- front and back squat box squats
- trap bar deadlifts
- conventional deadlifts
I typically worked up to singles or doubles. About three months in with all of my ME exercises moving up, I decided to retest. Using sumo style, I worked up to and blew past 400 lbs, ending the day with an easy 440 lbs. After another three months, I tested again. This time I hit a grinding 465 lbs. That wasn’t too bad, but I had to make some changes.
After taking a deload week and watching the Westside DVDs again, I mapped out the changes. I watched a video of myself pulling and noticed two things right away. My form was great until I got up to 95 percent or more, and I was slow off of the floor with weights above 90 percent.
Whatever weight I got to my knees, I easily blew up.
I knew that I had to step up the hamstring and low back training. I never did much low back specific training while Olympic lifting. It just wasn’t necessary. However, the lack of training was starting to cost me big time. I realized that I was terribly slow and weak off of the floor so I started rotating in the various deadlifts while standing on three-inch blocks. I performed a traditional “speed” or dynamic effort day as a second lower body session. I also found that as my snatch deadlifts went up, all of my other pulls did as well so I made that one of my indicator exercises.
The new plan looked something like this…
ME movements:
- snatch, sumo, conventional, trap bar deadlifts standing on blocks
- above deadlift variations off of the floor
- rack pulls
- Romanian deadlifts
- iso-Romanian deadlifts
Again, I worked up to singles or doubles.
Dynamic effort moves:
- box front and back squats (sometimes with chains and/or bands)
- speed pulls
- pulls against light bands
- occasional box jumping workout
Hamstring and lower back work:
- Romanian deadlifts
- pull-thrus
- straight leg deadlifts
- hyperextensions
- glute ham raises
- “stone trainer” deadlifts
- tons of abdominal work
- occasional unilateral move like Bulgarian squats
These were done in classic 3–4 sets of 4–8 reps (higher for the extensions).
Having a weak low back sucks because you feel like a complete beginner when you start to work on your problems. I trained alone in my garage so I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing me struggle with glute ham raises, but it was depressing nonetheless. However, the concentrated lower back work paid off quickly.
I also played around with the concept of performing a Romanian deadlift but pausing and holding the bar at mid-shin for up to eight seconds in an isometric style. I did three paused reps and then a full one. I really feel that this helped me break through my sticking point. While Romanian deadlifts are an Olympic movement, I think they hold great potential for powerlifters and athletes!
I found that my snatch deadlifts, both off of blocks and off of the floor, steadily moved up. My snatch deadlift was almost the same as my sumo at this point so it was an excellent gauge of my progress.
At about nine months in, I went into a training session with the goal of hitting a 480-lb snatch deadlift. I was coming off of a few days off and feeling good. The session went something like this: bar X 5; 135, 225, 315 X 2; and 365, 405, 440, 480 X 1! A new PR, but it flew up so I went for the big 5-0-0. On the next set, I got 500 X 1! It was a grind, but I got it clean.
Strangely, at this point, my sumo started to jump way ahead of everything else. My snatch deadlift continued to improve but very slowly while my sumo made fairly large jumps. I started trying out sumo Romanian deadlifts as a way of improving my hamstring strength specific to the sumo deadlift. Again, it was tough at first because of the amount of weight that I had to take off the bar, but eventually these started paying off extremely well.
The last big evolution came shortly after my 480-lb snatch deadlift. I felt a bit stale and was finding that now I was blowing weights off of the floor but stalling right around the knee. I read Marc Bartley’s “Converting to Sumo Deadlifting” article and started practicing the “European” style of over pulling.
I bought a belt from EliteFTS (I had been training without one for the most part and had worn a terrible bodybuilding-style belt when I did wear one). For those of you who are new to powerlifting or are against using a powerlifting-style belt, I can tell you with 100 percent confidence that it will totally blow your mind from the first time you use one! I couldn’t believe the difference out of the bottom due to the increased stability in the mid-section.
Finally, after reading an article on reverse band work, I decided to add these in, keeping most of the other movements the same. The reverse band work did wonders for me. First, it got me used to having a much heavier weight in my hand. I used different band strengths and different heights, but the main objective was to get accustomed to holding 600 lbs and more. Second, it helped me with the transition between that magical area an inch below the knee to the magical area an inch above it. Who knew so much strength could be leaked in that four- or five-inch area?
After over a year of fighting, struggling, sweating, and the occasional cursing, I arrived at the big day—testing day for my sumo deadlift. I tried not to make it any more than a normal training day, but it suddenly began to feel like a meet. I put on some Rage Against the Machine and got to work. Chalked up and wearing my designer sleeveless “Not Shredded” shirt, I did the following: bar, 135, 225, 315, 365 X 2 and 405, 455, 500, 550, 605 X 1! I set a new PR. Not bad for a guy who almost blew a gasket pulling 400 lbs a little over a year earlier.
Now, I know that these results aren’t typical. I had a great foundation to build on and over fifteen years of experience. I feel that much of the strength was in me lying dormant and was unleashed through a well-defined, adaptable program based on everything that I had learned through Elite and Westside. The gains are more typical at this point, and the road to 700 lbs will probably take longer, but that’s fine. It just shows you that you never know what kind of potential you have.
I’m entering a meet in January and will probably start experimenting with a deadlift suit. I went from being disgusted with my terrible deadlift to realizing that the sky is the limit as long as you work hard and follow the correct path.