Originally Posted by
PL456
Ahh...the DL. a true power freak's favorite lift. forget the bench, the squat is pretty good, but the true test of strength is the dead. Ive been a PL'er for 12 yrs with over 30 comps under my belt, I was ranked 16th in the USA in a national PL organization, Im a Physical Therapist and a certified personal trainer. where to begin?
Do your DL's once approximately every 10 days to 2 weeks. The common rigid structuring of a workout program..i.e. Monday I do this, Tuesday I do this, etc....is incorrect when training as the body does not care what day of the week it is, it only is concerned with either adaptation or whether it's being overtrained.
Your low back should never hurt after training DL's. It can be tight, but not hurting or paining you. This is a BIG warning sign you have bad form.
Before doing any DL's, stretch your hamstrings aggressively and daily for 2 weeks. Make sure your ab work is up to par.
Lose the straps.
If youre fat, you may want to consider sumo style. tall, lean guys usually do better with conventional. sumo or conventional is really a personal choice.
Do not wear a belt with weights over 5 reps.
Do good mornings, usually on light squat days, to help the hips and hams. Focus on HIP muscles, NOT low back muscles. you are working your back only in the sense that the lats, traps, abs and erectors are stabilizers, NOT prime movers. the HIPs, HAMs, and calves are the prime movers. heavy deads also facilitate growth as they are an excellent way to stimulate natural testosterone release.
Variations of the standard dead:
High deads--pull while standing on 45# plates..raises you up approx 1", you pull farther.
Rack pulls--adjust the power rack to various heights to work the lockout.
Band pulls--attach jumpstretch bands to the bar, chains work well too.
Reverse deads--really,these are true hack squats (not that silly machine). do these by standing in FRONT of the bar and pull to standing.
The deadlift is the only PL lift that has not seen the skyrocketing poundages as seen in the bench (now +1000#'s) and the squat (now +1200#'s). why? equipment, that's why. Im not anti-equipment, but, the dead is really man vs iron. The DL is hard to get started on, but if you stick
with it, you will see tremendous growth and have a lot of fun.