I would recommend “picking up increasingly heavier stuff” to pretty much anyone, if only for the sake of making it easier to pick up and carry the much lighter stuff that you normally end up dealing with in the rest of your life.
I haven’t looked at any sort of studies or anything, but I also think that sort of training will help in an overall “health and longevity standpoint”. Learning how to coordinate your whole body to distribute force more evenly everywhere; building better stability and strength through the torso and hips; and really just strengthening muscles and connective tissue so you’re less likely to do stuff like break a hip or screw your back up as you get older. I don’t know how much of that is speculation from my own observations of myself and others, but it seems to me that you could say those things will help with improving health and longevity into old[er] age.
But I think similar benefits there can come from picking up whatever, from whatever height, in whatever direction. Sandbags, stones, kettlebells, farmers walk handles, deadlifts, mat pulls, trap bar deadlifts, whatever. As long as you’re able to lift more over time, I think you’ll get those benefits.
[quote]Reed wrote:
Hey man sorry for such a delayed response I didnt expect any one to respond hahaha. But, Yes it is always how I have trained. Even when I was pulling 315 and 405 heavy deadlifts destroyed me and always made me feel horrible. I gave up for a long time and I swear when I started training with Sam the way we do I went from a 415 pull to 485 pull in about 4 months with out EVER pulling form the floor unless it was a stiff leg deadlift.
Now we pretty much never pull off the floor and if we do it is never over 60% and its always speed or pause pulls to hammer positioning. Basically week A we will squat heavy and then pull from blocks for reps more volume and stuff along those lines. The next week we pull heavy for basically one all out set with a target weight FROM BLOCKS. Repeat.
Last November I pulled 570 in a meet. I didnt pull from the floor again until 3 weeks out from my meet in Mid March where I pulled 640 with straps and just barely missed 625 on the platfrom. So literally pulled from the twice in 16 weeks and that was the result. Also hit a 50lbs Squat PR.
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This has been my experience with the movement as well. The less I pulled from the floor, the better my pull from the floor got. I just don’t see a lot of benefit to that movement, aside from testing strength.
[quote]Reed wrote:
Hey man sorry for such a delayed response I didnt expect any one to respond hahaha. But, Yes it is always how I have trained. Even when I was pulling 315 and 405 heavy deadlifts destroyed me and always made me feel horrible. I gave up for a long time and I swear when I started training with Sam the way we do I went from a 415 pull to 485 pull in about 4 months with out EVER pulling form the floor unless it was a stiff leg deadlift.
Now we pretty much never pull off the floor and if we do it is never over 60% and its always speed or pause pulls to hammer positioning. Basically week A we will squat heavy and then pull from blocks for reps more volume and stuff along those lines. The next week we pull heavy for basically one all out set with a target weight FROM BLOCKS. Repeat.
Last November I pulled 570 in a meet. I didnt pull from the floor again until 3 weeks out from my meet in Mid March where I pulled 640 with straps and just barely missed 625 on the platfrom. So literally pulled from the twice in 16 weeks and that was the result. Also hit a 50lbs Squat PR.
[/quote]
This has been my experience with the movement as well. The less I pulled from the floor, the better my pull from the floor got. I just don’t see a lot of benefit to that movement, aside from testing strength.
[/quote]
[quote]dagill2 wrote:
In this age of convenience and ease, no exercise is essential, however I do feel that there are basic movement patterns that anyone wanting to stay healthy should be practicing. I for one would like to be able to get off the toilet and pick stuff off the floor when I’m old so I would say some form of squat and hip hinge are important. Does that mean that you need to be pushing heavy iron on these movements and risking injury? No.
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Granted, but I’m not sure why one would think the deadlift causes more injuries than any other lift. And “heavy” is relative. Sure, when you’re really pushing your body’s performance and recovery abilities in order to increase strength, the risk of injury increases, but I would not include any beginner or intermediate lifter capable of simple linear progress in this category.[/quote]
I don’t, you’re putting words in my mouth. I think there are many exercises more likely to cause injury, the bench press for one, jumping off tall buildings for another. I don’t think either of these facts means everyone should be pushing heavy deadlifts from the floor on a weekly basis.
Clean and press is great. Not sure why one would think it’s less likely to cause an injury than the deadlift, though.
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Again, I don’t think this. I’m not recommending the OP replaces deadlifts with O-lifts in his 5x5 routine either.
[quote]
[quote]dagill2 wrote:
I think there are very good reasons to program without deadlifts, for example “deadlifts cause me lots of injuries”. There are also very bad reasons to program without deadlifts, like “I think deadlifts will cause me lots of injuries but haven’t tried them much”[/quote]
I’m inclined to think that for the VAST majority of lifters, if deadlifts are “causing lots of injuries,” the lift isn’t being performed correctly. [/quote]
Possibly so, possibly not. “I think deadlifts will cause me lots of injuries, even though I’ve never really given them the old college try” is still a sucky reason not to do them.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I will say that, if we continue down the whole “if I could only do one exercise” path, right now I think keg clean and press would win it for me.[/quote]
I feel like this should be a thread in it’s own right.
When I first started lifting, I didn’t have a specific plan for how I was going to progress from rows to deadlifting. I just didn’t know about deadlifts. In the 90’s lifting weights pretty much was bodybuilding. I didn’t have the internet or books by Rip. I just watched Kianna’s Flex Appeal on ESPN. This hot, well built Pacific woman would do some bodybuilding lift. To her left, a skinny blonde with no muscle would do an easier lift. To her right, a jacked male bodybuilder would do more advanced moves. I would just kinda follow along. Lots of rowing, delt raises and bending over in spandex.
For more extreme stuff, there was World’s Strongest Man. The first deadlift I remember was Kaz winning the silver dollar deadlift. His final attempt, he did the biggest weight for the win. Then he did a second rep, just to show he was the strongest man on the planet. After seeing that, I did LOTS of partial deadlifts. I just thought that was how you did it.
Maybe it wasn’t ideal, but I didn’t get a disease or anything.
@ Dagill – I didn’t mean you specifically were saying deadlifts cause more injuries than other lifts, but that did seem to be the general implication of the thread. The OP didn’t want to do them for that reason, and many responses seemed to implicitly confirm that, in recommending barbell rows and other lifts.
Anyway, since this is the BEGINNERS forum, I’m going to reiterate that the deadlift is a pretty great and widely approved-of lift. A lot of people agree on this - not only strength-focused guys like Rippetoe and Dan John. I saw a video recently of Arnold talking about deadlifts and cleans and how he doesn’t see many guys in gyms performing them these days and how that is bad – that there are a lot of muscles in the back along the spinal column that you can’t isolate very effectively or build without heavy pulling. Shadow Pro has also discussed this and sung the praises many times of “powerlifting” training for muscle and physique goals. John Meadows trained Westside with heavy deadlifts for years and I’m pretty sure he includes deadlifts in his programs, most of the time.
So… when advanced lifters like Punisher and Reed discuss the merits of pulling from the floor vs blocks, that’s all well and good, and their perspectives are interesting and worth listening to, but the question is…
IF you were training a BEGINNER lifter, would you recommend he include pulling from the floor or not? I.e., is it good advice to just say: “do rows and some hamstring isolation and don’t worry about deadlifts” ? Is it? I remain pretty skeptical that it is.
[quote]craze9 wrote:
To specifically address your point about the barbell deadlift not being ideal for a majority of lifters, I can’t say I have enough expertise to personally comment. But I know Mark Rippetoe disagrees with you.
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To which I replied that Mark and I HAVE disagreed on this topic. Ultimately, we had to agree to disagree, which I feel you and I would have to do as well if you are supporting his perspective on the matter.
[quote]craze9 wrote:
IF you were training a BEGINNER lifter, would you recommend he include pulling from the floor or not? I.e., is it good advice to just say: “do rows and some hamstring isolation and don’t worry about deadlifts” ? Is it? I remain pretty skeptical that it is.
[/quote]
Unless someone has a goal of competing in strongman or powerlifting, I never recommend deadlifting from the floor. I pretty much always advocate an elevated starting position, and it is how I have trained those wanting to learn.
[quote]craze9 wrote:
IF you were training a BEGINNER lifter, would you recommend he include pulling from the floor or not? I.e., is it good advice to just say: “do rows and some hamstring isolation and don’t worry about deadlifts” ? Is it? I remain pretty skeptical that it is.
[/quote]
Unless someone has a goal of competing in strongman or powerlifting, I never recommend deadlifting from the floor. I pretty much always advocate an elevated starting position, and it is how I have trained those wanting to learn.[/quote]
Okay, interesting. That’s obviously very close to a traditional deadlift movement though, vs subbing in barbell rows.
[quote]craze9 wrote:
Okay, interesting. That’s obviously very close to a traditional deadlift movement though, vs subbing in barbell rows.
How high a starting position do you use?
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I hate barbell rows, and never use them, so that could be the issue. Oddly enough though, I never knew what a deadlift was until I saw signs in my college weightroom saying they were illegal, and then I looked them up online and gave them a try. From years of doing OTHER exercises like squats, pull ups, dumbbells rows, etc, I was able to hit a 300lb deadlift on my first try. There is some merit to it, and it’s not unheard of.
Starting position depends on the lifter and their goals. For me, I stack 7 rubber patio tiles under the plates at the start of a ROM progression cycle and remove a tile each week until I hit the floor. When I was training a distance runner, we stuck with 7 and 5 mat heights with a trap bar.
When these guys talk about deadlifting, you gotta understand their version of deadlifting for bodybuilding is:
Usually done touch and go with straps and may or may not involve the plates actually touching the floor with each rep. E.g, Dorian Yates lowers the bar to just below his knees, but he still calls them deadlifts.
Done as a 3rd or 4th exercise during a back workout.
Usually done for reps while focussing on contracting parts of the upper back, and not to failure.
John Meadows’s workouts change every session. I have 2 of his programs. Half of the workouts don’t include deadlifts, with shrugs and hyperextensions with bands instead. The deadlifts are ramped up in weight till “rep speed slows down”, followed by a “challenge set” to failure with light weights, and usually placed 3rd in the workout.
When these guys talk about deadlifting, you gotta understand their version of deadlifting for bodybuilding is:
Usually done touch and go with straps and may or may not involve the plates actually touching the floor with each rep. E.g, Dorian Yates lowers the bar to just below his knees, but he still calls them deadlifts.
Done as a 3rd or 4th exercise during a back workout.
Usually done for reps while focussing on contracting parts of the upper back, and not to failure.
John Meadows’s workouts change every session. I have 2 of his programs. Half of the workouts don’t include deadlifts, with shrugs and hyperextensions with bands instead. The deadlifts are ramped up in weight till “rep speed slows down”, followed by a “challenge set” to failure with light weights, and usually placed 3rd in the workout.[/quote]
That is interesting, but c’mon, even Dorian Yates didn’t train deadlifts that way when he first started lifting, right? Those are relatively advanced techniques / workouts. I have to assume all these guys did some basic heavy training for at least a couple years.
And when they’re deadlifting “light” loads for higher reps the weight is still pretty heavy. Meadows description of how to do deadlifts in the “reactive pump” program makes me think you’d be working up to a 6-8 RM or so.
When these guys talk about deadlifting, you gotta understand their version of deadlifting for bodybuilding is:
Usually done touch and go with straps and may or may not involve the plates actually touching the floor with each rep. E.g, Dorian Yates lowers the bar to just below his knees, but he still calls them deadlifts.
Done as a 3rd or 4th exercise during a back workout.
Usually done for reps while focussing on contracting parts of the upper back, and not to failure.
John Meadows’s workouts change every session. I have 2 of his programs. Half of the workouts don’t include deadlifts, with shrugs and hyperextensions with bands instead. The deadlifts are ramped up in weight till “rep speed slows down”, followed by a “challenge set” to failure with light weights, and usually placed 3rd in the workout.[/quote]
That is interesting, but c’mon, even Dorian Yates didn’t train deadlifts that way when he first started lifting, right? Those are relatively advanced techniques / workouts. I have to assume all these guys did some basic heavy training for at least a couple years.
[/quote]
I’m not sure what you mean by “basic heavy training”. Other than Ahnuld and the pros with reported powerlifting backgrounds, everyone else could have been doing heavy touch and go deadlifts(or some other variation) for reps from the start. Don’t forget, the common wisdom of deadlifting for bodybuilding has always been to hit the back, not strengthen the hips.
Yeah definitely. Always as heavy as possible. But heavy is relative, especially after 2 rowing exercises. Plus, the objective is to maintain explosiveness after pumping the muscles up with prior exercises.
This is Brittany Buckner my girl friend who trains almost Identical to me minus she doesn’t do my 2nd bench day due to time restraints. She had trained for barely 4 months when she did this meet. When we first started she couldn’t deadlift 115 using bumpers. 4 months later focusing on nothing but speed and tech work from the floor, only going heavy off blocks, and only pulling heavy off the floor 2 weeks out of this meet she pulled 240lbs that is in the video here. I strongly believe that deadlifting from the floor HEAVY is not needed. Obviously, it has to be addressed in order to teach form but, going much heavier from a 4" block allows you to feel even heavier weights, while maintaining better position, not putting a strain on the CNS as bad, and builds confidence. If you practice tech and lets front squats take care of the off the floor work I promise you your deadlift will not suffer,
