I was having some issues with lower back mobility and pain, I ran Titanium Knicknacks which calls for trap bar deadlifting and lo and behold it cleared up. I’ve not barbell deadlifting for around 6 months now, I’ll probably throw it in the mix again at some point but I’m happy with the trap bar.
I think Rip and his starting strength acolytes are mainly responsible for this but as I’ve read somewhere if you see someone deadlifting 4 plates a side how are you going to say they’re not strong. It’s still a hip hinge albeit a much more quad dominant one, the only thing I tend to do is focus more on hamstring and lower back accessory work than quad. I’d also say that Trap Bar deadlifts are used a lot in rugby S+C as an aid to improve leg drive
The whole purpose of the creation of the trap bar was to allow trainees to continue to train the deadlift around back pain/injuries. This is simply using the right tool for the right job.
Jim Wendler said it best: anyone who deadlifts 900lbs is going to be strong. It doesn’t matter if it’s with a barbell or a trap bar.
#4) Try to identify your mobility deficit and correct it.
If keeps happening then something is off. You rest and let it heal, but you’re not addressing the cause. This isn’t a shot at you; it’s one of my own realizations for myself. It’s why I’ve been going to PT and sharing things like Jefferson Curls with everyone.
I’m jealous! Do you still make it a hinge movement or is your torso more vertical like a squat? I have students ask me why we don’t trap bar deadlift and I explain that it’s because most people turn it into a second squat instead of a hinge. It takes body awareness to hip hinge with a trap bar and most of my students don’t quite have that yet.
I do focus very much on making it a hinge movement, always low handle as high handle for me transforms it from a hip hinge into a more squat like movement which would align with your point about making it a second squat.
This question made me question myself! Sitting here practicing my lift to see if I use the same movement as I do for a bar deadlift. Lol. Pretty sure I do, but I will be more aware of it now.
I second this. I have one of those ones with rotsting handles of different thickness, but as a result there is no high handle option, and i struggle to get the squat effect you can from high handle.
I have accepted that (and im a fair bit younger than you) as i kept hurting myself after an ankle surgery. Not to say i never want to deadlift, but i figured i can maintain a strong deadlift with cleans or trap bar deads.
The reason for injury is mismatched mobility in the ankles, so to @Frank_C point, i need to always be working on that, but case in point I was struggling to pull about 160kg without tweaking something, I ran Krypteia (all trap bar) and 1000% awesome but with power cleans, and towards the end of that, on a whim pulled 3x180 without a hiccup. I realise they are baby weights, compared to both you and my pre-injury PRs, but I have to not let who i was stop who i need to be now.
I owe some replies, will get to that asap, but for now, naproxen and codeine are doing their job, after drill night hit the gym and just kept the load of my back.
Bench
60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110kg x 5
80kg x 17
60kg x 20
Very high incline/shoulder press
25kg DBs: 5, 8, 8
Back was fine, work was done quickly just back and forth.
As my back recovers and I’m less grumpy about getting injured in the first place, my desire to deadlift has already returned.
This probably needs to be a focus for me regardless of what variation I use, but I think I’ll do a few weeks/months just using the trap bar, or if doing conventional then just lightly to keep practice up.
Yup that’s true, not sure I’ll be hitting 900lbs anytime soon though.
Thanks, working on it!
Freudian omission from my list there last time I threw my back out I was chatting it through and sending some videos to @Koestrizer and he had a really good laugh at how stiff I was, my mobility is dire, and the reality is the moment the immediate pain goes away I go on back to ignoring mobility.
Not saying that I won’t carry on ignoring it, to my own detriment, just acknowledging you’ve got a good point!
I think I generally end up more squat-esk than hinge, but I can modify and do hinge, I think as @aholding88 and @Deadliftnstill said going low handle forces it a little more.
That’s a solid improvement, and gives me hope that I won’t just lose progress by going trap bar for a while.
That’s quite profound, and probably increasingly pertinent as the decades roll on. Whether I pay heed to it or not is another matter!
Regarding the mobility work and pain: I’ve documented my own experience regarding that and my right knee. I was in so much pain just from sitting that I was not quite jokingly considering voluntary amputation, and thought for sure I was due for a knee replacement. 3 months of stretching/foam rolling directed by a physical therapist later and I’m pain free and back to jumping and squatting. The stretching takes 11 minutes per day, and I HATE doing it, and it’s the albatross around my neck every day…and then I realize that 11 minutes a day is saving me from pain that was so bad that I was literally considering sawing my knee off.
I don’t know if any of that is helpful, but I suppose I’m talking about reframing there. Mobility work is the most unsexy work we can do as far as physical transformation goes, but when we think of it as “pain insurance”, maybe that helps. Or maybe like Mafia “protection money”.
Good perspective. It’s funny how little routines can have a major impact, I remember you saying once about habits and how no one sets out to be the best in the world at brushing their teeth, ironically that’s become a focus of mine (no longer have a dentist so major overhaul on oral hygiene with a morning and evening routine to ensure I don’t have to find another dentist!), but once you manage to make something habitual it’s just part of life, autopilot and you continue to reap the benefits (or detriments if they’re bad habits).
I don’t know if you ever HAVE downtime (your life seems quite busy), but that’s when I do it. At the end of the day, the family will settle down and do some reading or TV watching, and I’ll carve out my 11 minutes there. There’s also some researching linking stretching with helping to mitigate cortisol and improve sleep, so doing it closer to the end of the day seems nice. Plus, my issue is getting tight from excessive sitting, so by the end of the day I basically have to undo the damage I did DURING the day. If I try to do the mobility too early, it doesn’t really feel as tonic.
Here’s a really easy, quick move for the hips. You could do 1 minute a side and be done in less than 3 minutes. If it “works” you should feel looser right away. It could be an easy way to start the daily habit. And if you like it, this guy has a ton of little rolls like this, and you could add 1 at a time, so you’re not adding more than 2 minutes at a time to the process.
I do all of my stretching and foam rolling as a warm-up and a cool down for all workouts. For me, I will never make separate time for it, so I just built it into my workout.
I read this out, verbatim, to my daughter last night, I spent 3 hours dragging her through revision, which was really less than an hour’s worth of work, and 2+ of distractions and attempts to procrastinate (she’s good at knowing what will get me to “squirrel”). She moaned about how much she hates English Literature, and how she will never need it and never look at another poem in her life after he exams, so I read her this as a way to try and inspire her through the mental discomfort of revision, and liken this short period of discomfort to the joy of achieving her dream job, paediatric surgeon - which unfortunately she doesn’t really display the drive for, but is intelligent enough to do.
As a side note, going through education with my daughter, I realise how much of secondary education is actually a left wing indoctrination, and I say this as someone who has (in certain areas) fairly left leaning politics. I’m genuinely quite surprised, my daughter summed up what’s she taught as “socialism is good, capitalism is bad”. The thing that is frustrating is that there isn’t a balance and there isn’t any room for nuances in what it appears they’re being taught.
Teach the information without personal opinion, and let the students make up their minds about it.
Rant over.
Morning weight: 201
I had several realisations recently, I’m pressed for time so will try and keep my musings and machinations brief.
I am lighter than I was at the end of 2025 (no big deal, largely lost weight due to the flu), but I’m softer.
I’ve been eating to gain weight, but not training that way, so my body is doing the logical thing and maintaining homeostasis keeping around the 200lbs mark, but shifting from cal expensive muscle, to energy storing fat.
I haven’t trained seriously enough recently. In my professional life I oversee a programme of works, managing project teams. I need to treat my training in a similar manner, I need to align things with the overall programme vision (who I am, what I want to achieve and who I want to become) and tie in the projects (training programs) to fit, managing the dependencies (sleep, nutrition, busyness, stress, time management, emergency calls etc), to ensure that we a get a well mapped out timeline that stands a high probability of hitting the milestones (getting each session done), with contingency for when risks become issues, and get closer to achieving the programmes aims. Long way of saying I need to put more effort into planning my training and recovery and making sure it happens.
I haven’t been training to a program, that isn’t helping with motivation, drive and compliance. I decided that it’s been a while since I’ve done a Wendler program but the man makes a lot of sense and has such a wide repertoire of programs to fit every season, so I ordered 531 forever, which I’m really excited for.
In the interim (it’s coming from the states, so I’ll likely have to wait a while) having no idea where to start I asked ai, given my current years focuses - strongman comp June, summer holiday August, Marathon October, which Wendler programs it would recommend:
Now → June 5/3/1 for Hardgainers
June → July deload + Building the Monolith
July → August Hardgainers (lighter TM)
August → October 1000% Awesome
I have no idea of those recommendations make sense, so anyone with more experience than me chip in and make other recommendations.
The general gist is strength 1st, hypertrophy 2nd and BW gain from now to June, running will be largely low miles and probably a lot of treadmill with a little bit of trail (it’s a full trail marathon), shouldn’t interfer with lifting just building tendon and joints resilience.
June - July more hypertrophy, less strength focused and continued running.
Then probably a cut and building the running distances and pace a little before the holiday (but obviously not cutting during btm), then after the holiday more focus on running with strength and hypertrophy probably ending up on maintenance.
Just my 2c, but having BtM after a strongman comp to transition to marathon training seems to make little sense to me.
I havent run hard gainers so cant comment on that.
1000% awesome is great, lets you add running volume so long as accessories are under control, reccomend using power cleans over DLs if you want easier recovery.
Jim has training for a marathon on his blog and recxomends a 2 day /week, perhaps worth a look?
Ive never run a marathon, but id personally look at something 1000% Awesome (or the 5x531 3 day version, both very similar), then 2x2x2 or any other 2day program as your running volume increases
My wait time was around 2 weeks from memory, I also had to then pay the customs duty when they delivered it to my house…
My opinion on your AI recommendations, I’d personally do a couple of weeks whilst waiting for the book to focus in on your TM’s for each lift. If gaining is the name of the game in prep for a strongman I’d go for the BBS which I think is a 9 week leader and then a PR+widowmaker anchor.
In prep for your holiday and then onto a marathon I’d personally go either fat loss + prep or 1000% awesome and then 2x2x2 coupled with a Tactical Barbell conditioning program when you crank up the mileage
last time I threw my back out I was chatting it through and sending some videos to 
