so instead of doing deadlifts from the floor like usual i tried pulling 2 inches from the floor raising the weights on top of a 45 lb plate on each side.
surprisingly, i couldnt do as much weight, i actually had to take 20 lbs off my max to calculate my lift %s for the day.
it felt like my lower back was taken out of the lift and moving the weight was entirely on my hips/glutes and upper back.
i could barely do 5 bodyweight hip thrusters at the end of my workout and got stuck at the bottom of a rep trying to just do a bodyweight deep squat once i got home (granted i have a long drive home from the gym).
its not that i have weak hips, i regularly do cleans and hit 50-55 inch boxjumps after deadlifts before i do accessory work.
is this a mechanical thing because of my bodytype? i have a short torso, long legs and arms
im not concerned because of the reduction in weight, im glad it hit my hips more as i lift to increase my athleticism primarily, but i wanted to know if anyone else had an experience like this doing block deads…???
Back when I was first looking into doing block/mat deads, I did some research. I remember there being a thread or two over on bb.com where other people ran into similar issues with rack pulls… they were stronger from the floor than from mid/low-shin. You’re not the first person to notice this.
My guess is that it’s partly because you (as in, you specifically) are mechanically weaker at that position than on the floor, and partly because your setup at that point in the lift is a bit different than when you’re pulling from the floor.
I have long arms and legs and a short torso also. Personally I started doing all my pulls from mats which put it about 5.5" off the ground, and I have a pair of chains draped over the bar on each side. Those two additions, given my leverages, have made the lift much more into a full-body lift than pulling from the floor. I’m naturally quite a bit stronger at lockout so the chains adjust the strength curve appropriately.
(Also credit to T3hPwnisher for his strong recommendations to give mat pulls a try.)
I do a lot of different ranges of mat/block pulls, and this is pretty typical. I think the biggest factor is that, when you pull from the floor, the ROM is so long that you can develop a good amount of momentum to help carry you through any sort of mechanically difficult/weak point in the rep. When you pull from a very short ROM, you don’t have to move very far, so you can just muscle through whatever you need. But when you only shave a little off the ROM, you’ve goldilocks’d it so that you now no longer have the momentum to carry you but it’s still far enough of a ROM that it’s a taxing experience.
I pull in a 7 week ROM progression wave, and generally experience my weakest session about 2-3 weeks out from pulling from the floor.