Going for my personal best of 385, i stood completely up, legs fully extended and couldn’t pull my back erect. Failed on the lift and really pissed me off. I do good mornings, should i be doing them heavy, is there some better exercise to forestall dying on the top like this? Whaddayall think?
Sounds like your glutes are having trouble pushing your hips through the final phase of the movement. Full squatting is great for this, however, assuming your already doing that try some Bulgarian split squats (they really get te glutes) or lunges. Also try some DLing from the podium. Reverse Hypers and/or glute ham raises will help too. Just pick one and have some fun. Or two, but that wouldn’t have rhymed.
This could be one of two problems
- Your lower back is doing the majority of the work through the pull (as opposed to your legs) and is thus pre-exhausted at the top, along with the spinal erectors (this is probably only the case if you pull conventionally)
or
2) You have a weak lower back/spinal erectors and your legs are getting you most of the way up.
If it’s problem #1, you can try focusing more on your squat and less on Deadlifting, and hope to improve your drive off the bottom with the legs.
If it’s #2 then you can try some heavy rack lockouts, or pulls with bands/chains from a variety of heights.
Goodluck
I’m not a powerlifting guru but personally I found
top deadlifts to be excellent for this… use a power
rack, or sometimes one of those platforms/racks used
for biceps curls or whatever will do, and have the bar
just above the knees. You should be able to work up to
considerably more weight than you can deadlift from the
floor. Then finishing will not be a problem.
Either do only these and other back exercises but no
floor deadlifts on a given training day, or do these
first but don’t burn yourself out on them. If you
figure another rep, if possible at all, would be
super difficult, don’t try it, and if doing traditional
deadlifts also, definitely do less sets of top deadlifts
than you otherwise could. Even just 2 sets if say 6 reps,
or 3-5 sets if say 3 reps.
Every once in a while do some heavy partials from the knee in the power rack…This will definitely take care of that problem.
John,
You should not be in this situation EVER!!! Especially with weights as high as 385. Your technique sounds very flawed, and you may very well have to take your weight way down and “retrain” yourself back to your current loading. There really is a simple rule here as espoused by both Poliquin and Ian King. DO NOT ALLOW YOUR HIPS TO RISE FASTER THAN YOUR SHOULDERS!!! The drive should be coming from your legs, with your back used only as a stabilizer in the first pull off the floor. If you are standing completely erect and still leaning over you are NOT using proper technique. There should be no change in trunk angle from the initial pull to the point where the bar is in line with the kneecaps. I may be wrong by assuming the problem is technical as your summary of the lift was pretty quick, but it definitely sounds like you’re letting your hips come up too fast, putting too much stress on the spinal erectors/hamstrings(long head) and not enough on the quads and glutes. If you’re not strong enough to maintain your trunk angle in the initial pull you should be concerned with strengthening your glutes.