Hello everyone, my deadlift is my weakest lift compared to my bodyweight. Im currently doing the dynamic work version 2 template. I do my dynamic deadlifts with a deficit and use joker sets. What else can I do to bring it up? My assistance on deadlift days are zercher squats and paused squats woth heavy kettlebell swings and ab work
You can not do zercher squats. What an overrated, awful circus lift. Makes you awful. It’s a fact.
My best cycle of assistance work for improving 1RM was FSL paused reps. In “Beyond 5/3/1” there is only a rep/percentage scheme given for the squat, bench and press for the FSL Paused reps assistance. What I did was 5x5 at the first set weight with full pauses on those three lifts and I would COMPLETELY reset with each of the 5 reps of the deadlift. I cycled that for 3 seven week rotations and had my best improvements on my test set (last work set of the day).
You may ask why I didn’t keep doing that assistance work? It started to not give me much improvement after a few months and I think it’s because I was only doing 5 reps so I went back to BBB. I kind of wave the assistance work to try and keep things interesting and keep progressing.
BBB for a few cycles
FSL 5 sets of 8 reps no pause couple of cycles
FSL paused reps for a couple of cycles
Dynamic work or rule of 10
usually by now I’ve stalled or just burned out so drop my TM back a few cycles and repeat
As far as your assistance work I don’t really know about specific exercises. When doing the BBB or FSL 5x8 I’ll swap out the lift with something similar but with a different bar (swiss bar, SS bar, hex bar, box squat etc. I’ve also read a lot of Jim’s stuff and he has some kind of hatred of the Zercher squat btw. I’ve never used it myself so I don’t really have an opinion
[quote]Jim Wendler wrote:
You can not do zercher squats. What an overrated, awful circus lift. Makes you awful. It’s a fact. [/quote]
^^^That! What the man said^^^
Might want to ditch the KB swings too. Use GM’s, FS, rows and time
Just wondering why the hatred for zercher squats? I trust your judgement Jim and will stop doing them. Ok so I’ll add in some FSL pause squats on my squat day and see how it goes
Because they are a lift done by people who hide the fact that they can’t squat or pull - so they do an idiotic lift that will never tax their legs/back before their arms give out. Basically it’s a stupid excuse to be an asshole in the weight room. I don’t blame you but you must have been reading the typical Stroke Off Charlatans that think 2 days of not shaving somehow makes them Lord of the Beard.
Just an other opinion here… I’m a big fan of Jim Wendler 5-3-1 and because I never used to DL a lot or at all before, my PR’s went crazy quick with whatever template. To put on some more volume with high intensity and build the Training Max quickier, I’m now using the template in beyond where he suggest to do ALL the % of the week each time you train your DL.
I stop at 3 reps and I try to PR each time my 95 % set by doing 3 reps too. Going pretty well… so it’s 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 75, 85, 95 (belt), 65, 75, 85 (belt). Don’t do assistance lifts after or not too much or you’ll burn. I do ab rollers and that’s it. I’m getting close to 500 lbs and i’m 155, so I guess it’s pretty decent.
I always have been more of a squatter, but not anymore - I mean - my DL is now as strong as my Squat, if I look to standards (DL should be heavyer for most). I don’t use this template for my other lifts. I put 5 lbs on my TM every week - I know Jim recomand 10 lbs, but it’s still 15 each cycle instead of 10, so I think it’s just perfect for me so I’ll have to reset my 4 lifts more or less at the same time (we’ll see). cheers ! Phil Rich
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