Ive recently started having knee problems, osteoarthritis (thanks long life of football and basketball) and its getting harder to maintain a good squat regiment. I hate to admit it but ive never been a big deadlifter, ive done it in the past but not as a routine part of my workouts. I was looking for some advise on how to get started or a workout to begin to deadlifting journey. For overall strength and building my posterior chain and hammies and back and for a overall body workout.
Very boring 5 sets of 5 took my deadlift from struggling with a 60kg to pulling 180kg for reps.
5 sets of 5 and add the smallest weight you can each time you successfully complete all reps and sets.
After time you may stall out but this will keep a beginner going for a while.
Thanks, any certain percentages I should be shooting for?..Or just kinda play with the weight till I figure out what works for me?
I’m not really a percentage kinda guy myself if I’m honest, especially not with someone new to deadlift. To figure out a percentage of your max you would have to pull a max, not smart if your new to a lift.
Start light and get a feel for form, don’t get ahead of yourself and try and pull at near failure each session. Slow and steady.
What sort of weight have you been squatting?
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Not much at all, 225lbs for sets of 10…anymore than that and knee starts acting up…looking for to I guess, sort of replicate the full body workout I used to get from heavy squatting and im hoping deadlifting will give me that edge
Maybe start at 135 then and use the first few sessions to get a feel and work on your form.
Just remember though that you don’t have to squat or deadlift, although they work well for some people there are alternatives that you can use to great effect.
After a prolonged break from serious strength training (5 years) during which most of my exercise was running and biking, I built myself from a 305 deadlift on the first day “back in the gym” (I did have a significant history of prior strength training from ages 13-22) to a 500 deadlift in about 12 months with the simplest imaginable program.
I went to the gym 4-5 days per week.
Most of those days, I warmed up a bit and then pulled six singles at a moderately easy weight (I did a lot of work at 315 on the way up; then once my deadlift passed 405, I did a ton of workouts at 405 and rarely went above that for daily workouts, even as my max approached and passed 500). It’s fine if you start with 225. If you are consistent, the gains will come.
Once every week or two, push yourself to something heavier, not a true “max” lift but something where you may have to struggle a bit more.
Move up as needed. If you do six singles at 225 for the first week and it’s really easy, go ahead and move up to 230-235 or so the next week. You don’t have to rush the progression and jump 20 pounds at a time. Adding 5-10 pounds per week will get you to challenging weights soon enough.
This approach will work if you actually do it for six solid months to a year. Most people won’t do it because it’s boring, it feels too simple, and they don’t believe that it works. At some point, you may hit a wall (for me, going from 500 to 600 required more stimulus) but I am pretty sure I could have maintained a 500 deadlift for an awfully long time just by doing six singles at 405 four or five days per week.
I think rather than working off percentages of a 1RM, work off an 8RM and do 5’s at that weight. I would suggest this as a starting point.
5x5 is a good method, and if you stall out, try 6x4 or 6x3
As you stated 330lbs in other thread I would try this…(fine to just do leg press/single joint work etc where squats are prescribed)
That was a really good read, thanks for the advice man. Will be doing this in the upcoming week.
Ive been doing this for about two weeks…and I feel great. How long should I do this for? is this just a 6 week thing or just do it till I plateau?
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Thats great to hear.
Yep as feeling good keep doing it till you plateau, then plenty of other similar templates to move on to after that