I live in an extraordinarily hot and humid country. It is also incredibly poor. I used to go to a gym here, but they have stopped us deadlifting as the restaurant and organisation on the floor below have been complaining. Some of the customers are also concerned about the structural integrity of the floor doing heavy deadlifts.
The problem with the new gym is that it is like a sauna and there is of course no AC in either gym. When I grip the bar, all the sweat rolls down my arms and soaks my hands. I tried a much lighter load that I can handle today (145kg) and could only do one rep as any after that require me to dry my hands and the bar.
My question is, is doing 10 sets of 1 rep going to yield the same results as 2 sets of 5 reps? I could basically do a rep every minute or so and be over and done with it in 10 minutes. I could also just buy gloves from somewhere, but I prefer doing it with my bare hands. Any opinions? FYI for the deadlift my target is currently to just get to 180kg. At that point it will be to get to 200kg. Everything else I do 4 sets of 15.
Use lifting straps. If you don’t have any a fabric belt cut in half will work.
Use chalk if you got some but imagine the gym may take issue with that. There are no mess chalks …liquid chalk…but I have never tried that.
RDL’s or controlled eccentric deadlifts (rather than letting weight crash to floor) would solve some of the problems you identified as far as the facility concerns.
10 x 1 will provide similar if not better technical improvement on your deadlift, but may not provide much of a growth stimulus unless you’re using a load above 5RM
Thanks for all the replies here. For some reason all replies went to my junk mail in my email so I didn’t know people had responded. In the end I gave up in the new gym and went back to the old one and just do RDL instead of standard deadlift. Pain in rear end but never mind! Thanks again for the support, responses and advice.
Ah man, I’ve been having a similar problem even using straps on my RDLs with clammy hands. I’ve done heavier weight in the past and had no slipping. Since coming back from a layoff and getting to within 20lbs of my previous best I feel my straps slipping once I get to the money reps.
Makes me question whether I’m even using the straps right! I’ve done this for ages though with no troubles before. I had to stop doing chins because of an armpit issue so I wonder if my grip is just lacking from not doing them and it’s affecting my RDLs. My solution right now is doing sets of 6-8 so my set time isn’t as long. I much prefer sets of 10-12 though.