I pulled 505 prior to Christmas, but havn’t pulled it since. I failed at 495 the other day. It’s a horrible feeling.
I’m not sure why, I can still do 405x5 for 3-4 sets. My squat has gone up, I’m doing more GM’s and Box Squats. Just a bit frustrated on the deadlift.
Anyone else been here?
have you been deadlifting a lot? i’ve heard all the hype about (increase your dl 50lbs in 2 months without even deadlifting!) but personally…when im’ just working squat, etc.
my daed goes wway down… i could pull likr 420 in gr.12…a year later, i hadn’t been deadlifting much, all my numbers had gone up, and i weighed 20lbs more…but, my dl…i struggled with 405…but…after like 3 weeks of working at or around my max, i was able to pull 450
Everyone has been there…That’s part of the game, I guess. Sometimes you hit a lift, and sometimes you miss one too. Just keep hitting the weights hard. You’re still deadlifting in the high 4’s which is pretty good, so just keep plugging away…
10lbs is definitely within the range of how off you can be on a bad day.
Were you tired, had you done any work before pulling?
Give it a week and try again.
Start hitting the muscles that help you deadlift. Glutes, hamstrings, low back, quads, traps. Start hitting them hard and getting them stronger.
The deadlift is something that tends to be kind of “peaky” or inconsistant for me. Also, Dan John talked about “maxes” and “max maxes” and so forth in his article and I think those concepts are especially applicable to the deadlift.
The first time I pulled 475 was after a 12-week or so program of intense training and very much designed around improving my deadlift, even though I wasn’t doing any heavy deads at all. After I hit that max, I could barely hit 455 (and sometimes not even) for a couple of months after that. So that was definitly a “max max” for me.
I think, for me at least, that the deadlift is built by not deadlifting. Of course, I tend to have a good build for deadlifting (long and lanky) and, aside from using too much back, the technique for the lift has always come pretty easy for me. So I’ve always had more success by not deadlifting, and strengthening the hell out of my glutes and hams.
Also, when planning my ME lifts, I tend to like to alternate between lifts that will be over and under my deadlift. What I mean by this is doing something like:
Box sqat(under)
Trap-bar dead (over)
Front squat (under)
Rack pull (over)
I’ve found that has been good for building the deadlift, although my squat has not made a much progress using that method, although that could be technique related.
So I would say, don’t worry about the stalled progress, back off for a little while and focus on your squat, and then after maybe 8 weeks or so of that, go back to focusing on the deadlift, look at your weak links and improve them and see if you can break into the 525-545 territory.
At least, that’s what I would do, you might have totally different training philosphies or things that work different for you, so take my advice with a grain of salt.
I wouldn’t sweat it. Any maximal attempt has so many variables, that any weight that you smoked last month could be 40 lbs heavier than the one that smoked you today. Strength varies. If your technique was off, that could have done it. Plus, deadlifting is, in my opinion, very psychological. I have set PRs with squat and bench lifts that I was not confident about- but never with deadlift.
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one this has happened to. I’m still planning to hit 600 by end of the year, but obviously I can expect some downs.
Thanks!
Throw in some cool shit like reverse band pulls.
They’re a nice confidence builder.