[quote]Ruggerlife wrote:
Well I took a wee detour from the deload last night and decided to test out my deadlift with the squat suit on…and well if I’m going to the bother to get the suit on, I may as well throw a few squats into the mix too!
I have two thoughts on the night:
- Ouch!
- HOLY SWEET F*#K!!!
I didn’t have any suit slippers to help get the suit on. I now have 10,000 fewer leg hairs than I did yesterday. I never actually got the suit seated properly. I tried for close to twenty minutes then decided to just try some light squats to help seat it. HAHA! I loaded the bar with 275 and squatted down about, oh let’s say 8" high and it would not go and deeper but the suit came up a bit.
With 315, I managed to get to about 1-2 inches high and I paused at the bottom for a second. Seated a little more. Then 335, a little better but still not close to deep enough.
Took 335 again with my belt and went for depth. This was an ok rep, but still slightly high (if I recall correctly).
365 with belt and wraps. Best of the night, but the suit was still seating itself. Having the suit move while you start to drive out of the hole just doesn’t feel right. I also hit the rack while unracking the weight and it really through off my set up and concentration. I’m also not happy with how my chest wasn’t high enough.
Dropped the pins down one hole (which is 4"). Loaded 405 on the bar. Wrapped my knees and went to set up. At this point I realized I needed to “power curtsey” the weight out of the rack. doh! So I tightened up, unracked the weight, started to decend… and for some God forsaken reason I exhaled on the decent! WTF was I thinking? I came back up out of tyhe hole (cursing to/at myself of course). Then I watched it and surprisingly it was close to depth, but likely just a tad high. Or at least higher than it should have been. But it was an ugly F#*kin’ lift.
So onto deadlifts…
Oh boy!
I obviously wasn’t going to take the suit off to warm up, so I set up, got tight, arched my back and started to drop into position…it would have been brilliant if my arms were 6" longer and I could have reached the bar. So I broke my arch to reach the bar and pulled myself down. I tried to reset my arch but since it was only 135 on the bar broke the floor so I stood up with it.
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Basically same thing.
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Here I was able to try to pull myself into position, but I just couldn’t get an arch.
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Why not! Same as the 315, only since I couldn’t get a good starting position I was SO FAR out of position by the time the bar came to my knees that there was no way my hips were coming through. So I set it down.
Overall, not impressed with the deadlifts.
So what did I learn on the night?
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I need to buy some sheets of wood for the bottom of my rack to adjust the floor height so I can get a god pin position. I’ve known this for a while, but with lighter weights it was never an issue that I couldn’t work around easily.
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I will never try to but on a suit without slippers again. I’m mentally scarred now. Also, the suit just wouldn’t seat properly and I became so preoccupied with trying to seat it that I really wasn’t focusing on the squats. This is likely the biggest reason for breaking form on the 405. Head just wasn’t in it.
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I will either need to learn how to get into position for deadlifts while wearing a suit or I’ll need to deadlift raw in November. This will obviously impact my total, so it needs to be sorted out.
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I will need a number of sessions in gear before I compete in it and expect to have it really work for me. This isn’t something I can throw together in the last 3-4 weeks.
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I will never try to but on a suit without slippers again.
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Are you still using Frank’s suit?
Getting to the bar for deadlifts in a tight suit is different. Take a look at my videos (I’m in my loose suit btw) to see how I’ve been told to adjust. It’s even more so in the tighter suit. I basically take a big breath at the top, stick my butt back and out, even bend my knees a little to get to the bar and literally pull myself into position using the weight of the bar. As soon as I’m there I sit back into the suit and pull up. Hard to explain, but if you can get down to the club, they’ll help you out.
Because of how I need to do this when I’m in my suit, I’ve taken to doing it the same way raw.
PS. As far as slippers, it’s even more fun when you use slippers, keep them on the whole time, and still have a helluva time getting out of the suit. Talk about being mentally scarred… having 2 old guys yanking at your suit, hands everywhere, trying to get you out. Yep… that’s special…
