I would like input specifically from people that have taken their deadlift from 500 to at least 600. How did you do it? I can read all the articles all day, but in the end what matters to me is what other people did.
At the moment I seem to be a bit stuck.
Rack pulls always helped me overload on the weight and increase my gains. Think about working lifts such as power clean, good mornings, and straight leg deadlifts. These lifts may not be actual deadlifts but they will hit the same muscles in different ways.
A lot of reverse band work for me, cycling from blue to green to purple with same weight then increasing weight and repeating the cycle. Rack pulls never did much for me expect give me a big rack pull. Stiff legged deads and rdls also helped me a lot too.
I pull sumo and use a suit, so things might be different for an unequipped or conventional puller. I used:
A dedicated deadlift day, pulling from the floor or a deficit one week and rack pulling the other.
Floor pulls were done with or without straps for 3-5 reps, rack pulls were always done with an alternating mixed grip for 3-5 reps.
Heavy ab work 2x a week. Chins and heavy rows each week.
Deloading when I got weak off the floor, then maxing out when I felt good.
I do both reverse bands along with rack pulls and good mornings. I also like heavy leg presses with the same foot position as I use while deadlifting. I have taken my deadlift from 620 or so to around 700 over the last yr or so. PS. I hardly ever pull off the floor maybe once every 8 weeks or so.
For me Good mornings helped alot and as of right now power shrugs from about mid thigh have been a giving me alot of power in the lookout ,which has been my problem in the past . I also enjoyed doing a cycle sheiko style with lots of deadliftds to the knee rack pulls etc. and high volume . My first 600+ deadlift was after a sheiko cycle .
Deadlift heavy once every other or every third week (I did the later). Squat once or twice a week, at least one time relatively heavy. GM’s are great. I also love band deads combined with rack pulls usually from 11 or 14" in height (a regular dead is 8"). The average bands work great for an 500+ lb puller. Defecit deads are good as well. Just one big set for deads is all you need if your form is good. Don’t dead 16-18 days before you max out. Personally I tend to stay in the higher rep ranges for some sets, 5-10 reps. Lift pretty explosively on the way up. Good luck.
Being on a sea-going command in the Navy, I only get the opportunity to train 5ish-7ish months out of the year (at sea there is only a smith machine, as an aside submarine life SUCKS for a powerlifter). I took my deadlift from 515 to 637 in about a year. With how compact my schedule is I have to do bursts of super intense training where I do 3 ME like days a week doing all 3 of the lifts (DE days for lower body with ME upper body and a seperate DE upper day).
I do four weeks standard dead, squat and bench and then rotate between different variations every 4 weeks. My training partner has gone from 200ish dead to 390 dead (@ 165) in the same time frame. This may not be super smart for year-rounders, but it is the only thing that works for me in my bursts of training. I did different things prior to this with NO success whatsoever. That is just my experience.
A lot of good stuff here guys. Thanks a bunch.
Deficit pulls, rack/pin pulls, and heavy good morning work always seem to get me past plateaus. I’m a big fan of reverse band work, too, though my trouble is usually breaking the floor.
Went from 585-635 using a power to the people routine. Then went from 635-673@198 pulling 2 doubles and 1 single, along with pause squats on mondays, and heavy squats and gms on thursdays.
Also backing off every once and a while. Not sure if you are there yet though.
Also go to elitefts and article search “deadlift”, some pure gold in there imo.
[quote]sdspeedracer wrote:
Deficit pulls, rack/pin pulls, and heavy good morning work always seem to get me past plateaus. I’m a big fan of reverse band work, too, though my trouble is usually breaking the floor.[/quote]
Yea, I’m the opposite. I have trouble with the second half and the lockout.
[quote]masssiveman99 wrote:
I do both reverse bands along with rack pulls and good mornings. I also like heavy leg presses with the same foot position as I use while deadlifting. I have taken my deadlift from 620 or so to around 700 over the last yr or so. PS. I hardly ever pull off the floor maybe once every 8 weeks or so.[/quote]
do you rack pull from diffrent height’s or same each time, and do you rack pull every sesion or only once in a while,
I’m noticeing that the common theme in here is rack pulls, and reverse bands. So pretty much anything that get more than your max in your hands.
I’m wondering, from the people who have had a lot of success with these, are most of you conventional pullers?
what about if you were tips for intermediate sumo pullers? Any sumo pullers wanna chime in with what worked best for them?
The two biggest things that have helped my sumo pull are box squats and ultra wide pulls. The box squats are probably the single best thing I’ve done for my sumo strength.
I am a poor ass deadlifter that wants to make it a staple in my training. Even at my best I’ve done only 455 for 3-5. That was doing rack pulls one week and deads another. Only problem is that i never got any higher than 455. What are reverse bands? and whats the deal with only doing max once in a while. I usually did deads to the max every time I did them. Is this wrong?
[quote]sptcigars wrote:
I am a poor ass deadlifter that wants to make it a staple in my training. Even at my best I’ve done only 455 for 3-5. That was doing rack pulls one week and deads another. Only problem is that i never got any higher than 455. What are reverse bands? and whats the deal with only doing max once in a while. I usually did deads to the max every time I did them. Is this wrong? [/quote]
I went from 455 to 500 by doing more singles less often. Then after I hit 500, which was my goal at the time, I switched back to doing more rep work. Now I am thinking of going back to doing singles, rack pulls, and pull-throughs. I have no GHR chair and no bands at my gym and for some reason I have a feeling that this is what I actually need the most.
Also I am going to try Hanley’s idea of doing box squats. I’ve never done them and I pull conventional, it’s worth a try though.
Upper back assistance work. A lot of it.
[quote]sptcigars wrote:
I am a poor ass deadlifter that wants to make it a staple in my training. Even at my best I’ve done only 455 for 3-5. That was doing rack pulls one week and deads another. Only problem is that i never got any higher than 455. What are reverse bands? and whats the deal with only doing max once in a while. I usually did deads to the max every time I did them. Is this wrong? [/quote]
Not necessarily wrong, but a lot of people find that the higher they go in weight, the less often they can pull DL hard. I don’t know if you’re there yet. For that matter, I don’t know if I’m there yet. Also, other very good deadlifting people like pulling hard on a more frequent basis (not maxing per se though). Depends on the person really.