Sorry if you mentioned this before, but how tall are you?
I’ve had a love/hate relationship with deadlifts my whole life. Since I have no real plans on competing I often use the trap bar for cycles and deadlift sumo off blocks. Having the bar an extra couple inches of higher significantly reduces my risk of blowing my back out.
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Yeah could be the hip structure. I tried different stances in squatting before and when the stance was narrow, I noticed I couldn’t get below parallel and that there’d be some lumbar flexion if I forced it.
Not gonna deny I’m a Brian Shaw fan but I got the idea from here
No trap bar available so looks like either sumo or blocks
@theBird no problem dude. I’m 5’9 but I feel like I’m all legs compared to torso
28 July 2019
C4W2D1
Squat 82.5 x 3, 92.5 x 3, 105 x 8 (huge PR for me! This gives me my highest e1RM so far)
Hips were rising sooner than I’d like, but l wouldn’t really call them the squat mornings. Stopped at the 8th rep. Probably could have grinded 1 more.
Bench 45 x 3, 50 x 3, 57.5 x 10 (another PR!)
Pull ups 5, 5, 5, 4.5, 4
Last three sets were with band assistance
Dips 10, 10, 8
One arm seated rows 4 plates x 10 x 4
These felt good so I’ll try 5 plates next time
@littlesleeper the no pull harness you linked to me, do you have exactly that? Does it work? A different type is more popular on Amazon so I was wondering which to get
@flappinit about the program for pull ups, if for example my goal is 25 pull ups for the day, is it better to break it into smaller reps per set like 5, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 or is using bands to reach 5 reps per set to make it 5 x 5 ok?
I believe the one I linked was the actual one my wife bought. It was available to us at a local equestrian store where a friend of ours works.
It doesn’t look very rugged as it is quite thin, but we have not had any problems with it in over 2 years. Still looks like new.
If the other one is better reviewed or cheaper on Amazon I don’t think you’d be making a mistake either way, they are a pretty simple but effective design. I hope it works for you!
If by “program” you mean my first suggestion of just picking a number and doing that many in the day, then yeah, you could do 25 sets of 1 if you want. Do that number for 2 weeks and see if you can decrease the number of sets it takes to do that number, and then up the number by 10-15.
Have you made any decisions/discoveries with your deadlift? I’ve learned a lot about hip joint anatomy by going through my hip surgery. It turns out, we’re all built differently and that BS about squatting and deadlifting certain ways is dumb. Wider stances seem to be better for getting depth. I found that a narrow stance on squats allowed me to do the movement pain free last year, but depth was definitely sacrificed.
@littlesleeper yeah it does look flimsy. But alright, thank you! I’ll give it a try. A relative is going to the US and staying there for a few weeks, so ordering through amazon would be most convenient. Thanks!
@flappinit alright, got it, thanks!
@Frank_C will deadlift either Wednesday or Thursday. For sure I’ll take a video. Will try to do direct comparisons too with the same weight and adequate rest times.
Yup, really just gotta find what works best for us individually. I’ll let you know how I feel
About the depth, if you’re not going to compete in PL anyway, I don’t think you need to squat to PL standards specially if there’s pain involved. Any plans of putting squats back into your regular programming?
I’m going to give it a shot as a miserable assistance exercise this week. I got permission to squat in the Smith Machine since I won’t have to hold the bar with both hands. My PT doesn’t want me to use my right arm to hold the bar yet. I think I’m going to do a Tabata style workout so the weight will be low, reps will be moderate, and pain will be high. 
I can also move my feet out in front of me and make it all quads if the regular approach bothers my hip at all. I’m feeling pretty good so I’m hoping it’ll be pain free.
I’m not sure if I’ll use squats as a main movement though. Making it a priority will mean that I focus on weight progression and I’m not sure if that’s a good plan with my bone structure. I think avoiding it might allow me to keep my God given joints instead of degrading things to the point that I need a replacement. I like squats so it’ll be hard to avoid them, but I know that I need to be smart.
I see. Will be waiting for updates in your log! I know some devout lifters don’t have a high regard for the smith machine, but hey, if it allows you to squat pain free, why not?
I got a feeling you’ve seen this already, just wanted to put it here just in case you haven’t, but this helped me a lot in finding my preferred stance width in the squat. If it helps you even just a bit, then yay!
Great video. I started learning about changing my squat stance late last year but it was too late. I think I need to go wider, but it actually increased my pain at the time. I’ll mess around with this stuff today and see if I can go wide now that I’ve rebuilt my hip strength.
try it. this helped me. if not, pull with a trap bar (low handles please) or pull sumo, as per @chris_ottawa’s suggestion.
No trap bar sadly. Sumo seems to be best alternative if nothing i do will make that lumbar flexion go away. We’ll see. This video makes me want to sumo though haha
Lots of really good points and she touches a little on conventional too. Just be patient with Bart’s goofiness if it’s not your thing
2019.08.01
C4W2D2 - experiment day
Deadlift
Narrow: 60 x 5, 70 x 5, 82.5kg x 3
Wide: 60 x 5 70 x 5, 82.5 x 3, 9.5 x 3, 105 x 5
Alternating narrow and wide but I stopped doing the narrow after 82.5kg. Should have enough footage do check which is better. Didn’t push the top set because I was getting tired already plus it’s my first time using that wide.
For the wide, I think I felt my lower back doing a little less work than the narrow. Probably because the glutes were in a better position to contribute? The problem I encountered was that i don’t think I was bracing my lats as good since my arms naturally had to go a little wider. I’ve been so used to my arms going straight down all this time. Either way, still needs more practice bracing in general
Quite a lot of videos so I’ll upload them when I have the time
OHP 35 x 3, 40 x 3, 45 x 5 (rep PR and highest e1RM so far)
Top set grindy though. The bar really does have a tendency to go in front of me as I start the lift. It’s not that huge, but I definitely feel it.
Side laterals 5kg x 12 x 5
Face pulls 20kg x 10 x 2, 17.5kg x 10 x 2
Lats are a little sore. That’s a good thing. Hopefully it’s from the deadlift and not the OHP. I know some people get lat DOMS from OHP too
Looks like a good workout, Whang.
Doesn’t hurt to play around a little on stance. Gonna be fun to see what ends up being your favorite stance.
And a PR on OHP is always great.
To anyone who’ll watch these and help me fix technique, thank you, really
For reference
60kg Narrow
60kg Wide
70kg Narrow
70kg Wide
82.5kg Narrow
82.5kg Wide
92.5kg Wide (Had to move my phone here cause the “crossfit” area was gonna be used)
105kg Wide
Might be biased, but I think the wider stance allowed me to use a little more glutes so it wasn’t all back doing the work
For some of the wide pulls, I think I was setting my hips too low sometimes so my shins would push the bar a little forward and my hips would rise first when I initiate the pull. Will try to work on that.
I think a big part of it whether narrow or wide boils down to bracing which definitely needs work. I’ll try the next cycle with the wide stance and see how it feels.
Sumo will probably be better, but not really ready to throw the towel just yet on this
It might be the angle of the video, but I think the you’re letting the weight stay too forward relative to your body on the 92.5kg and 105kg videos. That’s why your hip rises first.
Based on the video, it takes you like 10 seconds to prepare yourself for the rep. Why so long? Try hinging down, grabbing the bar, set your hips, and just… explode.
I’ll use Chris_Ottawa’s latest deadlift video as a reference point. That’s a good deadlift. That’s what you want to be doing.
