New DL PR

I pulled with straps on for the first time since May today, I use a double-pronated grip. 380lbs went up easily and I pulled 405lbs, although my lower back did not feel as tight as it should have been.

My goal is to get to 500 by next june, is that reasonable? I’ll get a vid on here next week. Although I wanted to know – should I stick with conventional deads and try to improve my form/get 405lbs for reps – or can I do deadlift variations and still improve my conventional deads?

rack pulls, decifit pulls and things of that nature would help, reps with 405 will help, increasing barbell/db row weight and gm’s/squat weight and hamstring work will also help of course. Also your grip should not hold you up that much, start shrugging strapless and it should help

Good job man, I had the same experience as you about 2 weeks ago. Straps, double-pronated, 405, haha. My previous max effort was 365, so I was stoked that I could just keep piling on weight.

I attribute a lot of my posterior chain strength increase over the last few months to my RDLing. I would do 4x12 and 5x6 with the weight always moving up. I’d never used ‘heavy’ weight for RDLs before, so I think this made a huge difference.

EDIT: I also think it’s funny we’re both using a back double bi as our avatar lol.

I got a pretty clean looking 405x5 last week, up from an ugly 405x1 from maybe 12-14 weeks ago. My deadlifts been going up just by ramping up to a heavy set of 5 once a week. The assistance work I’ve been doing is dimel dl’s and db rows. I thought about swapping out for RDLs, but the the dimels seem to be less taxing w/ all the other work I’ve been doing; I’ve been squatting low bar heavy and doing power cleans twice a week, which probably are helping as well.

Its not broke so I’m not fixing it.

Congrats on the PR.

Thanks for the feedback, nice job on the improvements axe and theuofh.

The studio that I train at is getting a couple power racks, so I could implement rack pulls. Are deficit pulls where you just pull it from the floor to your knee? I always shrug strapless, although I generally go light and get 225lbs for reps.

I’m inclined to get 365lbs for reps next week with conventional deadlifts.

Deficit deads are when you pull from a deficit, aka “below” the floor. Without a solid box to stand on, best thing I’ve found is to stand on two 45lb plates. And for that I’ve only used old style flat backed plates. Newer style plates with fancy shapes and such probably wouldn’t work. In that case buy some thick rubber mats, stand on them.

u can also do deficit deads by loading the bar with smaller plates (ie loading the bar with 25lb plates instead of 45s)

Halting deadlifts are pulling from the floor to the knee.

[quote]Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:
Although I wanted to know – should I stick with conventional deads and try to improve my form/get 405lbs for reps – or can I do deadlift variations and still improve my conventional deads?[/quote]

You can combine both. Adding in some deadlift variations as you work on your conv. will help get you stronger.

I too got a deadlift PR, yesterday. 535 x 3 touch and go.

[quote]conorh wrote:
I too got a deadlift PR, yesterday. 535 x 3 touch and go.[/quote]

Nice work!

[quote]earthshaker wrote:
Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:
Although I wanted to know – should I stick with conventional deads and try to improve my form/get 405lbs for reps – or can I do deadlift variations and still improve my conventional deads?

You can combine both. Adding in some deadlift variations as you work on your conv. will help get you stronger.[/quote]

I currently train deadlifts with legs, would it be okay to train heavy conventional followed by higher reps with RDL or sumo?

[quote]Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:
earthshaker wrote:
Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:
Although I wanted to know – should I stick with conventional deads and try to improve my form/get 405lbs for reps – or can I do deadlift variations and still improve my conventional deads?

You can combine both. Adding in some deadlift variations as you work on your conv. will help get you stronger.

I currently train deadlifts with legs, would it be okay to train heavy conventional followed by higher reps with RDL or sumo?[/quote]

That’s one way of doing it. As long as you are working hard on your deadlifts you will improve.