Yessir. But Hey man we’re all just boats on the river. The late, great Colonel Sanders didn’t start until he was in his 70s so we’ve (probably) got time lol
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One interesting point to consider about rounding is what Andrew Lock says: the issue is when it occurs. If your back rounds as you set up and before you brace, locking everything in, there isn’t really much of a problem. Yes, the spine is rounded somewhere but it is locked in that position throughout the movement; so there is much less strain on discs etc because the spine is not flexing under load. The issue becomes a potentially serious problem when the flexion occurs during the deadlift, because then the spine is not locked into position and the risk of something bad happening increases.
@Koestrizer given your ongoing issues in the hip and back area I would prioritise strengthening those areas and the abs above pretty much everything. The stronger the component parts, the more resistant to injury they will be. You would also do well to work very hard on bracing correctly.
Honestly, right now I would worry much less about how much you can deadlift and what supplemental exercises will increase it; rather I would work almost exclusively on building a strong and resilient lower back, hips and abs. You don’t need to deadlift more than three plates to keep practising the movement (that’s around 60-70% for you I think), and this would leave much more recovery capacity for things like good mornings, back raises, barbell rows, ab work, split squats, lunges, reverse hypers, hamstring curls, etc.
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Thanks for the input Mark, good stuff!
I agree with you on building up my weaknesses for a better and safer pull. Maybe take a look at my deadlift plan and tell me if that is approximetly what you mean? The first four weeks are geared towards only that without “actual” deadlifting. The next four reintroduce the weight. If at that point I can already tell that competitions are further delayed, I could still change the second half of the plan and go less aggressive.
Edit: Second lower body day has box squats. lunges and a little bit of strongman stuff.
Honestly, I think you would do better to ditch the top sets and back off sets in favour of something lighter and higher volume.
Say, three week waves like 5x5x60%, then 5x5x62.5%, 5x5x65%. Then start again but go 8x3x62.5%, 8x3x65%, 8x3x67.5%, etc. That gives you a decent amount of practice, and all at weights you are guaranteed to be able to execute with good technique and a lot of speed.
Ditch the stuff like deficit and sweeping deadlifts. They are more likely to have you getting in poor positions. Save them for when your deadlift and back are fixed.
Also, your assistance should probably be higher in volume. Train like a bodybuilder. Think along the lines of 50 reps back raises, 50-75 of abs, 25-50 of good mornings. Rows light but higher in volume too Ditching the supplemental exercises will create room for this.
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That would be a very very light approach. Not that that is bad but I don’t know how that would pair with comp season. Under the premise that we will have a comp season.
That would of course be an option anyhow.
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Heavy isn’t the be all and end all, especially when you’ve been struggling with injury, technique and grip issues. At a point all it becomes is constant testing, which won’t fix anything and most likely will make things worse.
If you’re worried about losing strength, remember that you are training your lower body plenty outside of deadlifts. Surely keeping the loads moderate on the lift giving you problems is more likely to provide good results compared to pushing and pushing?
You know as well as I do that to build strength it is perfectly possible to train with lighter weights; or with heavier weights. Both work. If we look at your deadlift, it appears that using low volume and heavier loads has persistently failed to work. So why not try lighter loads and higher volume? Worst case, your pull goes nowhere. Most likely at the very least your technique improves if nothing else, and that will definitely help your max move up.
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Okay you make it very hard to disagree. That logic is convincing. Training “light”, especially on the lifts I am struggling with is a concept that fucks with my head but I am willing to accept that that is the ego speaking or the insecurity.
I don’t want to ask too much of you mate but could you maybe give me a basic outline as to how such a plan could look like? You have given a glimpse above but even there I am not sure how I would continue after those six weeks or how long I should keep the format before changing things up.
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I’m just glad to help, my friend.
This is how I would run it, give or take.
Week 1
DL, 5x5x60%
Good morning 3x10
Reverse hyper (no machine? Use a table or incline bench) 2x25
DB row 3x10
Lying leg raise 1x50
Week 2
DL 5x5x62.5%
Good morning off pins 2x12
Back extension, weighted 2x25
Pendlay row 3x8
Plank 3x1 minute
Week 3
DL 5x5x65%
Good morning against bands 50 AFSAP
Back extension 2x15
Barbell row 1x20
Lying leg raises 1x50
Week 4
DL 5x3x50%, 10 second rests between sets
Reverse hyper 1x50
DB row 1x20
Crunches 3x25
Week 5
DL 8x3x62.5%
Seated good morning 3x12
Penday row 4x6
Reverse hyper 1x50
Lying leg raises 1x50
Week 6
DL 8x3x65%
Good morning 2x15
Reverse hyper 3x20
Barbell row 2x10
Weighted situps on bench 3x15
Week 7
DL 8x3x67.5%
Good morning off pins 1x20
Back extension 1x50
DB row 2x25
Plank 3x1 minute
Week 8
DL 5x3x50%, 10 second rests
Back extension, weighted 2x15
Reverse hyper 1x50
Pendlay row 5x4
Crunches 1x50
By this time your lower back and abs should be stronger (although you may not feel this due to fatigue). Your technique should also be better, so we can start re-introducing some supplemental exercises as well as taking some measures to make you strain safely
Week 9
DL 5x2, 2x5x65%, 10 second rests between sets
DL without touching the floor 2x8x50%
Good morning against bands 1x50
DB row 2x15
Lying leg raises 1x50
Week 10
DL 9x3x67.5%
Rack pull at mid shin 2x10x55%
Back extension, weighted 3x15
Barbell row 3x12
Crunches 2x25
Week 11
DL 4x3, 1xAMRAPx70%
Dead stop DL (every rep you put the bar down, stand up and start again) 2x6x55%
Reverse hyper 3x20
Pendlay row 3x8
Plank 2x1.5 minutes
Week 12
DL 5x3x50%
Back extension 2x15
Inverted row 3x10
Lying leg raises 1x50
Week 13
DL 15x75% AFSAP
Romanian deadlift 4x6x50%
Barbell row 2x15
Back extension 3x20
Crunches 1x50
Week 14
DL 7x4x67.5%
DL without touching floor 2x10x55%
Good morning against bands 1x75
DB row 2x20
Weighted situp on bench 2x20
Week 15
DL 4x4x70%, 10 second rests between sets
DL to the knee 2x12x50%
Reverse hyper 3x20
Pendlay row 4x6
Plank 3x1 minute
Week 16
DL 5x3x50%
Good morning with empty bar 2x20
Barbell row 2x10
Standing crunches (you can use a band) 5x10
By this time you’ll be carrying a fair bit of fatigue so a lot of this may feel slow and heavy, but I would be surprised if the reps don’t move very well anyway. If you wanted, although I advise against it, this would be the time you could take a few weeks to prepare for a couple of singles in the 85-90% range. What I would suggest instead, though, is essentially keeping much the same structure but each wave have a week between 55-65% (20-30 total reps), a week between 70-80% (15-25 total reps) and a week between 82.5-87.5% (10-15 total reps) and keep that moving forward. Your total reps would be set per week within the range while also bearing in mind what your other lower body day involves.
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1 push ups
32 (max out)
2 OH yoke walk
3 x 2 lanes @ 85 kg WITH a turn (not letting it down)
Holy mother of stabilizers. This exercise was given as advice to me roughly 4 years ago by the big man @Alpha himself when I just started this log. I forgot about it in the meantime because I had no yoke available back then.
3 viking press (strict)
Setup with the axle today.
3 x 20 @ 1 plate
4 face pulls
3 x 18 (6 forehead - 6 nose - 6 neck)
Notes:
- I don’t feel like doing anything today. That did spread to my training. I’m not worried about that though. I am sure I can turn that around next week. And if not, we all know I am capable of making gains irregardless.
- had a chat with two friends about how many push ups we all could do. 32 is the answer for my chubby self.
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Wow thanks a ton for taking the time and writing all of this out. That’s very nice of you!
This is SO different to anything that I have ever done that my mind instantly wants to go into “but what if… How’s that… Why not…?”. Maybe that’s exactly the reason why I should do it as you’ve outlined. I am very curious about the potential of such a training plan. Tbh in the past I often deloaded heavier than most of these percentages but on the other hand I have never really tried to make gains while using ligth gains.
So to summarize: Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it my friend! And I shall do as instructed. 
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Watching this with excitement,
This is going to be epic.
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Wow K, @MarkKO is such a decent and nice guy, that looks fantastic.
When I read it I immediately thought what if I did this or that instead and used heavier weights.
Then I said hold on, Mark is strong as shit and knows what he is talking about.
IF you could follow this plan going forward, I would absolutely love to see what would happen to your DL strength.
Looking forward to see this happen
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Haha we are obviously similiarely wired, that was exactly my thought process as well.
If I needed another reason I would probably put down “self experiment”. I am pretty curious myself.
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Great looking layout Mark.
I used a similar plan (20- 24 deadlift reps per week between 50-60%, off blocks) and my Deadlift improved 50 pounds in 10 weeks.
I like the rotation of good morning styles and then deadlift variations for the 2nd lift. It’s too easy to blow something up doing the same heavy, targeted motion over and over.
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@Koestrizer @mortdk the idea with this system for the deadlift is to put structures in place that essentially guarantee every deadlift rep will be executed with percect technique and explosiveness. By the ninth week onwards, where you will start doing things to make it a little more challenging and you will start to carry a fatigue load, you will still be explosive and technically perfect despite some reps feeling hard and slow. That will mean by the end, you have spent over three months never missing a rep and executing technically sound reps with speed under some degree of fatigue. This will transfer to heavier loads, because you will automatically approach the bar intending to move it fast with good technique, knowing you can do this even if it feels heavy and slow.
The assistance work will have built the deadlift muscles so that when you do execute a rep, the motor driving the lift has much greater capacity than it does currently. When you combine much improved technique, increased explosiveness and larger muscles you will see improved performance
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It is also too easy to adapt to the movement @FlatsFarmer as you well know. The less adapted to assistance we are, the greater degree of growth it will stimulate.
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This is how we differ. I just thought 1. what a great effort by @markko to write this all out and 2. Just do what he said
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Doing this kind of thing helps cement my understanding. It’s one thing to see Greg write it out, and then follow it. It’s another thing to sit down and actually set it up.
So everybody wins.
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This was exactly what I thought, but I had a number 3. I could do it like this or that, I wouldn’t change a single thing was I supposed to do it… which I might even do. I’ve copied the program to my endless lists of different programs I’d like to try.
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I’m exactly the same as Mort, I had a step 3. That is just my nature. I always want to know the why and how. Which especially doctors seem to find annoying from time to time.
Both have been beautifully explained by Mark in this entry.
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