Nice write and explanation up above. I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels that way. Especially considering the way these forums have gotten recently. I’m sorry if this has been covered already, but do you think the touch and go deadlifts contributed to you being able to keep your back rigid and straight when you do a max pull in competition? What’s your favorite assistance for this? I’ll have to look at your video again to see how you deadlift in a way that takes your low back out of the lift. That might be right up my ally.
[quote]METAL VIPER wrote:
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I honestly find this to just be dogma that has become universally accepted that you ALWAYS have to squat to depth or it “doesn’t count”.[/quote]
It seems like on the internet, people complain about going against the grain until it works, then it’s praised that someone challenged the status quo. They’re then thought of as an innovator
[/quote]
Absolutely accurate. People are less concerned with getting bigger and stronger and far more concerned with being “right”. The fundamental reason for this is that people are not doing what is necessary in order to elicit results from their training, and they delude themselves into thinking that somehow the results are just magically going to manifest themselves out of the blue one day. Since they do not have results to use as the metric for the success of their efforts, they have to rely on “science”, and thus they argue their way to a better physique.
In this situation, it is far more comforting to be a part of the majority compared to the minority, so these folks try to find the vocal majority to align with to make sure they are “right” about training. If we all agree something is the right way to do something, and I’m doing that, then I’m right, and surely that means I’m big and strong right? And if I’m not big and strong NOW, at least I can brag about how big and strong I’m going to be in the future!
Many would rather resign themselves to a life of mediocrity if it means that they can comfortably co-exist within a group of like minded individuals than attempt to do something outside of established group norms for the sake of progress. Additionally, when one does decide to deviate from the norms, they will be met with almost violent resistance from those within the group due to the threat this action poses toward the unity/integrity of the group. If you are doing something different, you are implying that the group is wrong about something, and rather than realize that you may be wrong and someone else may be right, it’s much easier to just destroy someone and attempt to bring them back down to your level.
I’ve been in groups like this before, where they only existed to make themselves feel better about their own personal failures. No one was progressing, everyone was just spinning their wheels, and they all spent their free time reassuring each other that they were doing just fine, and no one should expect them to be able to be making better progress because of a variety of excuses. I eventually couldn’t take it anymore and distanced myself from the group, and the reaction of a few members was rather alarming. I was called a variety of hurtful names and treated pretty vile by people that used to call me a friend.
I live by the motto that I’d rather be wrong and strong than right and weak.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
Your back problems sound eerily familiar. For me, it?s always been unloading the weight that causes problems. When it?s bad, I can actually still squat relatively pain free, but setting the weight back down in the rack will hurt like hell, and then it sucks getting out of bed in the morning.
I seem to tweak something at least a couple of times a year. This last layoff took me out of squatting and pulling for like 6 months.[/quote]
Definitely consider chain suspended work if you run into it in the future. You could easily perform concentric only work, which will really help with the healing/getting stronger process. Reverse bands are also a boon for this, as you will have the least amount of weight at the most vulnerable part of the ROM. Chains aren’t bad for this as well for the same reason.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
[quote]Sutebun wrote:
I would like to hear P talk about:
What were some of the more difficult hurdles or milestones in your training history, and what did you have to shift in your training or mind to overcome them?[/quote]
Physically, I dislocated my right shoulder and tore my labrum in a wrestling match at 16. The rehab for that was partially what got me into lifting, but since that time (I’m 28 now) I have dislocated it 5 more times, to include once 2 weeks ago just rolling over in my sleep. I have long arms and a short torso anyway, so I was already built for pulling, not pushing, but this really doesn’t help. I’ve been benching mid to low 300s for a few years now. I’m trying to fix it with some ROM progression, but honestly, the shoulder is just hamburger at this point and probably needs surgery.
When I was 22, I was squatting to pins because I was stupidly way too concerned about depth, and when I made contact with the pins, the rapid re/deloading on my lower back caused some sort of terrible pain. I could barely walk for 2 weeks and my wife had to dress me every morning so I could get to work. This kept me from deadlifting for 3 years, and about once every 6-8 months, I’ll re-tweak my back. The first few times this happened, the pain was just about as debilitating as the first time, but these days I can finish the workout if I were so inclined.
When I was 26, I was squatting in my garage in North Dakota and it was -20. This was actually a pretty warm winter for us, and this was the first reasonably cold day we had. I didn’t warm-up properly, and when I hit my first heavy set of squats, my hamstring snapped like a frozen rubber band when you pull it too fast. I couldn’t squat to depth for about 8 months after that.
In both of the latter entries, ROM progression was really beneficial for me to start training heavy again and getting stronger. It took me 3 years to discover it the first time, but I implemented it right away the second time.
In terms of psychologically, the biggest obstacle I had to overcome was to stop listening to the loudest advice and just do what got me results. I heard all the time about how you have to “always squat to depth” and “always pull dead stop” and “practice how you play” and other such pointless dogma. Once I learned how to do whatever it takes to get results, my training took off. [/quote]
Moral of the story: No Excuses.
God damn.
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
[quote]METAL VIPER wrote:
[quote]T3hPwnisher wrote:
I honestly find this to just be dogma that has become universally accepted that you ALWAYS have to squat to depth or it “doesn’t count”.[/quote]
It seems like on the internet, people complain about going against the grain until it works, then it’s praised that someone challenged the status quo. They’re then thought of as an innovator
[/quote]
I’ve been in groups like this before, where they only existed to make themselves feel better about their own personal failures. No one was progressing, everyone was just spinning their wheels, and they all spent their free time reassuring each other that they were doing just fine, and no one should expect them to be able to be making better progress because of a variety of excuses. I eventually couldn’t take it anymore and distanced myself from the group, and the reaction of a few members was rather alarming. I was called a variety of hurtful names and treated pretty vile by people that used to call me a friend.
[/quote]
These kind of situations can exist in any group no matter the activity. If I just read this paragraph without any context I wouldn’t have assumed the main topic at hand to be lifting.
OK pwnisher, I cut up a 1/2 sheet of ply wood today, 20 pieces, that will give me 10 one inch blocks, when I get them screwed togeather, 5 blocks per side. Now I already have my 2inch rubber blocks I use for deficits, and block pulls already, so if my calculations are right, that will give me 7 inches a side, of one inch progressions down to the 2 inch rubber blocks, where you say you go directly to the floor.
I’ll start this next Sunday from full height, and keep you posted, let ya know how the ply wood works compared to rubber tiles. I can’t see a problem with them, it’s what I had, so it’s what I used. My regular squats haven’t been moving in a while, and I’ve been ignoring deads, so I’m going to try your ROM method with my deads on Sundays, with my front squats, and on Thurs put my Reg squats on a CAT system, that shouldn’t be too taxing on my body, and allow me to give your method an all out effort. Thanks jake !
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
I think as you’ve stated, having to work around an injury, seems to make you a beter trainer in the end, I almost wish I could disect the other lifts the way I have with the squat due to a knee injury. When you have an injury you seem to obsess over every little detail of the lift that affects that area, and I think I’ve tried every combination of things, in order to keep my squat moving, and keep me pain free.
You seem to have an ability to see the obvious, and state it, (explain it ). I’ve always been doing this with my squat, but never really thought about transferring that mind set, to lifts not affected by my injury. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it seems to me, thats what you’ve done. At least thats one of the things you’ve done, and it’s changed my way of thinking about other lifts. If ya get that, Thanks[/quote]
Absolutely accurate observation. There is SO much to be learned from injury that they’re honestly a valuable opportunity, as long as you are willing to learn from them. So many people get injured and draw conclusions like “I shouldn’t do X lift” or “I should use less weight and better form”, without actually understanding how the injury specifically relates to them and their actions. It’s rarely a one size fits all solution, and most times requires far more creativity than one wishes to employ.
Additionally, we see SO many trainees that are absolutely terrified of the prospect of getting injury, so much so that they refuse to take ANY risk and as such make minimal progress. It’s that same trainee that resets their form 50 times as soon as they approach a weight that causes them to strain due to fear of injury, only to work back up to the exact same weight, experience the exact same strain, and start all over again. It’s the same people that are DEMANDING an explanation for Brandon Lilly’s knee injury or Matt Kroczaleski’s quad tear, wondering if it was from a lack of warm-up or soft tissue damage or overuse injury, not really taking into account that sometimes, when you have 700lbs on your back and try to squat it, your body just says no. They NEED there to be a reason for all injuries so that they can avoid these terrible things, when the reality is that it’s not really the ability of a trainee to avoid injury that leads to greatness, but instead their ability to recover and grow stronger from an injury.
I am glad you have found my ranting to be beneficial. Studying philosophy has been very helpful to increase my understanding of lifting, and as many have pointed out, the things I tend to rant about in lifting can very easily be about many other aspects of life. In general, what we are seeing aren’t lifter problems, but human problems manifested in the realm of lifting, and as such we can apply many solutions from other disciplines toward them. From reading your posts, you definitely have your head on straight, and you and I are on the same wavelength.
[quote]Sea-Doo Boy wrote:
Thanks for this thread, much to learn and already have learned much. The deadlift video opened my eyes to a few things as well. I can appreciate the “I always use straps until competition” bit. I have a weak grip, but I try to balance out my training with singles without straps, but if I’m going for reps/conditioning, hell yes I use them.
By the way, where is the link to his blog? I pulled a muscle in my brain this morning and it hasn’t been working right all day.
These days, I’m getting so much more out of all the learning and experience folks share than the actual training/progress itself. And this is after 20 years now of lifting. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy making the gains, I enjoy putting in the time and work, but I’m finally learning as I get well into my 30s that there is always a way that make work better for me that may not be the case for someone else.
Allow me to ask this: can you delve more into Leg Drive with deads, especially as it pertains to quad and glute activation? Thanks, and keep it up! [/quote]
To me, leg drive on deads isn’t so much a question of developing better leg strength as it is putting yourself in a better position to be able to utilize it. When your feet are closer together at the start of the pull, it’s much easier to get leg drive to break the weight off the floor, whereas the further apart your feet are, the more lower back and hamstring strength is used to break the weight. The unfortunate reality of this is that a larger stomach will hinder your leg drive, because you will need to widen your stance to be able to prevent your stomach from running into your quads, which is why weight gain can in many cases negatively impact the deadlift.
I know that when I lose weight, I tend to get very strong leg drive out of the dead, whereas when I gain weight, it’s hard to get into position.
For leg drive specific exercises, I don’t do anything in particular. I’ve been using a safety squat bar consistently since 2008, and I owe a great deal of my success to that piece of equipment. The high bar placement makes it similar to a high bar squat in terms of quad recruitment, but the camber of the bar greatly taxes the upper and lower back.
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
Nice write and explanation up above. I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels that way. Especially considering the way these forums have gotten recently. I’m sorry if this has been covered already, but do you think the touch and go deadlifts contributed to you being able to keep your back rigid and straight when you do a max pull in competition? What’s your favorite assistance for this? I’ll have to look at your video again to see how you deadlift in a way that takes your low back out of the lift. That might be right up my ally. [/quote]
Touch and go deadlifts definitely played a big part in my ability to continue training the deadlift, but like all things, it wasn’t just one thing that really helped me out. The mat pulling I do is very beneficial toward maintaining strength on a heavy pull, because I have trained my body to be able to handle a much heavier weight than it can for a full ROM. The first time I pulled 585, I wasn’t training full ROM progression at that point, I only ever went down to a 5 mat high pull and then started the cycle over again. Even with little training on pulling through a full ROM, I managed to handle the weight just fine, because I was still accustomed to handling heavier loads in training. Additionally, safety squat bar squatting has been a boon for reasons I’ve mentioned previously. I am sure training with chains has been helpful for the ability to develop my lockout, heavy rowing/chinning has been beneficial for lat strength, heavy ab work beneficial for keeping my core tight, etc.
For me, the greatest benefit of the touch and gos is that it allowed me to continue to train the deadlift heavy and frequently in the first place. Pulling dead stops kept hurting me, which meant I wasn’t training, which meant I wasn’t getting stronger. TnG allowed me to maintain tension in my back on a heavy pull in training, which meant I never let my back go slack with heavy weight in my hands and stopped re-aggravating my injury.
It’s similar to when people see Dave Tate doing squats to a sky high box with a million chains and a yoke bar. I’ve seen debates rage on if he’s doing that for optimal quad activation and time under tension and etc etc, but really, he does it because it’s what he needs to do to keep training.
Favorite assistance work for deads
Mat pull
Safety squat bar free squat with chains
Dumbbell rows (heavy and light)
Weighted GHR sit ups
Ab wheel
Reverse hyper
GHR
Kettlebell swing
It’s pretty much about being able to get your abs tight and hip hinge like mad.
Wow, your last blog post was full of great nuggets.
“When one engages in training, they become bigger, stronger, faster, leaner, better conditioned, etc, while when one engages in practice, they become better.”
“Two lifters could add 50lbs to their bench press, but one could have managed this because they become a better bencher, and the other could do so because they became a stronger bencher.”
“Not every lifting session is necessarily a practice session at the lift, and in many cases one can instead engage in training for the sake of not becoming a better lifter, but a stronger one. In these instances, it is the case that one may have technique on a lift that in no way mirrors their form on a competition lift, but is very much accomplishing the goal of making the trainee stronger at the lift.”
Thanks, it was very insightful!
here’s my pic, so ya know I’m actually going to give this thing a shot. My basement flooded last month, and this sheet of 1/2 inch plywood was left over, I might have to screw them togeather, so they don’t slide around, but I workout in my garage, where there’s a drill handy, so I think this will work fine. might not last forever, but should get a couple months atleast, and go from there. I know this will sound stupid, but on the first go round, what aprox 1RM %, stupid question, but just wondering on first try roughly where to start, or if it matter’s thanks jake
Thanks for the answer; I see you also addressed it in your most recent blog post.
You’ve gotten me thinking a lot, especially regarding the “practice” vs “performance” point.
I’ve played piano for something like 24 years now (it’s crazy now that I think about it.) The first 13 were spent taking lessons with daily practice. I also taught myself to be decent at pool, and then, of course, I taught myself almost everything I do at work.
Sometimes it makes sense to drill things in, repeating and repeating until mental failure. Sometimes it makes sense to focus on variations. Sometimes it makes sense to work on something related (“assistance work”) that drills a particular pattern, but isn’t quite the same as the real thing.
The biggest thing though, is that I spent enough time figuring this stuff out in a few different disciplines, that I have a pretty intuitive feeling as far as what – I – need to do to get better at something. The techniques differ by discipline of course, but the overarching approach doesn’t need to.
For whatever reason, I never really considered applying it to lifting. Thanks for helping me make that leap.
Forget the above question 
I know what I need to do, I’m just excited to try this out, like a school kid with a new toy, and I’m over thinking things, thanks though I’ll let ya know !
An important point I somehow forgot when I wrote that:
The number of 5Ks our cross-country team ran, in order to train for our 5K races… was zero. Zip. Nada.
We trained speed, we trained distance, we trained aerobic threshold, but we didn’t train what we competed. And we won, repeatedly, training that way.
So yeah, I see where you’re coming from.
[quote]Sutebun wrote:
Moral of the story: No Excuses.
God damn.
[/quote]
I’m definitely no badass. Reading Dave Tate or Matt Kroczaleski’s injury list puts anyone to shame, haha.
[quote]Sutebun wrote:
These kind of situations can exist in any group no matter the activity. If I just read this paragraph without any context I wouldn’t have assumed the main topic at hand to be lifting.[/quote]
Absolutely. Honestly, many of the things I write about relate to lifting but can be extrapolated to most interpersonal communication/interaction issues. Human problems manifest themselves wherever we are, haha.
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
OK pwnisher, I cut up a 1/2 sheet of ply wood today, 20 pieces, that will give me 10 one inch blocks, when I get them screwed togeather, 5 blocks per side. Now I already have my 2inch rubber blocks I use for deficits, and block pulls already, so if my calculations are right, that will give me 7 inches a side, of one inch progressions down to the 2 inch rubber blocks, where you say you go directly to the floor.
I’ll start this next Sunday from full height, and keep you posted, let ya know how the ply wood works compared to rubber tiles. I can’t see a problem with them, it’s what I had, so it’s what I used. My regular squats haven’t been moving in a while, and I’ve been ignoring deads, so I’m going to try your ROM method with my deads on Sundays, with my front squats, and on Thurs put my Reg squats on a CAT system, that shouldn’t be too taxing on my body, and allow me to give your method an all out effort. Thanks jake ![/quote]
If you can, I would consider putting the rubber blocks on top of the wood rather than on the bottom. Should give you a slightly softer landing, and be less jarring on the joints as a result.
I’ll be excited to hear how this turns out. Best of luck.
[quote]Ecchastang wrote:
Wow, your last blog post was full of great nuggets.
“When one engages in training, they become bigger, stronger, faster, leaner, better conditioned, etc, while when one engages in practice, they become better.”
“Two lifters could add 50lbs to their bench press, but one could have managed this because they become a better bencher, and the other could do so because they became a stronger bencher.”
“Not every lifting session is necessarily a practice session at the lift, and in many cases one can instead engage in training for the sake of not becoming a better lifter, but a stronger one. In these instances, it is the case that one may have technique on a lift that in no way mirrors their form on a competition lift, but is very much accomplishing the goal of making the trainee stronger at the lift.”
Thanks, it was very insightful![/quote]
Glad you enjoyed it. This thread has actually been very useful to me in helping me come up with more topics and be able to flesh out my thoughts a bit more.
[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
here’s my pic, so ya know I’m actually going to give this thing a shot. My basement flooded last month, and this sheet of 1/2 inch plywood was left over, I might have to screw them togeather, so they don’t slide around, but I workout in my garage, where there’s a drill handy, so I think this will work fine. might not last forever, but should get a couple months atleast, and go from there. I know this will sound stupid, but on the first go round, what aprox 1RM %, stupid question, but just wondering on first try roughly where to start, or if it matter’s thanks jake[/quote]
I know you said you already figured this out, but just to give my perspective, like 5/3/1, less is more. You’ll lose reps with each cycle most likely, and the more you can hit in the first, the longer you can train befor ehaving to reset.
I’ve read somewhere on elitefts(i think it was another dave tate article) that you gotta reset the deadlift when repping. I used to just grab some air, tense my core, drop the bar, count to “avada kedavra” and lift. But the second lift was always easier and faster then the first. So then I began dropping the bar, stand up, get tense and do another rep, but that would take about 7-10 seconds between reps making a single set just under one minute. Felt like the angel of death breathed in my face as he passed. But if that’s the “right” way to rep deadlifts then I’ll just have to man up I guess.
Another deadlift question. When I compare pros to amateurs I’ve always noticed how low the pros drop their hips in comparison. When I’m lifting my body is almost parallel to the floor. When someone like Babyslayer lifts his hips are so low his body is at a 30-45° angle. What is the reason behind this?
Thanks P, I will put rubber mats on top, was already thinking this, just for the longevity of the wood, i’m also using rubber coated plates, that take some impact as well.
So, basicaly I’m aiming for 10-15 reps, with one rest pause, on the rest pause, do you stay straped to the bar, and just take a knee for 30 sec, or do you unstrap, and take a bigger break. On erring on the conserative side, ya I grew up on McRoberts, so I get that. The only problem I see, is that with my Deadlift there’s a huge drop off for me, between getting reps, and heavy pulls, ie; I can get around 10-15 reps with 385 ( fresh) but I’m lucky to get 5 with 405, and I managed to eek out 3 ugly reps with 455 the other day, followed by 9 with 385.
I think because I basicaly didn’t train legs for 10yrs, due to injuries, and life, but I was doing lots of rack pulls, BORs, chins. My back strength is far ahead of leg strength. Its all I can think of to explain the drop in strength, between high rep, and low rep work. So it’s just making it hard to pick a jump off point. I also haven’t been training my deads much the past year, so I’ll just play it by year. I think 405 might be the right weight, but I may have to do more than one 7 week cycle with the same weight, to get everything in order. We shall see, but as you can see, I’m fucking pumped. later !