Ian King’s A Back So Wide and Christian Thibadeau’s The Power Look are great. A really thick back is my main bodybuilding aim. I already do the power versions of the olympic lifts and pull-ups. But now I am going to add clean/snatch grip deadlifts and bent-over rows. But I think I will leave out the pulls for now. With the deadlifts is it alright drop the weight instead of lowering it. Cheers!
personally i like to lower the weight in a controlled manner. I don’t want to risk any injury by not controlling the weight. Plus you gett the added bonus of using your muscles in the eccentric portion. You get the best of both worlds. laters pk
It’s alright to drop the weight while deadlifting IF you have bumper plates and train in a gym which has understanding patrons! The advantage is that you take out the eccentric portion which causes the most muscular damage. Well, depending on your goals that’s either good or bad … the muscle damage will help you stimulate hypertrophy gains however lowering the muscle damage will decrease the time it takes you to recover.
I do train at a gym with bumper plates. The main reason that I drop the deadlift is that on the eccentric the muscles that run across my hips and lower back feel so tight that they could snap.
why would u want to drop the weight? Im not a powerlifter, but I always lower the weight UNDER CONTROL. Do u drop the weight when u do squats? Or biceps curls? or chest bench press? or military press? Then why would u want to bang the weight down on the floor without any control? If u cant lower it under control u shouldnt be lifting that much. tsk tsk tsk. the eccentric part of a lift is usually the most important. sheesh.
diesel I do lower the weight on squats, presses etc just not on snatches, cleans and jerks. Because deadlifts are similar to the 1st pull on snatches and cleans and because I feel uneasy lowering the weight on deadlifts I like to just drop the weight.
pk- You are putting yourself at a greater risk for injury by trying to slowly lower a deadlift under control. Quite the opposite.
diesel- a deadlift is not a curl or squat; the eccentric should not be emphasized in this particular lift as it puts excess strain on the back.
A good tempo for the deadlift is X3X1, with a slightly shorter pause on the ground when doing higher rep work.
On the same note, I do not recommend "dropping" the weight, lowering it w/ some type of control and respect for the equipment being used is neccesary, but I dont recommend the eccentric take longer than 1 second at the most.
Diesel, the reason you drop the weight you’re deadlifting is because it’s damn heavy. If you’re doing low reps with heavy weights, the amount of weight you can lift is much more than you can safely lower under control. Lowering the weight slowly makes no sense at all. There’s a high risk of injury, and a large amount of muscular damage, as Christian Thibaudeau pointed out earlier. It does nothing to increase your limit strength. If your goal is to deadlift as much weight as possible, then lowering the weight slowly is all cost, no benefit. Correct form for heavy reps would be to drop the bar, reset the grip, and deadlift again.
Elliot, how much weight are you using? If you say that the muscles feel so tight they could snap, I’d say you’re probably using too much weight to lower slowly. I would go ahead and drop it.
how is using a negative dangerous in the deadlift. How do you perform your stiff legged deadlifts or your good mornings? Don’t you control the negative with those excercises. If controlling the negative is bad, then we should not do stiff legged deadlifts or good mornings. When i meant negative on the deadlift i meant lowering the weight in a semi stiff legged manner and then starting the rep all over with proper form. It’s kind of hard to reverse the full bent leg deadlift motion. I’ve been using this motion for as long as i’ve been doing deadlifts and i’ve never injured or had any lower back trouble. laters pk