I barely do heavy sets of deadlifts anymore unless I really want to test where I am in like an 8 week block or something. Using high rep deadlifts builds an amazing base for eventually realizing strength.
Honestly, this type of entry is exactly why I don’t read articles on this site anymore. I get it’s for novices, but goddamn does it set a horrible tone for your lifting career if you start out with a “do X not X” mentality without trying things first.
It’s pretty much always an instance of me accidentally clicking the homepage instead of the forums and seeing an article title that draws me in. But at least it’s not like the row I got into on the facebook page over labeling something “The Blitzkrieg Workout”, haha.
I still dig Paul Carter’s articles though. Definitely speaks a language I understand. I miss when Wendler and Tate contributed regularly.
I still love the Dave Tate series he did on accessories to strength diffeeent part of the big 3. I think it was called 50 movements to hammer weak points or something.
I was starting powerlifting when I found that. Invaluable information for a new lifter wanting to bring his lifts up. Opposed to articles saying “don’t do this cause it’s hard”
True. Even though Paul has gotten kind of strange and adds a lot of filler nonsense (“it’ll be there on meet day” type things from LRB), I do read the occasional article.
I miss those too, along with the occasional Dan John and Josh Bryant one’s as well.
I stopped because the reality is that I don’t need more information. I haven’t mastered what I know and I need to stop reading about how to get boulder shoulders or that yoked look. It always distracts me. Information overload.
“These are the results of avoiding high rep deadlifts”
This is the most important part to me here. Nothing against the author but I don’t care to learn how to get big and strong from someone who isn’t. Just like nobody should take advice from me on how to get abs until I learn that and prove it and uncover my own.
I kinda feel like a lot of people attacking the article didn’t actually read any of the second half of it. That’s the part where he explains how to do high-rep deadlifts with a more beneficial risk:reward ratio, by using a trap bar.
“High-Rep Conventional-Stance Barbell Deadlifts Are Dead” would be a stupid title, but that seems to be what a lot of people are getting hung up on.
Show of hands, please… who disagrees with this advice?
Dude, this is a lameass cheap shot (or attempted joke? Not sure). For those interested, Gould was a top-level baseball player in H.S. and college and ended up getting drafted by a MLB team after college. His own personal training for his personal goals were 100% spot-on. But, lolzers, he doesn’t look like he lifts in that headshot. giggle giggle.
If those reasons are legit and you offer an effective alternative, cool, go for it.
One sport-specific example isn’t a valid reason to toss out general advice that applies to a much larger readership.
Nobody said “it’s bad”. The article says increased axial loading is related to increased CNS stress, which can negatively affect recovery.
I do not know how much further my tongue could be in cheek on it. But yes, he apparently was a member of a professional baseball team for 80 days, which is longer than I was ever one. But he has not achieved anything that align with my goals. I imagine his methods contribute to it.
I did read the part about the trap bar for high reps: I just found the parts I highlighted silly. High reps with a barbell achieve a far different (and I argue better) result in my experience.
If the readership wasn’t composed of people who are looking for advice on “the world’s largest hardcore training site”, I might agree. The point isn’t that the one sport makes it necessary as much as there’s a fairly wide population that does it to good result. I’m not an advocate of high-rep deadlift sets, but you damn sure can’t say they’re dead when an entire worldwide and internationally televised sport exists which has this incorporated into it. It’d be like me writing a blog and saying drag racing is dead on car and driver.
How many people that would read this article and take the advice genuinely are stressing out their CNS from training to the point that it’s interfering with their recovery? How many novice to intermediate lifters do you think are genuinely frying their CNS? I’m not asking a smarmy question that I know the answer to as much as genuinely asking your opinion? Isn’t this one of the big reasons many trainers say that novice and intermediate level lifters can lift more frequently because they’re not lifting enough weight and accumulating the workload to overload what they’re capable of recovering from in a much shorter amount of time than upper level and elite level athletes?
Again, I think you’re getting stuck on the “dead” part of the title. I’m not a car guy, so I can’t whip up a decent analogy, but if you write an article for Food Network Magazine talking about why people shouldn’t go around eating bugs, but explain that if they’re going to eat bugs, there are better/safer ways to do it, you’d be right on track. The fact that specific groups of people have no problems eating bugs doesn’t discredit the article. (That was a stretch for an example, I know. I think it made sense though?)
I think true-blue CNS fatigue is pretty hard to get to for most people, beginner or advanced. But I do think systemic physical recovery is an issue with poorly designed programs (like generic “4x10 on every exercise” routines"), and I can see how grinding out high-rep barbell deadlifts can be an issue for beginners or intermediate lifters, whether it’s through basic DOMS, specific low back soreness/strain, reinforcing poor technique, etc.
Take your time. These article threads tend to end up as dogpiles as I’m generally the only one raising counterpoints or discussing the other side. Not fun, not interesting, much energy.
If you want more drama, we could ask the question of if it’s disingenous to market yourself as a former professional baseball player when you were, in fact, signed onto the farm league of a pro team for 80 days before retiring from the sport.
I guess we’re all conditioned based on envrionment and I’ve just heard people who aren’t even training hard saying they don’t want to fatigue their CNS. Agreed completely on all counts. I still remember that famous quote from some old meathead “There’s no such thing as overtraining… there’s only under-recovering.” The title is a bit click-baity is really the issue for me I guess. Then again… how many people have now read that article just because they got pissed off by the title?