[quote]Zoro wrote:
If you want more info on the Surovetsky program, the main issues are that the guy is ancient and doesnt speak fluent English, so his routines are not popular in the states. I did a lot of research and I cant be sure if anything I found relates to his deadlift program or just his powerlifting program (his cycled deadlift/squat routine doesn’t seem to work unless you are juicing, his bench routines are hit or miss based on how well your elbows/shoulders tolerate heavy loading). His routines are 3x/week where each day you do bench/assistance/lower body in no specific order that I could find. assistance movements were rows, pulldowns, or rack pulls for deadlift, though there were others for squatting days, and some days this was dropped in favor of heavy pec flies and/or light bent DB raises.
I just did pull ups and T-bar rows, though now that I have access to dumbbells I’d probably do Kroc rows. I benched first on volume day and second on heavy day.
I can tell you that both times I did this program it did NOTHING for my squat (though I didn’t seem to lose any strength or capacity), but my limiting factor both times were not leg strength but grip strength and upper spinal posture. Also, my lower back was fried EVERY saturday (heavy day was friday). It did not get better over the 9 weeks, but I didn’t get injured, it was just painful.[/quote]
Zoro, couple questions:
Which one of Surovetsky’s published plans did you use?
What kind of training max were you basing your weights off of? (e.g., competitive max, 90% competitive max, comfortable gym max, etc.)
Did you use these plans leading into competition?
What’s the basis for saying the plan “doesn’t seem to work unless you are juicing?” Are you getting this from feedback on the Powerlifting.ru board, personal experience, word of mouth?
Not trying to be combative, genuinely curious about your thoughts. Thanks man.
[quote]csulli wrote:
Staying natty is gonna be a problem for you if you actually want to deadlift 800.[/quote]
^^ Don’t listen to this guy, he’s nothing but an expert on genetic potential and self limitation.
A drug free 800 pull is not inconceivable for a guy with a 6’ 9" frame. There are a handful of 800+ pullers who compete tested but unless you have freakish leverages it may take years (possibly decades) of work coupled with significant increase in bodyweight.
Competing tested means natural? Tell me more of this world you live in.[/quote]
First of all he never said it did. Second of all whether you’re natural or not, competing tested is still immensely different than untested. You have to at least taper off. You probably don’t know how quickly the strength can go once you stop the flow of juice.
Also, there HAVE been people to pull 800 naturally. That’s just a fact.
Tell me more about the world YOU live in where you’re going to hit a drug free 2000lb total using hysterical strength.
Also, there HAVE been people to pull 800 naturally. That’s just a fact.
[/quote]
Who?[/quote]
Oh I wouldn’t even know where to start trying to make a list or something. First of all I’ve probably never heard of most of them, and second of all it is still really difficult to determine who is truly drug-free and who is just “tested”.
If I had to pick a name for you, I would believe Brad Gillingham is natural.
There are some natural deadlift freaks out there. Many of them are smaller guys, but all it takes is one who was also born to be a naturally very large person. If you weigh 320lbs, an 800lb deadlift is “only” 2.5x bodyweight. It is possible, just exceptionally rare.
Also, there HAVE been people to pull 800 naturally. That’s just a fact.
[/quote]
Who?[/quote]
Oh I wouldn’t even know where to start trying to make a list or something. First of all I’ve probably never heard of most of them, and second of all it is still really difficult to determine who is truly drug-free and who is just “tested”.
If I had to pick a name for you, I would believe Brad Gillingham is natural.
There are some natural deadlift freaks out there. Many of them are smaller guys, but all it takes is one who was also born to be a naturally very large person. If you weigh 320lbs, an 800lb deadlift is “only” 2.5x bodyweight. It is possible, just exceptionally rare.[/quote]
[quote]Zoro wrote:
If you want more info on the Surovetsky program, the main issues are that the guy is ancient and doesnt speak fluent English, so his routines are not popular in the states. I did a lot of research and I cant be sure if anything I found relates to his deadlift program or just his powerlifting program (his cycled deadlift/squat routine doesn’t seem to work unless you are juicing, his bench routines are hit or miss based on how well your elbows/shoulders tolerate heavy loading). His routines are 3x/week where each day you do bench/assistance/lower body in no specific order that I could find. assistance movements were rows, pulldowns, or rack pulls for deadlift, though there were others for squatting days, and some days this was dropped in favor of heavy pec flies and/or light bent DB raises.
I just did pull ups and T-bar rows, though now that I have access to dumbbells I’d probably do Kroc rows. I benched first on volume day and second on heavy day.
I can tell you that both times I did this program it did NOTHING for my squat (though I didn’t seem to lose any strength or capacity), but my limiting factor both times were not leg strength but grip strength and upper spinal posture. Also, my lower back was fried EVERY saturday (heavy day was friday). It did not get better over the 9 weeks, but I didn’t get injured, it was just painful.[/quote]
If your lower back was fried every heavy day and your upper spinal posture was compromised, it sounds like your traps, lats and other upper back muscles aren’t helping you maintain correct position and causing you to overload your erectors. Strengthen that weakness by lowering the weights to fire those muscles correctly and adding in assistance work to strengthen static use of those muscles. Once that’s in order you can give the program another go to give a fair assessment. Programs usually don’t account for athletes performing the main lifts with muscle imbalances. I’m only trying to help you out because I have had the same problem with form breakdown and it’s typically not the program that was wrong to begin with.
On a side note, juicing doesn’t fix technique errors. I’m not arguing for or against juicing, just saying that juicing shouldn’t be an excuse for everything.
Competing tested means natural? Tell me more of this world you live in.[/quote]
Where did I ever say that?
I am well aware that most tested athletes aren’t “clean” but this is powerlifting, not the fucking Olympics. I don’t know any serious lifter who would choose to subject themselves to USAPL/IPF “random” testing and other bullshit for some strange sense of prestige in an already obscure “sport”. Of course it does happen, but I’d bet that’s the minority. Maybe you Canadians have a different mindset.
Just a quick update, lol. I tore my meniscus playing basketball soon after my first 495 deadlift, so I had been out of the swing of squats/deads for quite some time. I had 6 weeks of proper training for lower body before competing in my first meet (weighed in at 251 lbs) a couple days ago, where I hit 562 lbs. I didn’t go over 455 in training, so hitting 562 was pretty exciting. This was my first time programming for myself. I ran a 4-week volume phase a la Upper/Lower/Rest, and then a 2-week intensity phase. My primary deadlift accessory was paused-deficit-deadlifts, which I’d attribute a lot of my speed off the floor to. In this next cycle, I’ll be focusing a lot on rack pulls to bring up lockout strength.
Daniel Bell picked my attempts for me.
I feel as if 600 is just around the corner.
Here’s to staying injury-free. Cheers.
Edit – I’m posting this because it’s my first time back in a while after being injured and I’d like for other people to recognize that, even though there are people out there who may doubt you and speak negatively of you, all you can do is keep your head down and keep moving forward. I took a lot of the comments in this thread to heart, but rather than letting them deter me, they strengthened my resolve to prove wrong everyone that said I couldn’t achieve my goals. I’m not there yet, and this is only a small step in a long journey, but I still stand behind myself. If I don’t deadlift 800 lbs, then you can be damned sure I’ve ripped the muscle off my bones trying.
If you really want to deadlift 800 lbs, it is going to take probably most of a decade, and at a height of 6’9" you will need a body weight well over 350 lbs. You should get a real coach who knows what they’re doing and the sooner the better. You could look into Boris Sheiko in Russia or Mike Tuscherer at Reactive Training Systems for good guidance on how to structure your training. Also Rennaisance Periodization has an excellent book called Scientiric Principles of Strength Training that I’d highly recommend as well as Mark Rippetoe’s books Startingn Strength and Practical Programming for Strength Training. 5-3-1 is not a particularly great program despite it’s popularity. You will need to get a bit squat to deadlift big.
This was my favorite part. A) recommending Starting Strength to a guy wanting an 800 lbs deadlift is hilarious. And so is bashing 5/3/1, a program much better suited to the goal, without justification.