Trivium's Q&A

trivium · April 8, 2014, 4:20pm

EDIT: Please read toward the end of the thread as well. There are more questions being asked as the thread goes on.

I have been having a few ideas for my training, and instead of making different threads for small questions, or put them in my log and pray someone answers, I thought I would just ask them all here.

What are your thoughts on learning to pull sumo to help your hip strength during the conventional deadlift.
I am running my own form of 5/3/1 triumvirate. My deadlift has been stuck right above my knee caps for a while now. I haven’t tried to max for almost a month now, but I have a feeling that it is still a sticking point for me. My deadlift has made major improvement in the last month, and I am nowhere close to stalling out for a few cycles. Should I consider adding this somewhere, or should I just keep running my current set up and see if it corrects itself? Has anyone had success with this lift for this particular sticking point? (I don’t use a belt, and I won’t until I can DL 500 as my every day max.)
Floor press. Good assistance, or unnecessary for a raw lifter?
Stiff legged good mornings. I love them, but they literally cause the skin on my back to tear. This happens even when I wear a hoodie, and wrap the bar with a towel. I just cant keep the bar still on my back. Any tips for not being a bloody mess after the gym? (I do these with my squat set up, which is low bar.)
Kind of a continuation of my last question…I noticed that Paul Carter and Dan Green (not to mention a few others) do a lot of deficit deadlifts and stiff legged deadlifts. I have been considering adding them in place of the good mornings. Would they do the same thing? I feel like the good mornings have a greater carryover to my squat, which is terrible.
When you pull mixed grip, do you alternate which hand you overhand grip with? Is there any real reason to alternate or not?
How did you get beast triceps size and strength? I have been trying to add close grip to my triceps days, but I feel like the volume beats me up, and my shoulders are more involved than my triceps when I do these. Skull crushers give me elbow pain, and I just feel like rope pushdowns aren’t enough.
Any thoughts on traps or rowing movements for size and strength? I have been doing Pendlay style t bar rows with a sumo stance (if that even makes sense).
I like volume, but I am starting to suspect that simply adding more reps/sets is going to be counterproductive sooner or later. Thoughts?
Any tips for avoiding having hurt wrists/shoulders/elbows/hips/knees? I figure avoiding injury is a major determinant of ones strength potential and longevity.

Ultimately I am going to have to experiment with some of these ideas when I stall, but I figure some good advice can help make my experimentation a bit more targeted and effective. I have a few more questions as well, but these are the ones that come to mind immediately.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read, and to anyone who is willing to pass on some of their experiences or knowledge.

N_K · October 27, 2013, 7:46pm

lmao so many questions. I’m gonna chime in on a few that I think I can be most helpful for:

Good mornings tearing your skin: low bar will do that. I would personally do them high bar. You will have to use less weight, but it wont tear your skin, and the longer lever will make them harder. Normally, when you can still get stronger using less weight that is a good choice. But, to be honest, I don’t really like good mornings very much, and if I were you I would stick to the deadlift variations - stiff leg, deficit, that kind of stuff.

I think there is a lot of merit to pulling both sumo and conventional: they build one another. Just make sure your MAIN focus is on your MAIN pulling style. Don’t major in the minors.

I wouldn’t alternate which hand you supinate. It seems like a silly thing to worry about, and most strong pullers that I can think of pull the way they pull, every time. no need to make a big deal out of something small.

As for the volume: you are right, if you try and just keep adding more and more work, it gets counter productive. Strength isn’t a straight line. You don;t get stronger by simply adding more, forever. You get stronger by manipulating variables - volume, intensity and density, for example. Your programming should follow simple waves - at the start, you are doing MORE sets and reps, with less weight, and then by the end you are doing LESS sets and reps with more weight. Or something like that. Obviously, if you like a lot of volume you can pick programs that let you use more volume, but in the end you still have to be training smart as well as hard. Adding MORE will not always be better.

Number 10 is key. You are right, avoiding injury is one of the most important things you can do. Tips… as I mentioned before, getting stronger using light weights can be very important. Obviously going heavy is important, but goign heavy on all movements all the time is goign to beat you up. Sometimes, you need to figure out ways to make light weights work for you - do some high-rep sets, or make the movement harder so you can use less weight (i.e. raising the bar on your good mornings, or adding a deficit to deadlifts, etc). Aside from that, you basically just have to listen to your body. People can argue all day about whether overtraining exists or not, but the facts are simple. Sometimes, when you train really hard, you start to feel beat up - crazy sore, crazy tires, mentally not all there, joints are achey. You need to learn, when this happens, that if you keep pushing as hard as you have been, injury might be in your future. Learn, when you start to feel like that, to focus on recovery, maybe back off the heavy weights, add in mobility, eat more, sleep more, etc. Soon enough, you will feel great again and be able to push harder than ever. But if you don;t listen to your body and injure something, instead of being patient for 2-3 sessions and then getting right back to training hard and heavy, you may have to wait weeks or months to train properly again.

Anyways, thats what I’ve got for you. I’m sure people may disagree but I hope you find some of my thoughts useful. Keep at it man.

barbedwired · October 27, 2013, 8:46pm

Goodmornings- consided some alternatives. 1. Do stiff legged deads in place of them. 2. Do pause squats in place of them. Most common substitutes I’ve seen.

Triceps- closegrip benching works FOR ME . A real closegrip… mines like 14 inches apart. I say this cus I’ve seen guys move one finger width in and call it their closegrip. Um no. Programming is up to you. I ran 5x5 closegrip on it own day to build it up. Now I run it after my working sets @80 percent of my top set - I do two sets amrap.

Deads- stiff legged deads and deficit pulls. Deficits carry over more for me. Some advice I seen from a 930 pound deadlifter- 1.do tons n tons of upright rows with the bar at your sticking point .builds your upper back for it and gets you used to holding big weights at that spot.2. Do pause squats w. Deadlift stance or box squats to the exact sticking point- again in deadlift stance. Both of these seem unorthodox but he claimed they work FOR HIM.

trivium · October 27, 2013, 10:55pm

[quote]barbedwired wrote:
Goodmornings- consided some alternatives. 1. Do stiff legged deads in place of them. 2. Do pause squats in place of them. Most common substitutes I’ve seen.

Triceps- closegrip benching works FOR ME . A real closegrip… mines like 14 inches apart. I say this cus I’ve seen guys move one finger width in and call it their closegrip. Um no. Programming is up to you. I ran 5x5 closegrip on it own day to build it up. Now I run it after my working sets @80 percent of my top set - I do two sets amrap.

Deads- stiff legged deads and deficit pulls. Deficits carry over more for me. Some advice I seen from a 930 pound deadlifter- 1.do tons n tons of upright rows with the bar at your sticking point .builds your upper back for it and gets you used to holding big weights at that spot.2. Do pause squats w. Deadlift stance or box squats to the exact sticking point- again in deadlift stance. Both of these seem unorthodox but he claimed they work FOR HIM.[/quote]

I was going to clarify that I bench press somewhat narrower than most people do. I feel like it helps me keep my upper back tight at the bottom of the lift.

I don’t know what 14 inches apart on the bar is. I usually do close grip about a hand in from my regular bench press. Usually my index and middle fingers are on the smooth portion, and my ring and pinky fingers are on the knurling.

trivium · October 27, 2013, 10:59pm

[quote]N.K. wrote:
lmao so many questions. I’m gonna chime in on a few that I think I can be most helpful for:

Good mornings tearing your skin: low bar will do that. I would personally do them high bar. You will have to use less weight, but it wont tear your skin, and the longer lever will make them harder. Normally, when you can still get stronger using less weight that is a good choice. But, to be honest, I don’t really like good mornings very much, and if I were you I would stick to the deadlift variations - stiff leg, deficit, that kind of stuff.

I think there is a lot of merit to pulling both sumo and conventional: they build one another. Just make sure your MAIN focus is on your MAIN pulling style. Don’t major in the minors.

I wouldn’t alternate which hand you supinate. It seems like a silly thing to worry about, and most strong pullers that I can think of pull the way they pull, every time. no need to make a big deal out of something small.

As for the volume: you are right, if you try and just keep adding more and more work, it gets counter productive. Strength isn’t a straight line. You don;t get stronger by simply adding more, forever. You get stronger by manipulating variables - volume, intensity and density, for example. Your programming should follow simple waves - at the start, you are doing MORE sets and reps, with less weight, and then by the end you are doing LESS sets and reps with more weight. Or something like that. Obviously, if you like a lot of volume you can pick programs that let you use more volume, but in the end you still have to be training smart as well as hard. Adding MORE will not always be better.

Number 10 is key. You are right, avoiding injury is one of the most important things you can do. Tips… as I mentioned before, getting stronger using light weights can be very important. Obviously going heavy is important, but goign heavy on all movements all the time is goign to beat you up. Sometimes, you need to figure out ways to make light weights work for you - do some high-rep sets, or make the movement harder so you can use less weight (i.e. raising the bar on your good mornings, or adding a deficit to deadlifts, etc). Aside from that, you basically just have to listen to your body. People can argue all day about whether overtraining exists or not, but the facts are simple. Sometimes, when you train really hard, you start to feel beat up - crazy sore, crazy tires, mentally not all there, joints are achey. You need to learn, when this happens, that if you keep pushing as hard as you have been, injury might be in your future. Learn, when you start to feel like that, to focus on recovery, maybe back off the heavy weights, add in mobility, eat more, sleep more, etc. Soon enough, you will feel great again and be able to push harder than ever. But if you don;t listen to your body and injure something, instead of being patient for 2-3 sessions and then getting right back to training hard and heavy, you may have to wait weeks or months to train properly again.

Anyways, thats what I’ve got for you. I’m sure people may disagree but I hope you find some of my thoughts useful. Keep at it man. [/quote]

Thanks for the response. It did answer a lot of my questions.

The reason I was wondering about alternating the grips was that I am not sure if it engages the traps or biceps differently during the lifts.

I do feel a bit different with each grip. What I have been doing recently is doing all of my sets with my left hand overhand, except for my top set of the day. That is when I go with my right hand overhand. I don’t know why. I just have been doing it that way haha.

csulli · October 28, 2013, 1:34am

There are certainly some strong dudes who advocate using your non-competition deadlift style as an assistance lift. I haven’t personally had much success with it, but it is probably a good idea to do every now and again.

You will always have a sticking point somewhere on your deadlift. I’ve never had any success trying to train specific ranges to defeat sticking points. If you deviate too far from the floor (i.e. more than a few inches lower or higher) I end up in a position I am never realistically in during an actual deadlift. My back is in an artificially advantageous position. I think just sticking to the best overall back strengthening exercises is best. Something that may also help immensely is mobility. Work on hamstring mobility and such. It could improve your starting position and ability to maintain better leverages which may help alleviate that stick.

Floor press is a pretty good assistance lift I’d say even for us raw dawgs.

Instead of stiff leg good mornings, try hyper extensions with a barbell behind your neck. These get tough even with a little weight. Shouldn’t be enough to tear you up, but it’ll be more than enough to work your posterior chain.

I’d say add in stiff legs and deficits and whatever else lol. Do it all, rotate as needed or do as many as you can handle in one workout.

Don’t worry about alternating your mixed grip. Pull double overhand until you need to switch. I typically don’t start doing mixed grip until 405.

Maybe check out Kelly Starret’s book for some help alleviating wrist, elbow, and shoulder pain. Closer grip on skullcrushers seems to be better on my elbows. Try moving your grip in. How are you with dips? Dips are king for triceps, make sure you do a good lockout each rep. Just do what you can.

If you wanna do more volume I think you’re pretty safe adding more little by little. Adapt or die motherfucker lol. Your body can take an extreme amount of training as long as you don’t dump it all on at once.

Again check out the Supple Leopard book or similar things for joint health. I don’t have great mobility, but it has improved by leaps and bounds, and 100% of my joint and pain issues were being caused by over tightness and imbalances. Beyond that as long as you use good form you should be pretty safe. A lot of the injuries you see I powerlifting are caused in part by gear use. As a natty guy, your connective tissues should have a pretty easy time keeping up with your muscles. I’ll add this about shoulders though. Make sure when you bench you keep your upper back ridiculously tight.

Hope that helps man! Most of that is just stuff I picked up from guys way stronger than me and some of it is my own experience.

jkondash89 · October 28, 2013, 2:45am

I might be able to help on the deadlift part.

Dont do rack pulls up high like you would for lockout strength. Set the pins/blocks/whatever you to your sticking point and pull from there for a few cycles this got me out of a rut when i was stuck at 525 for 2 cycles. Best of luck.Also another good way of breaking that sticking point is band tension. If your gym doesnt have them you can pick them up fairly cheap

Fletch1986 · October 28, 2013, 2:50am

Have you tried JM presses? I can’t push extensions hard enough to get a decent stimulus b/c they’ll give me elbows issues, but JM presses work well for me.

If they still give you issues, then try them with chains and/or try pausing them at the bottom so you’re not bouncing the weight back up off your elbows if that makes any sense.

barbedwired · October 28, 2013, 3:10am

Ya the 14 is just where mine ended up. Not stuck on a number * per say.

trivium · October 29, 2013, 1:02am

I have read all posts, and I am very pleased with the number of people who have bothered to respond to my thread here. So far, this might be the best thread I have ever made on here.

I have read all of your posts, and will respond to all of the questions when I get some spare time here in the next day or so.

Since we were talking about deadlift assistance, and fletch (who has been helping me off and on for a few years, and just doesn’t know it) mentioned JM presses, I want to bring up my next question.

So we have said that rack pulls may not be as effective as bands and some other stuff.

How do you guys feel about Dimel Deadlifts. I know there are a few guys on eliteFTS that have brought them up, but I haven’t seen a “Add 1000 lbs to your deadlift in 5 minutes with this one simple move” article on the web yet. Maybe these would help, as they would put me in a similar position to where I get stuck, instead of in a position with better leverages as was mentioned before.
What do you think of using other bars for squatting? (Yoke bar, buffalo, cambered, etc.)
How do you guys feel about using wrist wraps? (I haven’t used anything but chalk so far.)

Umbrata_Fortis · October 29, 2013, 1:11am

I really think I can only answer one question here. That is about the sticking point on your deadlift. Ben rice does a twisted and crazy movement called double pause deadlifts, look them up. I personally havent found the use in putting them into my training but I plan on it in the future. They seem to add alot of speed to ones deadlift. Just a thought if you willing to try it lemme know man.

Fletch1986 · October 29, 2013, 1:18am

Uh oh… you think I’ve had helpful stuff to say, yikes… J/K kind of

I love wrist wraps. They not only help keep my wrist healthy, but also seem to help with my elbows and shoulders. I’m not sure why, but my best guess is that keep my wrist in a more mechanically advantageous position so other joints don’t take any additional undue strain. I use them for pressing and squatting on my top warmups and working sets. Just be sure you keep you keep your wrist strong since they’re not getting quite as much work.

I can only comment on the SSB. It turns goodmornings into an upper back exercise as much as anything. For squatting, it challenges my quads and upper back and forces me to stay upright or else the bar takes me forward. But I still have more leeway then I do with a front squat. I also love it for assistance work to take strain off my wrist and shoulders. If I do a westside style box squat with it, it feels more like a sumo deadlift than a squat with the muscles worked.

DonDooley · October 29, 2013, 1:46am

I guess I’ve always been of the mind that raw lifters generally don’t have issues on lockout. Raw lifters are usually weak below the knee. If you can lock out a moderately heavy squat, you should probably be able to lock out a heavy deadlift unless you have glaring glute/hip weakness. Then, maybe sumo might help. Most of what I have read, though, points to my previous conclusion.

See, this is what I was talking about. I personally would drop the weight and hit more volume on the DL; not rep-wise each set, but set wise and week-wise. If you’re only deadlifting once a week with 5/3/1 right now, it wouldn’t hurt to throw in sumo as an accessory exercise after squats probably. That’s just how I would run it, and I am by no means an expert, but I think the point of this thread was for you to get a lot of responses and base your plan on what you think the best answers are.

I’m of mixed emotions about it. I did the floor press fairly regularly in Afghanistan last year, and while I did get stronger, I think a lot of that simply had to do with hitting bench and bench variations more often. I feel like the thing that has aided my bench the most over the last year or so has been treating it like my deadlift training and continually getting the feel for heavier weights. Even just unracking and controlling 30 or 45 pounds above my max in the extended position has been beneficial. That, and working at or above 90% a few times a week. However, I’m weaker at lockout than off my chest, so maybe I’m doing it wrong.

Try seated good mornings some time. They’re really good for mid-back/hamstring strength, and being able to stay in a semi-bent over position seems to keep the bar stable. Also, I do a wider grip for good-mornings than for my squat and use my lats to pull the bar into my back like when I squat, so if you’re not doing that you might want to try it.

Like I said for 1, a lot of raw lifters are weak below the knee. Since you don’t seem to have this problem, I wouldn’t worry about deficit deads personally.

Never. A lot of guys think it causes uneven back development, but my tailor said my left back-side was actually larger than my right, which is funny because I’m right handed, but I pronate the right hand, and I am much stronger when performing barbell and dumbbell movements with my right because of years of archery. Go figure.

I dunno man, I don’t have huge arms. For what it’s worth, I’ve been doing a lot of volume and backing off on the weight for my arms, and they seem to be responding better.

I row almost every day in the gym, some variation. Seated cable row pyramids, kroc rows, barbell rows, t-bar rows. Seriously, almost every day. I feel like as long as I’m recovering and my back isn’t too beat up, why not? My traps get big and strong just from deadlifting, so aside from the occasional barbell/trap-bar shrug, I don’t really worry about them. They get enough indirect work when I work on my overhead press and do my shoulder assistance exercises.

I think low and heavy on the main lifts, and bodybuilding style on smaller muscle groups/assistance lifts. Sometimes I go ultra high-volume on back exercises simply because it’s so involved in all three lifts (pyramid sets or 20+ rep pause sets). I haven’t noticed any detrimental effects from working out like this for the past few months, and I’ve been cutting weight too, so most days I’m in a deficit of either calories or carbs.

I don’t have knee problems, but my hips are almost always pretty beat up and my wrists have been bothering me on and off lately. I do a lot of stretching, dynamic and static, before and after working out. I always do a 5-10 minute cardio warmup (well, almost always - if the gym is packed, I usually beeline for the rack). I foam roll when I need it, and used to get massages every few weeks when I was getting knotty in my upper back. I’ve been healthy for the last few years, but I’m also only 25, so we’ll see what happens. I wrap my wrists when I squat/bench heavy sometimes now, and that seems to be helping.

DBasler · October 29, 2013, 1:53am

I will jump in on the triceps question because it is a strength for me. I love the close grip bench for tricep growth but nothing beats weighted full ROM dips in my opinion. When you have worked your way to BW +135 for several reps and eventually BW+180 you will have put several extra inches on your arms as well as greatly improved all of your pressing numbers.

DonDooley · October 29, 2013, 1:59am

Oh, and I forgot, skullcrushers used to give me elbow pain too - until I angled my arms back more and kept tension on the tricep the whole movement. Doesn’t hurt at all. JM presses hurt my elbows unless I wear sleeves.

budreiser · October 29, 2013, 12:25pm

busted out my laptop for this thread

I feel like conventional has more carryover to sumo than the other way around. If i pulled conventional I would not use an sumo assistance.
I’d stay the course with where you are. for reasons refer to answer 1
floor press is goddamn amazing. just pause it at the bottom.
I’m not sure i’ve never had that issue
deficits are useful but I prefer just pulling off the floor. I prefer rdl’s to straight legs.
I don’t alternate hands
I don’t have awesome tricep strength but it’s the strongest part of my bench. I used to do a ton close grips, floor presses, and dead benches. After doing band benches again yesterday I’m probably going to add those back in. Tate presses are my favorite db assistance to work on tricep strength. For whatever reason they don’t eat up my elbows like everything else.
How much volume are you doing on your tricep days and what does your overall week look like in regard to upper body?
Back exercises I love:
adding bands against chest supported rows. I take my bench grip and try to hold it at my chest for a second on every rep
band pull aparts
heavy as shit shrugs
deadstop db rows
I feel like you can add more reps/sets in intelligently or really stupidly. I usually just follow the upper end of prilepins chart for upper body and the middle-lower end for lowerbody movements.
avoiding injury is mostly avoiding going full retard in the gym, at least for me. a recent example is that one day I set pr 1rm’s in my front squat and squat. 2 days later my new knee wraps came in, so I decided to max on my wrapped squat.
if they put you in a spot close to where you get stuck, I’d say try them out.
If I had other bars I would mostly use the ssb and maybe the cambered bar on a very regular basis
I love wrist wraps. a lot. Idk how much they actually help because I haven’t hit a max without them in 1.5 years but they help me feel more confident in the weight.

trivium · October 30, 2013, 12:45am

[quote]csulli wrote:
There are certainly some strong dudes who advocate using your non-competition deadlift style as an assistance lift. I haven’t personally had much success with it, but it is probably a good idea to do every now and again.