In 20:00 build to a 1 rep max of:
Deadlift, from 2″ block
*Weight on 2″ blocks
*Reach your 1RM in no more than 8 attempts. Allow 20:00 to reach your 1RM, and allow 3:00 minimum between final 3 attempts.
*Compare to 180516, post loads to comments and BTWB
The deadlift is unrivaled in its simplicity and impact while unique in its capacity for increasing head-to-toe strength.
Regardless of whether your fitness goals are to “rev up” your metabolism, increase strength or lean body mass, decrease body fat, rehabilitate your back, improve athletic performance or maintain functional independence as a senior, the deadlift is a marked shortcut to that end.
To the detriment of millions, the deadlift is infrequently used and seldom seen either by most of the exercising public and/or, believe it or not, by athletes.
It might be that the deadlift’s name has scared away the masses; its older name, “the healthlift,” was a better choice for this perfect movement.
In its most advanced application the deadlift is prerequisite to, and a component of, “the world’s fastest lift,” the snatch, and “the world’s most powerful lift,” the clean, but it is also, quite simply, no more than the safe and sound approach by which any object should be lifted from the ground.
The deadlift, being no more than picking a thing off the ground, keeps company with standing, running, jumping and throwing for functionality but imparts quick and prominent athletic advantage like no other exercise.
Not until the clean, snatch and squat are well developed will the athlete again find as useful a tool for improving general physical ability.
The deadlift’s primal functionality, whole-body nature and mechanical advantage with large loads suggest its strong neuroendocrine impact, and for most athletes the deadlift delivers such a quick boost in general strength and sense of power that its benefits are easily understood.
If you want to get stronger, improve your deadlift. Driving your deadlift up can nudge your other lifts upward, especially the Olympic lifts.
Fear of the deadlift abounds, but like fear of the squat, it is groundless. No exercise or regimen will protect the back from the potential injuries of sport and life or the certain ravages of time like the deadlift.
We recommend deadlifting at near max loads once per week or so and maybe one other time at loads that would be insignificant at low reps. Be patient and learn to celebrate small infrequent bests.
Major benchmarks would certainly include bodyweight, twice-bodyweight and three-times-bodyweight deadlifts, representing “beginning,” “good” and “great” deadlifts, respectively.
For us, the guiding principles of proper technique rest on three pillars: orthopedic safety, functionality and mechanical advantage. Concerns for orthopedic stresses and limited functionality are behind our rejection of wider-than-hip-to-shoulder-width stances. While acknowledging the remarkable achievements of many powerlifters with the super-wide deadlift stance, we feel that its limited functionality (we can’t safely walk, clean or snatch from “out there”) and the increased resultant forces on the hip from wider stances warrant only infrequent and moderate-to-light exposures to wider stances.
Experiment and work regularly with alternate, parallel and hook grips. Explore carefully and cautiously variances in stance, grip width and even plate diameter—each variant uniquely stresses the margins of an all-important functional movement. This is an effective path to increased hip capacity.
