Sean M
Level 7 Valued Member
How much should I do for the 5 daily pulls? 195? (video was 155)
Barbell Daily Dose Thread
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It's tough to give specific weight suggestions, but that didn't look like 75% to me. How to describe a 75% deadlift? It should feel "comfortably heavy," not something that just flies off the ground or, if it does fly off the ground, gets a little harder by the 4th and 5th rep. I'm just looking for words here.
Another way might be to look for a 10-rep max. That's a decent guessimate.
What's troubles me is that you stopped at 205 - I think you stopped when your deadlift was about to start to feel like a deadlift. I don't want you to hurt yourself, of course, but how about showing us single DL's, done with 3:00 rest between or so, at 205 and then keeping adding 20 lbs. to the bar. Stop adding weight when you are no longer confident you can complete the lift, but don't forget that the bar slowing down is just that and nothing more - it means the weight got heavier and then it might be time to stop.
Stay tight - pressure in your lower abdomen to support your lower back is key, grip the stuffing out of the bar, keep your weight back and don't let the bar pull you forward, and drive the floor away from you while you drive your hips forward.
-S-
Another way might be to look for a 10-rep max. That's a decent guessimate.
What's troubles me is that you stopped at 205 - I think you stopped when your deadlift was about to start to feel like a deadlift. I don't want you to hurt yourself, of course, but how about showing us single DL's, done with 3:00 rest between or so, at 205 and then keeping adding 20 lbs. to the bar. Stop adding weight when you are no longer confident you can complete the lift, but don't forget that the bar slowing down is just that and nothing more - it means the weight got heavier and then it might be time to stop.
Stay tight - pressure in your lower abdomen to support your lower back is key, grip the stuffing out of the bar, keep your weight back and don't let the bar pull you forward, and drive the floor away from you while you drive your hips forward.
-S-
Sean M
Level 7 Valued Member
Sounds good, will try that Saturday starting at 200 adding 20 each set, and take video.
Sean M
Level 7 Valued Member
@jca17 @Anna C @adam80 @Steve Freides @Antti
I pulled 230 ultimately during today's baseline 1RM session. Video:
Did I lean too far back on the failed 245 and 230 attempts? Too long in the setup (leakage of tension or failure to generate tension?)
I did manage to get 245 a few inches off the floor. Does that mean anything? Is it normal to pull ~5% more than 1RM a few inches off the floor (or was 230 my technical max, but given more refinement in my technique my "muscular" max is really closer to 245/250?).
75% of 230 is 172.5, so 170/175 for the daily pulls?
This week I did 5 singles of:
I pulled 230 ultimately during today's baseline 1RM session. Video:
Did I lean too far back on the failed 245 and 230 attempts? Too long in the setup (leakage of tension or failure to generate tension?)
I did manage to get 245 a few inches off the floor. Does that mean anything? Is it normal to pull ~5% more than 1RM a few inches off the floor (or was 230 my technical max, but given more refinement in my technique my "muscular" max is really closer to 245/250?).
75% of 230 is 172.5, so 170/175 for the daily pulls?
This week I did 5 singles of:
- Monday: 155
- Tuesday: 155
- Wednesday: 185 (after my first video feedback to add weight)
- Thursday: 195
- Friday: 205 (knowing I had pulled 205 before, as the start of my PR session)
Looks good, @Sean M, I'll give you what I see though I'm sure others will see more and maybe correct me since I haven't been to SFL yet and I'm still learning. Basically I agree with your assessment, you could generate more tension and plug some leaks. I should see lats working to pull your shoulders down, and triceps flexing, and forearms gripping the bar tight, all before liftoff. So while all those muscles look like they're working enough to make the lift, they should look and feel like they're flexing more than enough to make the lift, for that feed-forward tension. And really brace the abs -- more, more, more!! -- can't see that at all in a video, but you'll feel it if you're doing it right. I think most would recommend to generate some of this tension while standing, so as you're coming down to the bar you're storing some energy to help come back up.
I'm not sure if you were leaning too far back on some attempts, maybe a bit, especially if you feel like you lost some leverage or that feeling of wedging under the bar.
The basic mechanics of the hinge and lift look pretty solid. Oh, and you're posture looks improved! Keep up the good work!
I'm not sure if you were leaning too far back on some attempts, maybe a bit, especially if you feel like you lost some leverage or that feeling of wedging under the bar.
The basic mechanics of the hinge and lift look pretty solid. Oh, and you're posture looks improved! Keep up the good work!
If you'll forgive a lengthy reply from a deadlifter:
Are you hook gripping? If not, switch to an over/under grip for your heavier sets. Use both combinations, taking note of which one you like better - this might change over time or might not.
Try keeping your neck more neutral. A little extension is OK, but you have a bit too much. Which bring me to my next point.
For some people, a deadlift is all about pulling, or almost all about pulling. Particularly people who pull sumo - they sit back into their hips and pull. But for a conventional puller, there needs to be some push at the beginning of your deadlift. "Needs" might be too strong a word - it depends on your particular strengths and weaknesses, build, etc. But most of us need to start with a push.
In order to start with a push, you will need to position yourself a little further behind the bar and let your knees come forward a little at the start. This may have the added, and beneficial, effect of allowing you to keep your back flatter at the start.
The StrongFirst cue is to wedge yourself under the bar - that means you are literally pushing your feet and pulling with your arms - both of those things. If I may add a little subtlety to this, try focusing on the push mostly first, and shift your focus to pulling as the bar passes mid-shin or so.
If you can incorporate more push at the start, you'll get the weights you failed at. You are strong enough but your demonstrated approach/technique isn't quite right for you.
You are not leaning back too far at lockout - you could even do a bit more, IMHO, but what you're doing is fine as it is.
Go with 175 for your 75% for at least a few weeks and see how it feels. Try to work on your technique, doing what you'll need to do for heavier weights.
Pay attention to the 90 and 92% days in the DDD. If you get 5 singles on those days, I think you can pretty safely say you're headed for a new max the next time you test. Don't be afraid to take longer than the article suggests before your new max test - I take a week to 10 days with just a few light lifts in there before a max test.
This next cycle won't be hard for you - enjoy.
Hope that helps.
-S-
Are you hook gripping? If not, switch to an over/under grip for your heavier sets. Use both combinations, taking note of which one you like better - this might change over time or might not.
Try keeping your neck more neutral. A little extension is OK, but you have a bit too much. Which bring me to my next point.
For some people, a deadlift is all about pulling, or almost all about pulling. Particularly people who pull sumo - they sit back into their hips and pull. But for a conventional puller, there needs to be some push at the beginning of your deadlift. "Needs" might be too strong a word - it depends on your particular strengths and weaknesses, build, etc. But most of us need to start with a push.
In order to start with a push, you will need to position yourself a little further behind the bar and let your knees come forward a little at the start. This may have the added, and beneficial, effect of allowing you to keep your back flatter at the start.
The StrongFirst cue is to wedge yourself under the bar - that means you are literally pushing your feet and pulling with your arms - both of those things. If I may add a little subtlety to this, try focusing on the push mostly first, and shift your focus to pulling as the bar passes mid-shin or so.
If you can incorporate more push at the start, you'll get the weights you failed at. You are strong enough but your demonstrated approach/technique isn't quite right for you.
You are not leaning back too far at lockout - you could even do a bit more, IMHO, but what you're doing is fine as it is.
Go with 175 for your 75% for at least a few weeks and see how it feels. Try to work on your technique, doing what you'll need to do for heavier weights.
Pay attention to the 90 and 92% days in the DDD. If you get 5 singles on those days, I think you can pretty safely say you're headed for a new max the next time you test. Don't be afraid to take longer than the article suggests before your new max test - I take a week to 10 days with just a few light lifts in there before a max test.
This next cycle won't be hard for you - enjoy.
Hope that helps.
-S-
Antti
Level 10 Valued Member
To me it looks like you have troubles in the liftoff. I wouldn't be opposed to trying to have your shins a bit ahead of the bar and therefore your hips closer to the bar and better leverage.
I don't think you have a problem with pushing. To me, pushing comes when the hips really start moving forward. To my eyes, if you get to the moment when your hips start moving, you really have the lift in you.
I would give you a week or two of regular deadlifting and trying it out before carving any schemes in stone.
I don't think you have a problem with pushing. To me, pushing comes when the hips really start moving forward. To my eyes, if you get to the moment when your hips start moving, you really have the lift in you.
I would give you a week or two of regular deadlifting and trying it out before carving any schemes in stone.
@Antti, what I'm calling a push, you're calling better leverage - I think we mean the same thing here. I don't consider hips closer to the bar better leverage, but this is all semantics or differences of philosophy, but I believe the suggestion we're each making in a physical sense is to do the same thing.
-S-
-S-
JeffC
Level 7 Valued Member
How long of a rest between failed attempts did you take? After an attempt it takes longer to recover. You may feel ready to go but your CNS takes alot longer to recharge than your muscles after a breakdown.
I agree with @Steve Freides, pull the knees back, push the floor away, what ever works, off the floor. Maybe try lower hip start position.
Make your negative look just like you Deadlift to engrain that bar path. Your down you are totally out of position, and risking injury. The rep does not end until the bar is on the floor, and it sets you up for the next rep.
When you break the bar off the floor it pulls you forward out of position, and the bar gets away from you. I think that comes from not setting the back, lats, and triceps as @Anna C . if you locked your upper body harder it would keep the bar close or slightly in contact with the body and shoulders over or slightly behind the bar.
I agree with @Steve Freides, pull the knees back, push the floor away, what ever works, off the floor. Maybe try lower hip start position.
Make your negative look just like you Deadlift to engrain that bar path. Your down you are totally out of position, and risking injury. The rep does not end until the bar is on the floor, and it sets you up for the next rep.
When you break the bar off the floor it pulls you forward out of position, and the bar gets away from you. I think that comes from not setting the back, lats, and triceps as @Anna C . if you locked your upper body harder it would keep the bar close or slightly in contact with the body and shoulders over or slightly behind the bar.
Sean M
Level 7 Valued Member
Yes, reflecting on the footage and other resources online, your comments definitely resonate with an area I need to focus on with these. I need to brace my upper body before even hinging back to grab the bar - in these I was doing that once I was down.
Grip - yes, it was hook grip. I tried mixed grip on my second (failed) 230 pull. When I came back later successfully pulled 230, it was hook grip.
Neck - you mean I was looking up too much? I can never remember the difference between what the terms extension and flexion look like, especially for the neck.
Push/wedge - yes, that makes sense and is helpful. I feel way stronger once I clear my knees. I think it's a combination of strong hip drive (thank you S&S) relative to quad strength (I need to be more diligent with heavy 3x5 goblet squats every session, if not every day), getting the starting position groove down, and more practice generating tension before liftoff.
They say "midfoot" but my feet are so dang long (especially adding my toes), that when my shins are 1" from the bar ("midfoot" for me is 2-3" from the bar) it feels much stronger, like I'm not losing balance. I'll experiment with the 75% sets to find the strongest balance point for my setup.
Rest - 3:00 between all the pulls you see (I trimmed out the rest periods), except for the very last successful 230 pull, which was about 4 hours later.
Negative - yeah, I'm still working on finding the groove for this. I know you're not supposed to just drop the bar (let go with hands), but are you supposed to continue bracing the upper body until the plates are on the floor, or just focus on pushing the hips out of the way to let the bar clear the knees on the way straight down? When it's heavy I don't want to take too long getting it down, but don't want to be unsafe either. I think the 75% day practice will help groove the right pattern.
Thank you all for your feedback, it's really helpful. I have my marching orders for 5 daily singles at 175. I am planning my next max attempt on 8/26 (or middle of following week), then TSC training proper.
We consider this a relatively advanced skill, @Geoff Chafe. The preferred method for new deadlifters at StrongFirst is "fall with the bar." Keep your hands on the bar, apply minimal control all the way to the floor, take your hands off the bar only after it sits motionless on the ground. The negative is actually where more people get hurt learning to deadlift, in our experience.
Working a controlled negative also tends more towards hypertrophy than a fall-with-the-bar descent - for this reason, I didn't start doing controlled negatives until a few years ago, when sarcopenia (losing muscle mass as one ages) became more of a concern than hypertrophy.
That said, I completely agree with you that there is a lot to learn from a controlled negative on the deadlift. Doc Harte touched on some of the many ways one can lower the bar and handle the reps within a set - there are even more, and I've experimented with many of them, and incorporate many in my training. I now work most of my reps in a way I learned from watching Ed Coan teach the deadlift on YouTube - you pause at the bottom, leaving almost all the weight on the floor without giving up your position, and then you tighten up and pull from there. I call these "95% touch-and-go" reps since 95% of the weight is on the ground.
Another very useful variation, which I learned from Marty Gallagher, was to so completely control the negative that the touch on the floor is as light as possible, and you start up from there. Lots more time under full or almost full tension that way, and this was my main training mode that led to a recent, lifetime PR in the deadlift.
-S-
JeffC
Level 7 Valued Member
@Steve Freides Even on fall with the bar, zero negative, reps and singles it is best, in my opinion, to use the same positioning and movement pattern your Deadlift. For safety, efficiency, and patterning. When I did PTTP earlier this year I did it by the book with zero negative, stand up and regrip between reps. I found I build a lot of quality volume that way.
In Weightlifting we do "Floating" Clean/Snatch, Deadlift, Pull, Power, High Pull, etc. Where you stand on a low block and pull from your end range with out the weight on the floor. This builds awesome tension, positioning, and balance in the start position. Generally done in combos for example, Deficit Clean Pull+Floating Clean. Applied to the Deadlift, Deficit Deadlift+Floating Deadlift, or Deficit Lift Off+Floating Deadlift for even more experience in the push. For those who lack tension in the start position it could help build that feel and experience off the floor.
I am strong off the floor. My sticking point has been at the knees. I have added 18" Block Deadlifts in order to build strength at my weak point. I may add in a Pause on the negative at the knees or Hang Stiff Leg Deadlifts(RDL) on the last rep of each set to build more time in that position.
In Weightlifting we do "Floating" Clean/Snatch, Deadlift, Pull, Power, High Pull, etc. Where you stand on a low block and pull from your end range with out the weight on the floor. This builds awesome tension, positioning, and balance in the start position. Generally done in combos for example, Deficit Clean Pull+Floating Clean. Applied to the Deadlift, Deficit Deadlift+Floating Deadlift, or Deficit Lift Off+Floating Deadlift for even more experience in the push. For those who lack tension in the start position it could help build that feel and experience off the floor.
I am strong off the floor. My sticking point has been at the knees. I have added 18" Block Deadlifts in order to build strength at my weak point. I may add in a Pause on the negative at the knees or Hang Stiff Leg Deadlifts(RDL) on the last rep of each set to build more time in that position.
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@Geoff Chafe, you're reminding me that, as I am weak off the floor, I need to do some deficit DL's now before I start my next competition cycle, and maybe even into the start of my next competition cycle.
-S-
-S-
Sean M
Level 7 Valued Member
Video from today's Daily Dose session. Day 6, 80%1RM (for me, 185), after 5 days of 175.
I practiced both conventional and "semi-sumo", or SFL-style sumo. I have to say, semi-sumo feels better and stronger. It is basically my kettlebell swing stance, which I'm well familiar with. I haven't quite found my balance with a narrower conventional stance.
I do notice two things:
1) Conventional stance is still relatively wide. I have experimented with it and generally find the wider the stronger.
2) On my last sumo pull (last pull of the video), my arms could've been farther out, e.g. parallel.
I've attached an image capture of right before the pull for both stances. To me at least, they appear identical (and correct?). If it is correct (should the sumo be more "squatty"?), should I train what feels stronger (semi-sumo), or train what feels awkward (conventional) until it feels strong?
Training is generally going very well. It is certainly efficient: including warm-up (KB deadlift and dead-start swings), I'm done in 10 minutes. I do it right when I get home from work, and I'm ready for S&S 2 hours later.
I practiced both conventional and "semi-sumo", or SFL-style sumo. I have to say, semi-sumo feels better and stronger. It is basically my kettlebell swing stance, which I'm well familiar with. I haven't quite found my balance with a narrower conventional stance.
I do notice two things:
1) Conventional stance is still relatively wide. I have experimented with it and generally find the wider the stronger.
2) On my last sumo pull (last pull of the video), my arms could've been farther out, e.g. parallel.
I've attached an image capture of right before the pull for both stances. To me at least, they appear identical (and correct?). If it is correct (should the sumo be more "squatty"?), should I train what feels stronger (semi-sumo), or train what feels awkward (conventional) until it feels strong?
Training is generally going very well. It is certainly efficient: including warm-up (KB deadlift and dead-start swings), I'm done in 10 minutes. I do it right when I get home from work, and I'm ready for S&S 2 hours later.
Attachments
Nice pulls, @Sean M, the form looks OK to me, I'm sure there are some things to comment on which others hopefully will do. The one thing I notice is actually a side note... it's a lack of tightness at the very top of the pull. Most visible in the first lift; it looks as if you relax the body to where the weight is then supported by the joints; the shoulders, hips and knees, as opposed to staying tight and letting the muscles hold the weight. It's not something I've heard a lot about, but seems to me this would put excess stress on the joints, especially as the weight gets heavier.
Your back looks good in narrow sumo, not as good in conventional.
45 degree front camera angle is best if you can. Closer to sideways can be ok but straight front or side isn't as useful.
-S-
45 degree front camera angle is best if you can. Closer to sideways can be ok but straight front or side isn't as useful.
-S-
Antti
Level 10 Valued Member
@Sean M , To me all the lifts look light. You could well do more.
I'm not sure if I would be comfortable with the grip width in the sumo stance in the long run. Also, I'm not sure if it would cut in competition as I understand "shoulders back" is a common rule. I would practice something closer to shoulder width.
When it comes to training, I would train each style in its own blocks until you feel overall proficient in the lift. Then, make an educated decision.
To me there's a clear difference between how far you are, overall, from the bar between the stances. When doing sumo your knees go well over the bar, as well as your shoulders. That could happen with conventional as well.
I'm not sure if I would be comfortable with the grip width in the sumo stance in the long run. Also, I'm not sure if it would cut in competition as I understand "shoulders back" is a common rule. I would practice something closer to shoulder width.
When it comes to training, I would train each style in its own blocks until you feel overall proficient in the lift. Then, make an educated decision.
To me there's a clear difference between how far you are, overall, from the bar between the stances. When doing sumo your knees go well over the bar, as well as your shoulders. That could happen with conventional as well.
Sean M
Level 7 Valued Member
By "wider" I meant straight/shoulder width. The last one felt (and video confirmed) it was narrow (V shape).
Knees and shoulders over the bar - is that wrong? Only wrong if it feels like I'm falling forward? In experimenting I find the farther back my shins are from the bar, the more it strains my lower back (takes all the leg drive out of it?). Even "midfoot" seems too far back, conventional feels more balanced when shins are 1" from bar.
Antti
Level 10 Valued Member
It is not wrong. It could be a good idea to try for you. Just try to still have your weight on your heels.
You could also try to take a bit wider stance with the conventional. It will be a longer way to lift but maybe still easier. Also give rotating your feet a bit out a shot if you haven't yet.
Are you in contact with the bar all the time?
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