Maybe my weights were wrong, but that’s part of the issue with jumping into something new. Day 1, there’s no “right weight.” It was my first time deadlifting, so it felt like it would be easy, but I obviously overestimated how taxing deadlifts can be.
As a neophyte and a bit of a slow learner in this space of physical endeavor, I found this to be an amazing disconnect in the entry level literature offered by most mass audience offerings.
It reminds me of motorcycles. Beginners would be most in need the best brakes. But, The best brakes are spec'd on the most high end advanced bikes. The entry level motorcycle has the least good brakes. It's a very strange arrangement.
Many of the most visible weightlifting programs, to those who don't know better, which includes me, use a percentage of 1RM as the reference for what weight to put on the bar.
As a new comer this was a confounding variable in assessment of how to begin.
As you may have read, there are two places I found a particular piece of advice: Pavel, and Rippetoe .
Pavel , in Power To The People, says work your way up to a weight which is not too heavy, not too light . Rely on your own sense of what you can do a set of 5 with that is challenging without overdoing it.
Rippetoe, in starting strength, merely advises that a male start the deadlift at 135 and begin linearly adding weight every session. And the natural collision with the end of that ability to progress will find its way to you.
With the benefit of working my way up to Timeless Simple, my first meaningful day with my barbell and bumpers found a max of 315, which I then used as a basis for Daily Dose Deadlifts.
That said making a mistake in programming is one of the best things one can do, sans an injury or extreme overtraining. I never learned as much from getting something right as I did from a mistake.
Actually having a "good ear" handicapped me as a musician because I got along for so long on sheer ability without learning more along the way, all the way through college. Which, in my case now clearly limits my ability to learn things quickly outside my wheel house, so to speak.
All that said, if I had it to do over again I'd be doing 5 3 2 sets of PTTP starting at 135, and adding 5-10 lbs each session, and keep going till I missed a rep or didn't think I'd make the rep, then, out of sheer estimation I'd knock off 25 percent and run another linear. I'd just take that as far as I could go, not knowing any better than I know now. And at some point get wavier. But not sure how.