Help me deadlift 300

racarvalho

New member
Hello, all!

A bit of backstory; I am 24 and ran cross country and track in college. I'm now currently running 35-40 mpw and doing a full body lift twice a week. I deadlift twice a week. Once usually 3 sets of 12 and then the other day usually 5 sets of 5-8. Yesterday I did 5 x 2 at 185, 5 x 1 at 205, 5 x 1 at 215, and 5 x 1 at 245.

What should I do to get to 300 in deadlift? I want to continue to run about 35 miles per week.
 
@trying2better Ye, it's not good. It'll mentally exhaust you from chasing PRs and lead you into a bad mindset from the start. It'll physically take its toll or injure you (very common with elbow tendonitis or other issues). And your bench will be pissweak while your squat and deadlift are solid.
 
@trying2better Do a bit of google, there's no one "real source", as there haven't been academic studies on the topic. But if you follow any real coach, you'll see that they dislike SS and SL 5x5 (for all the reasons I've mention). And I'm also speaking from personal experience. There's nothing I regret more than wasting time with SS and SL. It fked up my first 2 years of training because of the mindset they instill (as well as forearm tendonitis (took 2 years to heal) and elbow tendonitis).

Hell, they even removed it from the /r/fitness wiki for a reason, and that says a lot when even the people there think it's bad.
 
@amberjeanettegardner Well I've been on the SS / SL 5x5 train for some time now, the simplicity really helped me getting the routine on.

What I've gathered from different resources is that 5x5 is good atleast for beginners for a compromise of strength and muscle hypertrophy. I get it that it's not best for powerlifting, but then again it's not a powerlifting program.

I'll definately check out the routines you mentioned! I won't be staying on 5x5 forever anyway, just getting some core strength.
 
@trying2better Okay, I'll give you a write down why it's bad since you're on it. If I can get one less person doing the mistakes I did (because of ignorant people on reddit telling me to basically) I'll be happy.

SL has you doing 3x squat a week, 1.5x deadlift a week, but only 1.5x bench a week. So more than 2x lowerbody work compared to upperbody. Upperbody recovers easier, so why would you train it less? Benchpress is also a lift that benefits greatly from volume (more sets, more sessions), so limiting it that greatly will leave you like it leaves all SS / SL lifters, with a shitty bench and okay squat / DL.

With only 7.5reps of deadlifts a week, you'll never get good at deadlifting. And once you finally swap program, you're basically starting from scratch (except, you got strong, so you've built a shitty movement pattern from lack of training, this takes months or years to fix).

Then there's the (imo) biggest issue. The mindset issue. It says increase weights by 2.5kg a training session, so +7.5kg to squat 5rm per week. This is ludicrously unsustainable. If it were sustainable you'd be hitting 400kg squats for 5x5 in a year. You won't. And then you'll read about people online who say I got to 140kg 5x5 before I stalled, or I got to 180kg deadlift 1x5 before I stalled. Etc. And you'll think "I can get there too". But you won't. After your first stall, you'll never increase properly again without swapping program. For 99% of the people this is in less than two months. But you'll still think I cna do more, I can do more, just reset weights by 10% and try again, and again, and again. All of a sudden it's 1 year later and you haven't put on more than 10kg on your squat. But you've gained a few injuries from going 10 RPE every workout session. You're also mentally exhausted from having to psyche yourself up for every set (since every set is RPE 10 grinders).

Meanwhile, you haven't put on any noticeable musclemass, since you haven't had any volume at all, so you're still looking like you did after 2 months of training.

Basically, it's a 1000times better thinking of training over long term. There's not need to get that 100kg squat in 2 months, when you can get it in 5 and be bigger, healthier, 10000times better form (so more gains over time), and better mentally prepared for weekly / monthly increases.

I've coached 4 women (2 of them over 50 years). One of the older hit 100kgx10 deadlift in 3 months of training with me. The other benches 80kg atm. I've coached 3 men, the strongest I've worked with a year and he's got a 440kg total. None have used SS / SL.
 
@amberjeanettegardner Oh wow you really put thought into this, thank you!!

I think I'll be switching to Pharaks Grayskull LP for now. I know I will be struggling to get a single chinup, but other than that I think I've got the basics covered ok. For the record, my plan was going for more upperbody strength as soon as I could no longer squat three times a week. I'm a skinny, tall guy with long rope arms so chinups and dips are definately an uphill battle for me.

The seemingly complexity of 5-3-1 is intimidating for a casual though, I'm not looking for them "sick gains", but more for health benefits and core and working strength.

Well, one step at a time, and the next is Pharaks!
Thank you very much for your insight, friend!
 
@racarvalho You're welcome. There aren't really benefits to going that high, Generally -1-5 strength with some hypertrophy, 4-8 hypertrophy + strength, 8-12 hypertrophy with some strength.
 
@slamjam72 Yes you can get stronger over higher reps, but it's not optimal, you could be getting stronger by doing something else. I do 5/3/1 which has 5x10 deadlifts, but for this guys beginner program that sort of volume isn't required
 
@julius1985 5/3/1 doesn't have 5x10; 5/3/1 boring but big does. It's also not a high volume template without adding a substantial amount of assistance work. Just working in high-ish rep ranges doesn't make it high volume. Volume is also one of the biggest drivers of not just mass but strength gain. I'm not arguing the only option is for him to use a high volume routine, but to argue that there isn't benefit or reason to consider it just shows a lack of experience, first of all, and you're still misunderstanding what constitutes volume.

Working in high rep ranges is not the fastest way to increase your 1rm; you'd want a ton of practice at singles/doubles/triples for that, sure. But you're not actually building strength slower working in higher rep ranges. The strength between the two carries over, you just need to practice the skill of using it in high vs low reps. If your goal is a certain 1 rep max, it can make sense to start high reps and slowly work down.

In fact, 5/3/1 templates with PR sets are generally intended to have you hitting double digit reps on your + set on the 5 and 3 weeks for the reason I described above; and Wendler recommends resetting often to prevent them from ever even getting to especially low reps. That's where the 5 forward 3 back came from, and later the 7th week protocol.

I would add that the idea of optimal is pointless and arbitrary. Nothing you do will ever be optimal. There are things that are significantly faster and slower, sure, but this isn't one of those cases. Take Greyskull for example; would he progress more slowly because he hit 12 reps on his AMRAP as opposed to stopping at 5? You could progress 250x12, 255x12, 260x11, 265x10 ... 335x5 while doing something you've never done before every step along the way, or you could do something only working in 5s starting from not far from a 5rm and repeat a ton of workouts: 275x5, 280x5, 280x5, 285x5, 285x5, 285x5, reset, 260x5 ...
 
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