Cleaning Up My Deadlift
Jul 13, 2006 -- By John Sullivan

Much has been written about the various ways to increase one’s deadlift without actually deadlifting. The obvious benefits of the deadlift cannot be denied, as it has tremendous positive effects on both lower and upper body musculature. It is also very mentally challenging; you really have to be focused on the task at hand if you want to pull a big dead from the floor. Problems arise for the powerlifter, strongman, or other strength athlete, though, when multiple lower body sessions must be performed in the same week. Pulling heavy deadlifts each week taxes the lower back to a great degree - at times to the point that subsequent weekly sessions are negatively affected. This is especially true as the athlete gets stronger and is able to use larger weights.

In the sport of strongman, there are many events that are very lower back intensive, and there is often a deadlift event at contests. This isn’t usually a true deadlift, but it’s similar in that you need to be able to pull a big weight off the ground. As such, the deadlift is one of the most important lifts to the strongman. Likewise, in powerlifting, the deadlift is your last lift of the meet; it’s your final chance of the day to push your total up as high as possible. Since powerlifting gear won’t help the deadlift to the degree it will the squat and bench press, you really have to hammer your weak links. Like in strongman, the deadlift can be the "make or break" lift for the powerlifter.

As a competitive strongman, I've found that deadlifting during the week sometimes affected my lower back to the degree that event training on Saturday was sometimes compromised, which is unacceptable. At times, it also led to minor back injuries that hampered my training for about a week. I wanted to find another way to push up my deadlift while still being able to train events effectively.

Louie Simmons has found several creative ways around this problem. Performing various “deadlift-like” exercises that stress the posterior chain in a similar way to the traditional deadlift has proven an effective strategy. Exercises like box squats and suspended good mornings with various bars have proven useful, and don’t stress the low back as negatively as deadlifts sometimes can. I was looking for something a little different though, as my training was getting a little stagnant.

While I had never practiced the Olympic lifts with any degree of regularity, I had heard various stories of lifters building big deadlifts as a result of the Olympic lifts and their variations. In “Dinosaur Training,” Brooks Kubik talks about the famous Olympic weightlifting champion John Davis. Davis set the world record in the clean and jerk of 402 pounds at a bodyweight of 233 in 1951. Entirely as the result of Olympic weightlifting (he never trained the deadlift specifically), Davis pulled a 705 lb. deadlift. In 1968 Bill Starr pulled a 666 lb. deadlift, which topped the American record for the 198-pound class at the time. Like Davis, Starr’s deadlift was a result of his training in the Olympic lifts. Finally, I have always been impressed watching Raimonds Bergmanis, the Latvian weightlifting champion turned World’s Strongest Man (WSM) competitor, in the deadlift events at WSM. Bergmanis has tremendously efficient pulling form, keeping his back arched and hips down throughout the movement. At the 2002 World’s Strongest Man contest, the car deadlift for reps event was estimated to be in the area of 770 pounds. WSM notables Svend Karlsen and Mariusz Pudzianowski pulled eight reps each while Zydrunas Savickus, a tremendously strong deadlifter in his own right, tied for second place with nine reps. Bergmanis topped them all, though, with an awesome display of pulling power, finishing with eleven reps. What makes this even more astounding is that - unlike his competitors - Bergmanis didn’t wear a deadlift suit or a belt for this event.

So, all of this got me thinking. Since I had no contests in the immediate future, and was looking for a little change of pace anyway, I figured I’d try an Olympic lifting program. While the goal of the program wasn’t specifically to boost my deadlift, I was hoping that it would have some sort of positive carryover. At that point my highest deadlift was 579, which I had done a few weeks earlier. Since I had a starting point, I now had to formulate a plan.

Phase I: Weeks1-4

I divided my training into four-week blocks. The first order of business was to gain some degree of proficiency in the full lifts as well as some of the variations. In order to fully reap the benefits of the Olympic lifts, a certain amount of technique is necessary. The technical preparation phase would comprise the first four-week training block. Weights were generally of moderate intensity, especially in the full lifts, in order to emphasize proper form. It was structured as follows:

Monday
Full Clean
Power Clean
Front Squat

Tuesday
Snatch
Snatch Pull
Step Up

Thursday
Clean
Clean Pull
Back Squat
Jerk

Friday
Snatch
Power Snatch
Overhead Squat

Monday
Clean
Power Clean
Front Squat
Jerk from Behind the Neck

Tuesday
Snatch
Power Snatch
RDL

Thursday
Clean and Jerk
Clean Pull
Back Squat

Friday
Snatch
Snatch Pull
Front Squat
Overhead Squat

Some lifts from Phase II:

Clean:

Snatch:

Front Squat:

Phase III: Weeks 9-10

In Phase III, the exercise selection remained the same, but the volume and intensity were both decreased. No maximal efforts were attempted in any exercise during this time. This was necessary in order to fully benefit from the delayed training effect, which would come as a result of the previous phase.

The Result

After the tenth week I was ready to test again. My numbers in the full lifts as well as all assistance exercises had gone up significantly, and I had set PRs on several lifts during Phase II. Nevertheless, I was a little unsure how the deadlift would feel since the heaviest weight I had pulled off the floor during this entire cycle was a 430 lb. clean pull during Week 7, and that was only for one set and one rep. However, my warm-ups felt pretty good, and after 495 flew up quicker and easier than it ever had, I upped the weight to 605, a big jump of 110 lbs. The weight moved surprisingly quickly off the floor, though. It started to stall at lockout, but I kept grinding it out, ending up with a 26 lb. PR.
 

Phase III: Weeks 9-10

In Phase III, the exercise selection remained the same, but the volume and intensity were both decreased. No maximal efforts were attempted in any exercise during this time. This was necessary in order to fully benefit from the delayed training effect, which would come as a result of the previous phase.

4) Don’t do too many reps! The point of the Olympic lifts is to build strength and power. High reps will invariably cause a breakdown in technique, and can possibly lead to injury. For the full lifts, I performed 1-3 reps; for pull variations, reps were in the 1-5 range.

If you’re looking for a bigger deadlift, or maybe just some variety in your training, adding in some Olympic pulls may be just what you need.



References
1. Drechsler, A. The Weightlifting Encyclopedia. A IS A Communications, 1998

2. Kubik, B. Dinosaur Training, Lost Secrets of Strength and Development. Brooks Kubik, 1996

3. Zatsiorsky, V. Science and Practice of Strength Training. Human Kinetics, 1995.

John Sullivan is a certified personal trainer, USA Weightlifting Club Coach and a USA Weightlifting Sports Performance Coach.  He is the co-owner of Excel Sport & Fitness, a Waltham Massachusetts based training facility.

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