Why does my deadlift suck?

[EliGreen]

My deadlift has been moving slow for the last couple weeks, and my squat has been moving fast for some reason, I didn't gain any bodyweight or do anything different. My squat is at 280x3x5 and still moving up, and my last deadlift 1x5 was 275. I've been moving my deadlift up anyway and just decreasing reps that I can't get (saw this suggested for someone's deadlift in another thread). Today my deadlift was 295x2, and I'm pretty sure I could max squat more than my max deadlift, so what's wrong? I'm 17, 156lbs (I know I need to gain weight), 6'0.

[Bryan Dobson]

Your a good candidate to gain 50 percent bodyweight. What is the failure mode of your dead lifts? If you are doing squats correctly you should easily be able to dead lift more than you squat at this point. It's either you are not squatting as described in ss or you have a set up issue with the dead lift.

[Tom Narvaez]

Someone who squats more than they deadlift is almost always squatting high. However, that said, I've noticed a disproportionate amount of people who squat more than they deadlift due to the novice programming. My theory on this has to do with the fact that 3x5 is an effective programming scheme for almost everyone and 1x5 is not effective for almost everyone.

Look at Prilepin's Table:


I think the power cleans are INCREDIBLY important to deadlift success on the novice program. I'm not sure the program is effective for the deadlift without them. Just not enough tonnage/volume for your pull.

[Manimal]

I have a big gap between my squats and deads, and I squat perfectly fine. Monday I squated 380x5x3, today I DLd 335x6. My problem is most certainly my set up on DLs. I just forget all my cues when i get up to the bar. Reread the section on DLing and try and find some videos people with similar proportions to you. Last but not least, get a video of your sets and post it in the technique section. You'd be amazed at the amount of awesome info that people give that you've never considered.

Edited to add.

I have to agree with Tom on the volume portion. I find that 1 heavy set of 5 is not nearly enough to drive my progression at this point. For a while Ive been doing extra warmups to help bring the volume up. Next week I plan on switching to 3 sets of 3 and dialing back on the warmup sets.

[gzt]

Agree with Bryan. Need moar bodyweight. Need to know how deadlift fails. Need to know if your squat form sucks. Also need to know your program (say, at least the last couple weeks of workout logs).

But, seriously, gain some weight.

EDIT: also agree with Tom, esp about power cleans. As for Manimal, I also think that once your squat and DL start getting up there, the heavy squatting really takes a lot out of your deadlift performance especially if you have a certain build - if fresh, you might do much better on your DL. But I find your 335x6 deadlift suspiciously low - I'll be interested in seeing your video, there has to be something funky going on.

[EliGreen]

[QUOTE=gzt;603948]Also need to know your program (say, at least the last couple weeks of workout logs).[QUOTE]

I follow the basic SS program with all the lifts and some pullups/dips on A and B day. The only difference, which I added in the last few weeks, is that I do 1x5 squats on my dead lift days, because I found out that it just takes too much out of me to do 3 sets of squats that are heavy for me and then go on to do dead lifts within the hour.

I'm almost positive my squat depth is good, my form might need some work but it isn't terrible. I'm pretty sure it's my dead lift form that deteriorates now that I think about it, I need to post a video for the squat and dead lift sometime in the future. Now that you mention the cleans I think that might be part of my problem. My cleans are disproportionately low due to me neglecting to learn decent form until a while ago. My most recent power clean sets were 135x5x3, I'll go ahead and stop practicing form and start moving the weight up.

[gzt]

Soooo you're not going to tell us exactly what you're doing and give us the last couple weeks of your workout logs...

[EliGreen]

I don't keep a log, as helpful as I'm sure that is.

[hbriem]

I presume you are using a mixed grip and chalk and your barbells don't have inordinately smooth gripping areas? You don't have unusually short fingers? Deadlifts that fail due to loss of grip do not feel as if your grip is failing. You just can't budge them off the floor.

I like 3x3 for deadlifts once the initial 1x5 starts getting hard.

[Shaun]

Maybe it's just that after 3x5 squats you're too fucked to deadlift? I had almost the same issue the first time I ran SS: my squat and deadlift were like exactly the same, but I was not able to put full effort into the deadlift as I was fucked after the squats.