Deadlifts First Thing?

[David McClelland]

I'm soon going to be 50 yrs old and nearing the end of my NLP (going on 4 1/2 months) and had already been doing a light squat day on Wed. I decided to do box squats for light days and recently stopped because as I got up in weight it was really effecting the IT band on my left leg and I was having to constantly do foam rolling/deep massage to keep the knee and muscle pain away.

Maybe that was just due to not being used to it and my body eventually having to adjust but the point is I stopped squatting altogether on Wed and not only has the IT band issue finally gone away, but my performance on Mon/Fri LP squats has been much better, meaning I had a lot more power out of the hole, weight went up faster, etc. I also don't feel quite as fatigued and beat to hell all the time anymore.

This leaves me with a pressing movement and the deadlift on Wednesday and that's it. I've been doing the pressing movements before deadlifts because well that's what I'm supposed to do and everything has been "ok" until today.

I basically don't have any kind of warm up to get me going on the press before I'm heaving the weight over my head now (besides my warm up sets), I'm just going into the gym and starting on it which is weird since I'm used to doing squats first thing, and though I just, did, barely get one set of 5 completed, I only got 2 reps of the 2nd set.

Puzzled, but keeping in mind I was doing it "cold", I racked the weight and just went on to deadlifts (before someone else gets the coveted platform to do their crossfit BS and BO rows). That went fine.

I went back to doing presses to see if it might have been a "cold" issue or something. Sure enough, I easily did 2 more sets of 5 that I was supposed to do to start with. Take "easily" with a grain of salt, as none of my lifts are "easy" anymore, but let's just say there was no big concern of missing any reps.

So is there anything wrong with my doing deadlifts first thing before presses/bench presses? It worked out better today that way and it got me on the platform before all the college kids and crossfitters got to it as well. And if there is some reason, why did it work out so well today and what should I do to warm up before pressing? I used to get on the rower for a couple of mins before squats but stopped doing that and it has made zero difference for that.

[AndrewLewis]

You actually need to warm up the press using the press prior to your worksets. I wouldn't move deadlifts because of it. Try this warm up

[David McClelland]

Thanks for the response. I do those warm up sets before all of my exercises.

In fact just to reassure you, here's what I did that day, taken from my log book;

Press

Bar x 5 x 2

75 x 5

95 x 3

115 x 2

136.5 x 5 x 3 (total work sets)

By saying I went into it "cold" I meant my whole body. My energy level felt low walking into the gym just starting on press first thing. That is NOT how it feels after doing squats (or now, deadlifts).

I could just do a light set of squats just to warm up, but I just don't understand why the difference when this is not what what is prescribed for a 4 day split where on "heavy press" day, the overhead press is the very first thing you're going to be doing, and a 4 day split was what I was looking forward to when going fully intermediate eventually.

Hey, there could be the possibility plates got changed around and there was a 1.5 lbs difference which caused my failure vs success since my lifts are probably that close on the press at this point. I hadn't thought of that. But is that the ONLY possibility?

[J. Killmond]

I've gone to a split routine. When the squat is not on my training plan for the day, I will do some squats anyway for warmup purposes (just 45x5x2, then 95x5). After that, I move to my press warmups, press work sets and finally, deadlift. Most people who are "about be 50 yrs old" aren't pressing weights that will fatigue them (at least, I'm not), but they can definitely deadlift enough weight to do so. Accordingly, it doesn't make a lot of sense to swap the order and deadlift first.

[AndrewLewis]

David, how long are you resting between worksets? What's your bodyweight and height?

[David McClelland]

Rest between sets has varied according to feel. Squats I've gone up to 10 mins but now usually around 7, like today, which I'll get to in a second. Presses I've been doing 5 mins, 7 mins a couple times on bench press if I'm not mistaken.

I'm 5'8", 187 lbs, 38 1/2" waist. I started at 165 lbs and 36 1/2" waist. Waist increased first thing as I probably upped calories too soon, but now in the last, say 2 months or so, it hasn't moved at all while everything else continues to get bigger (I've had to buy all new shirts).

I've been extremely strict about my calories to see what made a difference, when. I could be less careful, but I've been there and done that. Been fat before and not going through all that again after going through living hell to lose it.

I had to reset squat at a ridiculously low level which I knew was attributed to lack of calories. All I did was up my carbs 50g per day and boom weight shot back up on the bar, at least 25 lbs later when I got stuck again. Did another 50g per day increase in carbs, boom 25 lbs later here I am.

Today I did every rep well on squat short of the very last one of the very last set, but let's just say it was a pretty done deal I wasn't going to get that last rep, so I did a not quite full depth rep and boy that low part felt bad, I probably would have failed it at below parallel. I was doing great on that as I've said, until today.

My bench press today (done of course after squats) failed miserably. I'm already microloading that just like presses (at 197.5 on it) and I barely got 4 reps up before I had to rack. Next 4 sets were 3 reps (so I did 5 sets of 3 reps basically to get volume in).

As I speak I'm planning on upping my carbs 50g again. This brings it up to around 350g/day, along with 1g protein/lb bodyweight, fat comes along with meat and is quite enough.

I know I have more LP in me, and maybe the whole thing has just been my carbs again? Or maybe I'm not resting enough between sets as you're considering?

Am I the only one who finds this last novice stuff kinda tricky and frustrating? lol

[plumber]

I have always found that if I squat or dead lift first that i bench or press better. On the odd occasion where I'll do some type of pressing on a separate day I'll usually do my squat warm up before my my pressing warm up. I just feel better mentally.

[AndrewLewis]

Rest between sets has varied according to feel. Squats I've gone up to 10 mins but now usually around 7, like today, which I'll get to in a second. Presses I've been doing 5 mins, 7 mins a couple times on bench press if I'm not mistaken.

I'm 5'8", 187 lbs, 38 1/2" waist. I started at 165 lbs and 36 1/2" waist. Waist increased first thing as I probably upped calories too soon, but now in the last, say 2 months or so, it hasn't moved at all while everything else continues to get bigger (I've had to buy all new shirts).

I've been extremely strict about my calories to see what made a difference, when. I could be less careful, but I've been there and done that. Been fat before and not going through all that again after going through living hell to lose it.

I had to reset squat at a ridiculously low level which I knew was attributed to lack of calories. All I did was up my carbs 50g per day and boom weight shot back up on the bar, at least 25 lbs later when I got stuck again. Did another 50g per day increase in carbs, boom 25 lbs later here I am.

Today I did every rep well on squat short of the very last one of the very last set, but let's just say it was a pretty done deal I wasn't going to get that last rep, so I did a not quite full depth rep and boy that low part felt bad, I probably would have failed it at below parallel. I was doing great on that as I've said, until today.

My bench press today (done of course after squats) failed miserably. I'm already microloading that just like presses (at 197.5 on it) and I barely got 4 reps up before I had to rack. Next 4 sets were 3 reps (so I did 5 sets of 3 reps basically to get volume in).

As I speak I'm planning on upping my carbs 50g again. This brings it up to around 350g/day, along with 1g protein/lb bodyweight, fat comes along with meat and is quite enough.

I know I have more LP in me, and maybe the whole thing has just been my carbs again? Or maybe I'm not resting enough between sets as you're considering?

Am I the only one who finds this last novice stuff kinda tricky and frustrating? lol

Yeah it sounds like you need a coach. There's a lot to unpack here and ask more questions, but I would say that if you find pressing after you do your other exercises works better for you, go for it. I would suspect that you're going to be tired as hell when deadlifts become near limit sets. Without actually seeing you workout, it's hard to see why you would observe pressing last as more successful.

You may find that switching to 3s would help you at your age. You're not old, but you're not young either. And being 195lb wouldn't hurt either.

[David McClelland]

Yeah it sounds like you need a coach. There's a lot to unpack here and ask more questions......You may find that switching to 3s would help you at your age. You're not old, but you're not young either. And being 195lb wouldn't hurt either.

Yea I understand what you're saying. I've been thinking about this a lot. I always knew about "the first three questions" Rip wrote but upon reading it again I realize I just may not be eating enough. He made the statement no man ever got big and strong on 2500 calories. Well that's actually around what I'm eating right now.

I'm just going to up my calories like I said and see what happens next week. Wednesday will be bench press before deadlifts and I'll do that, going to try and get the same weight I did last with 3 sets of 5. I'm getting adequate rest, adequate rest between sets (I don't mind waiting, but also know when I start getting "cold") and greed has never been an issue. So if upping calories reasonably doesn't help then it's onto the next phases of advanced NLP and I guess that's legit resets (done not because of calories issues), one on/two off days, back off sets, and as you mentioned 3x3s.

I was already mentally set against 3s until the way I've felt this weekend after I did that bench press. My triceps are a little sore and I swear they have a "pump" which is exactly opposite of what I thought 3s would do. Perhaps this forced growth whether they liked it or not, or whatever.

Anyway, thanks for helping. If I do find DLing first is the way to go as well, I decided that's what I'm going to do, but I'm going to experiment some more to find out what is up with all this.

[Erich Weidner]

FWIW, After a few months of training NLP I had some significant elbow tendonitis. Trying to work towards low bar squatting really angered my elbows. My pressing suffered due to the pain/weakness caused by this.
since squats triggered my elbow pain, but the pain would generally be minor 48 hours later, I started deadlifting first, followed by the pressing exercise followed by squats.

I had no issues with this sequence. Even now that my elbows are fine, I find I like deadlifting first when I'm freshest. That being said, I can't skip any of the empty bar warm ups for squat even though I'm overall very warm when I squat last. I need those warm ups to get my shoulders relaxed enough and my depth of squat low enough.