Stalling on the deadlift. Run it out, or reset 5%?

[BrandonBanton]

Agreed, I’m just trying to figure out which exercise to use to get the job done. I’ve never attempted a stiff leg deadlift, I’ve dabbled in rdl’s back when I would “exercise” I’ve also read about just doing 3 sets of 5 deadlifts with 85% of Friday's planned weight. Factoring in a small reset, doesn’t sound like a bad idea. I guess I’ll just have to find out at this point.

I’ve through NLP a few times, in terms of adding weight three times a week I failed at around 330. Twice a week I made it to about 345, and 385 adding weight once a week.

This time through I was kind of all over the place, squats needed volume and intensity days first and I pre maturely added upper body to the same routine. I switched mostly to the 4 day split out of time restraints. And this Friday I’ll squat 365 for two triples. Dropping the volume day down another 10% as it says to do in the gray book when you start to “run it out” so 5x5 with 300

[BrandonBanton]

You raise good points. I think I’ll just have to try adding a bit more pulling volume, and if it fails catastrophically at least I’ll know. Returning to NLP would be rough, I’d have to cut the weights back quite a bit to hit three sets of five again.

[BrandonBanton]

Thanks man, I think I’m gonna throw in 3 sets of 5 SLDL’s on Tuesday with 50% of Friday's weight which I’ll drop a bit. From what I’m gathering on SS’s tutorial on YouTube, they can help with setting your back on standard DL’s.

[Maybach]

There are two halves to the intermediate transition. The more obvious one, that usually gets talked about more readily, is that you are capable of imposing a stress on yourself that requires more than one workout to recover from. This is the common refrain of "when the weights get heavy enough x." Avoiding deadlift overtraining is often thought of in this context. It is understood that the trainee has an increased ability to impose stress, and this ability may exceed the development of the ability to recover from it. A more refined understanding of this notes that the training stress of heavier weights differs from lighter weights: harder on the connective tissues and joints than the muscles.

However, the other half of this is that as you approach your absolute strength potential, the stress required to provoke an adaptation becomes greater. It's not that you have the ability to go in and kick your ass with tonnage such that you'll still feel it come the following workout, but that *even if* you bring maximum effort to the training session, and *even if* you recover completely by the next time you perform that exercise, your body does not actually experience it as a stress which needs adapting to, and so the trainee walks into next week's training session is just as strong as, or only very slightly stronger than they were at the beginning of this week.

I suspect that the former principle gets overstated when examining intermediate programming. The weights most people are handling at the intermediate level are usually capable of being handled even by that same trainee relatively casually, and it's only in later intermediate/early advanced programming that the weights start to actually affect your ability to to them *at all*. A 600 pound squatter will obviously have to be judicious in their application of a 450 lb squat, but a 405 pound squatter can probably be pretty free with their inclusion of 315, and even heavier, squats (these numbers as merely hypothetical beginning and end points of intermediate programming, obviously. There are trainees for whom a 405 squat will not allow them to handle 315 easily). I think the more relevant factor is that the trainee who exits their NLP at 405 simply is not made strong enough to squat 410 after merely one session of 405 at 3x5: they require *some* additional volume to actually drive the body to adapt. After all, they were clearly capable of recovering from 400 in one or two days: it is not as if 405 suddenly requires a whole *week* to recover from now. Obviously both factors are present and relevant, and of course the tendency of most, especially self directed trainees is to do more than they should, the recommendation to underdose rather to overdose stress is a pretty safe side to err on, but I think the more correct way to view intermediate programming is the extension of the timeframe in which stress can *actually be applied*, not necessarily the timeframe in which recovery occurs.

The view of pulling volume at the end of the NLP I think encourages a subtle misapprehension of this model. True, the deadlift is fatiguing, but because of the structure of the NLP pulling volume drops significantly at right around the time that *squats* begin to grow into their role as primary drivers of overall strength, and theoretically the power clean starts to provide something in the way of actual force production stress. It is not (or rather, not merely) that the decreased frequency allows the deadlift to be recovered from more easily, but that the deadlift progress becomes buoyed up by the geometrically increasing systemic stress of well executed late NLP. A 315 deadlift might need to be done every other workout when paired with a 255 squat to be driven up to 365, but a 365 deadlift will rise quite nicely when paired with a 315 squat. After all, this phase doesn't *last* very long, compared to the others. It's certainly where the least actual progress is made, even outside of it's inherently lower frequency. It's an expression of the previous observation about the changes in the character of the lift: the later phases of novice programming involves different improvements than the earlier ones, because heavier lifts are different.

This drives mistakes in intermediate pulling volume for a lot of people, I think. The power clean is a somewhat underrated component of the SS model. I am not certain of its exact nature but it's an incredibly powerful (literally as well as figuratively) exercise, and I suspect that most (though not all obviously) people who find it "does not drive" their deadlifts have not given it the attention and consideration it deserves. The light pulling volume contributes something of an assistance exercise for the deadlift, and helps to add to the stress of a lift which is done closer to the limit it can be performed in a single session than others. A mechanically efficient lift like the deadlift rapidly exhausts the trainee's potential both to recover from, and more importantly I think, *actually perform the proscribed volume.* It needs assistance not only because recovery grows rapidly (though it does), but because you can't actually *apply* enough stress to the pulling motion through just pulling heavy in a single workout. Even just learning very light cleans caused my deadlift to move: it might be worth taking the time to learn them.

Light day pulls are not much to be scared of, in my experience: RDLs, in particular, eliminate the most stressful part of the deadlift on the back, include a stretch reflex, and operate quite well at weights low enough to not cause anyone all that much distress (fuck man, it's not unreasonable for your 60% deadlifts to be around the level of your *bench press*, which you handle far more easily with much smaller muscles and similar ROM. Exceptions abound but really, *the deadlift* (the heaviest weight most people can move operated with the lower back in a position of mechanical disadvantage) is what is stressful, not *any pulling* exercise. I sincerely doubt that what you're experiencing is an inability to recover from deadlifting week to week at a weight of 395. If you walk into the gym next week and it won't go up, I would be very surprised if the reason was that your lower back was still shot. It's more likely that one set of pulling 390 isn't enough to get you to 395, and you have to remind those muscles that they are on the clock. Especially when hearing that you are literally *never* pulling off the floor except for those heavy deadlifts (the chins might help a bit but at the minimum you need like, back extensions of GHR or something too. Chins alone aren't pulling volume).

[BrandonBanton]

I appreciate you taking the time to lay this all out, I’ll definitely be adding more pulling volume. Maybe just three sets of five deadlifts with like 80/85% of Friday’s intensity weight. If that’s too much, I’ll try rdl’s or sldl’s same reps and sets but around 60%. This has all been super helpful, time to just try it and see what works.

[Mark Rippetoe]

I appreciate you taking the time to lay this all out, I’ll definitely be adding more pulling volume. Maybe just three sets of five deadlifts with like 80/85% of Friday’s intensity weight. If that’s too much, I’ll try rdl’s or sldl’s same reps and sets but around 60%. This has all been super helpful, time to just try it and see what works.

But no power cleans, right? Sorry you wasted your time, Maybach. That was a thoughtful response.

[BrandonBanton]

Called out by the man himself, as I’m heading to the garage to train! Alright Rip, you win. Power cleans it is.

[MAD9692]

The power clean is a somewhat underrated component of the SS model. I am not certain of its exact nature but it's an incredibly powerful (literally as well as figuratively) exercise, and I suspect that most (though not all obviously) people who find it "does not drive" their deadlifts have not given it the attention and consideration it deserves. .

Agreed.

OP, want to get unstuck? Follow the program, do your cleans and eat and sleep more.

[Maybach]

Granted you are an intermediate trainee including power cleans for the first time. Probably worth slow pulling for a week or two until you get them right. Do them as warmups for both your pulls till you have to kind of try