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Thread: Deadlift Stall

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2023
    Posts
    2

    Default Deadlift Stall

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    Hi Folks,

    I'm here for some advise on how I should go about progressing my deadlift.

    Background: Male, 26yo, 5'7" 250lbs, eating about 3500 to 4000 calories per day (including about a half gallon of whole milk, diet is breakfast of 6 whole eggs cooked in about two tablespoons of butter and oatmeal half a cup measured dry plus half a cup of milk and a one cup of blueberries, a turkey sandwhich with cheese and lettuce plus veggies for lunch, a snack after work which is usually a protein shake and banana, dinner which is an animal protein source plus starchy carbs and veggies, and then a night snack which is either cottage cheese or a tuna shake). My sleep could be better, getting about 6 hours every night and then catching up on the weekends, but it's tough to juggle two jobs plus online courses and studying the LSAT.

    This is my second time running the SSLP and I've blown way past my previous PRs and am still making good progress (second time on LP since I started grad school last year and due to both school and personal stress I could not keep up or continue into intermediate programming, so instead I did a came into the gym 2x/week and did a top set of five for press and squat one day, and then bench and deadlift another day). In April I reset my squat to 365 with a light day from the start, and my deadlift at 405. I got my squat up to 445x5x3 and the switched to a top set and two backoffs at 90%. When I switched to the top sets on squats I moved my deadlift day from Wednesday to Friday and progressed on 10 lbs jumps until I got to 530x5 The next week I jumped up only 5lbs and could only squeak out a triple so I did a backoff set of five and called it a night. Yesterday I tried doing block pulls since my gym has some stall mat blocks which brings the bar up to about the middle of my shins. I tried 545 and could only pull a set of three so I rested a few minutes and then pulled another set of three.

    My question for y'all is what would be better for me in this situation, should I go back to deadlifts and keep making 5lbs jumps for triples and backoffs on my heavy pulling day, or should I lower the weight for block pulls to make them sets of five and progress those as far as I can before alternating with halting deadlifts? My one concern is that I do not want my squat to outpace my deadlift, but that might be a misguided concern since my squat and deadlift are decently strong now and approaching intermediate training with the Texas Method.

    I'll try to include some pictures of my training log if that helps too.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2023
    Posts
    732

    Default

    You seem to be approaching this correctly, so we can't really tell you what will work without knowing what you respond to better. You'll have to try it and see.

    I tend to have your problem with block pulls: they aren't different enough from full pulling that I can get any more reps put of them than a deadlift at similar weigh, so I usually just run out triples once full fives stop working. Anecdotally, that works pretty well for a few weeks.

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