Is it a bad idea to coast on Deadlifts while waiting for other lifts to "catch up?"

[Amy-in-PHX]

Hi coaches,
The initial goals I set for myself when I began SS on January 18th were to hit the following weights on work sets, within 8 weeks:
squat 100, deadlift 125, press 50, bench 75 -- (I started out using a 20-lb bar for all, and RDLs instead of real deadlifts.)

I hit 125 on DLs this past Monday (March 3), but the other lifts are lagging behind a bit. (Squat 90, bench 62.5, and press 50 but with very slow bar and the 5th rep of the 1st work set a miss -- I have to do 2.5-lb or smaller jumps on all of these, now.) I repeated the 125 DL on Wednesday and intended to keep that load the same until after hitting the goals on the other 3 lifts, and then set new goals from there. But then I thought, maybe coasting on DL would slow down or derail my novice LP even on the other lifts, by reducing the total stress of each workout on the body too much. What do you think? (Today I went ahead and did 130 DLs for a set of 5 and a set of 3.)

[Michael Wolf]

Let each lift take its own course, don't stop progressing any one of them because of arbitrary numbers you think the others "should" be at. So keep progressing your DL.

[Jeff Illingworth]

It's easy to forget that one lift doesn't necessarily go up at the expense of another. If you're deadlift is getting stronger, then you are getting stronger, which means that your squat will gain something from this. That's one of the nice collateral benefits of doing compound barbell lifts.

[Michael Wolf]

The same fallacy so prevalent in economics, zero sum game fixed pie vs everyone can benefit by increasing the size of the pie. The gains of one don't come at the expense of another. Adam Smith taught us this lesson in econ 250 years ago, yet lots of people still don't get it. Considering how new and in its infancy the study of strength is, I guess it's not a shock that some people don't understand that insight.