Also thank you for taking the time to reply.
Also thank you for taking the time to reply.
You are welcome. Yes around the belly button. It sounds like you are probably fine though.
Hi Robert,
I found the paragraph about how a heavy squat can cause missed deadlifts while itself progressing especially insightful and helpful.
My squats have recently come very close to my deadlifts at ~410lbs and these in turn became hard to the point of not being able to pull 5 reps without and additional set for a couple of workouts. I think I let my depth creep up so my squat was artificially strong, which hurt my deadlift. Possibly this also increased my tendency to not go deep in a sort of vicious cycle.
I made a point of going deeper which took 20 lbs off of my lift. Next workout I pulled an easy set of 5 at 415. Hoping to make this a trend, maybe open up the gap between the squat and the deadlift even more.
The article made me realize how interesting the interactions between the lifts are - maybe I can turn a grid-lock into a bootstrap.
For context:
I'm 25 years old, male, ~6'' 1', ~238 lbs carrying a bit more body-fat than optimal; online "Navy Body Fat Calculator" and such output a 25-27% estimate.
I've been training to get stronger using weights for the last 5-6 months and following the standard novice linear progression since July on a diet of 200-250 g protein, 300-400 g carbs and 50-100 g fats (mostly i focus on the protein and the carbs and fats are pretty much incidental).
Sets of 5 (3 for cleans) from last two sessions: DL: 415, BS:396, BP:231, OHP:161, PC:183. I also do chins after cleans.
Glad you found it useful! Keep that squat undulation in mind when programming for your deadlifts. I like a 50-75 lb spread when I start a new program. Eventually both PR but if the squat gets too heavy too fast the deadlift will calm to a screeching halt. Remember, they are both loading the hip extensors and must be considered as similar work when programming. You're doing a good job here just keep this in mind as you go along. Read Part 2 when you get a chance there are some useful technical considerations covered.
Robert, thanks again for all of this. I'm sorry to be the one to ask the dumb questions, but it seems to be my job. I've backed my squats off to give my DLs a chance to get ahead of them, and I'm aiming for at least 50 lbs. heavier. But this means I'll almost certainly finish running out my DLs before my squats. When that happens, should I reset both lifts, or finish running out squats while resetting the DLs?
The relevance of these two articles came to me by surprise yesterday when, three weeks into NLP, I found that I could not break the deadlift at workset weight from the floor. Or even 90% of workset weight for that matter. Yet my squats and presses didn't give any indication of potential failure.
I have been following the program as written in the book and I believe I have been eating and sleeping well, but clearly something needs reevaluating.