Deadlift Question for Robert Santana

[Jack Morrison]

Feel free to move this, as this has nothing to do with nutrition, but I figured that posting in this section would allow me to get your opinion specifically rather than someone else. I read your recent article and you mentioned the importance of maintaining a significant deadlift lead on the squat. I asked about this in another section and I was told that I shouldn't keep the squat down in favor of keeping the deadlift up. I have always had bad form on my deadlift, but I am working to correct this and I subsequently lowered my deadlift weight to within 20 lbs of my squat sets. I am running an NLP for the second time with better form after not lifting at all during football season. As soon as I lowered my deadlift to correct my form, within 2 weeks, my squat sets came to an abrupt halt. I am deadlifting 3 days per week for one set of 5, but I am having no recovery issues. I failed my squat at 340x5x3 and I had lowered my deadlift to 355x5x1. Failing the squat at this light of a weight on the LP makes me want to try something differently. Should I drop down my squat weight so that it is, say, 50 lbs lighter than the deadlift? If I figure out my deadlift form, I could reasonably take 10 lb jumps in both lifts while maintaining a 50 lb gap between the two. What do you think I should do? Nobody else on the forum but you thinks I should necessarily maintain a set deadlift lead over the squat.

Thanks,

Jack Morrison

[Robert Santana]

Jack,

I think your issue is mostly mental. I watched your 365 x 4 (Fail), your 365 x 5, and your 375 x 5 (Fail). I'm not going to overload your brain with a ton of technical advice than you have already received in the technique forum because I don't think it will help you at this point. On the 365 x 4 you clearly had another rep, definitely two and you bailed before you got it moving. Same thing on the 375 fail. The only thing I want to add to the technical discussion is what I covered in Part 2 of my Deadlift Article series: Get the slack out of your wrists and fingers. You can see them getting pulled into extension by the bar the moment you start the pull. They should already be in this position before you pull.

The information that I provided in Part 1 of my deadlift is of primary relevance to your situation though. You are perceiving the weight to be heavier than it actually is and bailing on reps. I think that you have unrealistic expectations of how flat your back should be on a limit set of 5. There are numerous board posts and threads about this and the consensus is that at a certain point (which is different for everyone) your back isn't going to look the way that it does on your first warm up set when you perform your heavy working set. I believe Dr Petrizzo either did a video or article on this where he discussed how back safety is not compromised until:

A Spinal flexion reaches terminal ROM

B. Your spine continues flexing as you continue through the pull

Paul Horn discussed this in this thread years ago and I generally agree with him. At some point, it changes shape off of the floor and you have to make a judgement call. I can't do that for you though. What I will say is that your deadlift is stronger than your squat, you need to clean up some of the technical aspects yes, but ultimately you need to get out of your own way and get it done. Now the last time you posted you were hitting 320 on the squat and now you are at 340. How did you arrive at the conclusion that this is a light squat for you?

[Jack Morrison]

I ended my last LP at the same bodyweight at 375x5x3 for the squat. I am thinking tomorrow I will squat 335x3x5 and deadlift 345x1x5 just to learn what keeping my back angle about constant until the knees is like. After that, I will attempt to make 10 lb jumps on the deadlift. I will make sure to pull the slack out of my arms. I didn't get a video of my failed squat set, but I have this issue where I go slightly deeper each successive rep. How big of a problem is this? How do you recommend fixing this?
Lastly, do you think that it is better to have a bigger gap between the squat and the deadlift? Why would a 50 lb gap be better than, say, a 25 lb gap?

[Robert Santana]

Do you have a video of your 375 x 5 x 3 squat? I'd like to see it if you do. If 340 was heavy then I'm sure there is something else doing on here with your recovery.

Don't mess around with a 345 lb deadlift. Your form is not that atrocious where you need a 30 lb offload. There is absolutely no reason, and I say this based on watching your videos, that you aren't pulling in the 400s for sets of 5 other than you are overthinking the lift and have unrealistic expectations in terms of what your technique should look like. Read above post.

If you go too deep on squats then cut them off a tad shallower than you want to. I'd have to see it to make a better assessment.