novice curl programming question

[ChasingCurls69]

You're deadlifting 3x a week and increasing it still 5 months into the program? That's impressive in its own right, but deadlifting 3x a doing chins are not mutually exclusive in the program, and may even be more beneficial.

[Dalton Clark]

I have a Starting Strength log on here. My deadlift has back extension issues and has for months. I have short arms and not a perception that I have short arms. My coach has informed me that deadlifts are going to suck for me as a result of my anthropometry. We are really taking it slow and I don't really deadlift heavy at the moment. . . as in I deadlift at 255 ish for 5 and it isn't going up fast. It is what it is.

The reason why chins are not in my program is because I am squatting 375 pounds this saturday as a top set with 2 back offs at 355 which interferes with. . .everything.

[ChasingCurls69]

I don't remember the part of the LP from the books where we stop doing other parts of the program because our squats got hard. Nor do I understand the rationale behind using deadlifting a weight significantly lighter than the squat due to anthropometry as the sole stimulus for the upper back musculature and then using the maintenance of 2 chins as a justification for that choice. But I'm not your coach.

What is the purpose of adding some extra weight to your squat on LP at the expense of every other lift instead of using programming that will let you progress your other lifts and do 3 sets of a bodyweight assistance movement that's supposed to be part of the program anyway?

[Dalton Clark]

I don't know. My coach must have her reasons.

[timelinex]

I don't know. My coach must have her reasons.

Man, thats sounds crazy.

Obviously she is the coach and knows better. But it's hard to believe thats what she got you doing. I've had back extension issues from day one as well. I have short arms like you,I had terribly inflexible , and I'm a bit kyphotic. I try to keep it as flat as I can and I still push forward. A flat back is the goal but I think safety wise the most critical part is trying to keep whatever extension you have off the floor and not letting it get worse throughout the movement. Haven't injured my back since I first started SS a while ago (other than a single day small tweak a week ago). If I started at 70% flat back months ago, I am probably at 90% flat now. It's getting better and better but obviously I still have a ways to go. 2 weeks ago I pulled 425lb. I can't imagine how much less strong I would be if I just waited till my back extension was perfect.

Have you tried to do a set of RDL's before your deadlifts? The RDL's made a world of a difference for me. They stretch you out like nothing else. You go down with the weight till you can no longer hold your back in extension. I would do a set with the bar and then a set with 135lb and a 3 rep set at 185lb. Eventually I stood on a step so I can go down farther than the ground. This was the only way I could even get to reaching a deadlift without having a huge arch in my back. Nowadays I just do a set of rdl's with the bar and thats usually good enough.

The other thing I do is i DL in socks. It brings you an inch closer to the bar, which helps the short armed fellows like us. I saw an SSC and the other thing he changed for me was he had me narrow my stance to where my heals are probably 6 inches away from each other. Then turn my toes out alot. At first it felt funny doing it this way, but I got used to it. It seems counter intuitive to narrow your stance, but what this "froggy" stance does is actually allow me to bend my knees alot more (since they are at an angle to the bar), then just a wider regular stance. Try it out?

I can't imagine what doing lightweight DL's are doing. But if your happy with the progress, obviously don't change a thing! I might just be missing a big part of the equation since I don't know your scenario.

Our DL's might never be our strongest suit because of our short arms, but on the other hand we will always have bigger looking guns compared to our relative strength haha.

[ChasingCurls69]

A significant portion of people trying to do the program skip the chins for whatever reason, which is why it stood out to me.