Deadlift vs Squat progress

[mrs1986]

Hi!

I'm doing the linear progression now, the last time I stopped doing that because as I was doing diet to lower my body weigth I couldn't keep up with the progress, my knee started to hurt so I took a time off...

Now I started again, I'm eating at maintenance more or less (I'm 6.1 and 249 pounds), the program is feeling a lot better now, I have gone up in the weights and still making progress and now I have some questions to do...

I'm starting the fourth week of the program, so I should introduce the power cleans now and do less deadlift with a twice or once a week rate.

Rigth now I'm at 92.5kg squat and 110kg deadlift, the difference in both is not that great, and if I stop doing them everyday like I was my squat is going to progress more than the deadlift??

What I would like to know is, should I keep on deadlifting and introduce the power clean later? Or I should add more weigth to the deadlift each workout?? I was adding 5kg per workout.

Thanks a lot for any help!

[justinnipper]

The Starting Strength book and practical programming both mention you can do deadlifts for a few weeks and move on after initial gains have been made and the freshness has worn off. It also mentions ideally establishing the deadlift far ahead of the squat.

How do you feel? Can you keep doing deadlifts with good form and feel like you’re recovering well with nutrition and sleep? Keep going for a bit.

I’m no expert by any means, and I’m sure others have more insight. But I’m in a similar boat. I’m still able to go up 10lbs per session on my deadlift and I feel great. I’m a few weeks into the NLP. I’ll probably carry on for a few more weeks before I alternate the PC in.

Hope this helps till someone else can chime in with better information.

[Satch12879]

OP, how old are you?

[Andrew Jackson]

Hi!

I'm doing the linear progression now, the last time I stopped doing that because as I was doing diet to lower my body weigth I couldn't keep up with the progress, my knee started to hurt so I took a time off...

Now I started again, I'm eating at maintenance more or less (I'm 6.1 and 249 pounds), the program is feeling a lot better now, I have gone up in the weights and still making progress and now I have some questions to do...

I'm starting the fourth week of the program, so I should introduce the power cleans now and do less deadlift with a twice or once a week rate.

Rigth now I'm at 92.5kg squat and 110kg deadlift, the difference in both is not that great, and if I stop doing them everyday like I was my squat is going to progress more than the deadlift??

What I would like to know is, should I keep on deadlifting and introduce the power clean later? Or I should add more weigth to the deadlift each workout?? I was adding 5kg per workout.

Thanks a lot for any help!

You don't need to add power cleans just because it's the fourth week. Keep adding weight to the deadlift until that stops working. You'll probably want to reduce to 2kg jumps at this point.

[Kostas Theodorakis]

I found the workouts very taxing with the deadlift.
So now I'm alternating deads with rows+chins.
But I'm almost 40.

[mrs1986]

I'm 32, I'm asking because that's what I read in the book, the deadlift should be rigth ahead of the squat, it is, but not by much... Anyway, yesterday training wasn't good and my form broke a little in the squats, that caused me some back pain, so I may keep the weigth for the squat for this week and see how it goes...

About the power cleans, I tried them with the empty bar, and then I should do them from standing cause there is no light weigth with the correct diameter.

Question outside of the topic, do you guys think that instead of squats, the power cleans could make my back tigth ans sore??

[Nockian]

Phase 1 of NLP (DL every session) moves to Phase 2 (Alternating DL/PC) once DL increases 50-70lbs and Squat increases 40-50lbs from initial numbers. That should be a few weeks at most if the increases are 15lbs per week. Phase 2 ends when you can't recover sufficiently to increase, then DL alternates with chins and PCs.

That's as I read it at least. It's in the programme guide section on this site.

[mrs1986]

Phase 1 of NLP (DL every session) moves to Phase 2 (Alternating DL/PC) once DL increases 50-70lbs and Squat increases 40-50lbs from initial numbers. That should be a few weeks at most if the increases are 15lbs per week. Phase 2 ends when you can't recover sufficiently to increase, then DL alternates with chins and PCs.

That's as I read it at least. It's in the programme guide section on this site.

Thanks, that's what I was planning on doing, but the 45 pounds difference between squat and deadlift made me wonder if that was to low and I needed to load more weigth on the deadlift and not stopping doing them everyday...

I will keep it like it was intended, and will do my best to keep progressing.

Thanks!

[Nockian]

Thanks, that's what I was planning on doing, but the 45 pounds difference between squat and deadlift made me wonder if that was to low and I needed to load more weigth on the deadlift and not stopping doing them everyday...

I will keep it like it was intended, and will do my best to keep progressing.

Thanks!

Introduce PC as soon as those increases on phase 1 are reached. Don't be concerned about numbers on individual lifts as long as they are practised with good form. Every lift helps every other lift, but what we are trying to achieve is a general strength increase through the mechanism of Stress, recovery, adaption cycles. So, it only really matters that there is sufficient stress overall from the culmination of lifts to cause the adaption to occur. Say you only did dead lifts, then you would likely tire those muscles before enough overall stress happened, so the load is spread over various lifts . - this is my lay mans understanding of these things.

[Kostas Theodorakis]

The power clean is a very technical lift though. Personally I find that you can benefit more from doing something else instead, especially if you are not a young athlete.
I know the program includes it, but I prefer to replace it with rows+chins.
That of course is just a personal view and I'm not a coach or an expert.