Can deadlift be helped with volume?

[sbhikes]

Old lady (nearly 49), 5'3" about 135lbs or so. Been lifting for a year and 4 months. I can squat 150 x 3. I can deadlift 170 x 2. I've been doing a Texas Method schedule of Monday, Friday, Wednesday (so that there are 4 or 5 days rest in between) for squats and presses and once a week for deadlifts.

I'm able to make extremely slow progress microloading and adding reps until I can get all 5 in one set (I will usually add a second set if I can't get all 5). Then I add a little bit more weight and spend a couple weeks or a month working up my intensity day from 2 reps to 5. I feel like the volume day is helpful. Often I can add weight to my volume day but not my intensity day, so I'll do that if I get stuck on intensity day. Also, volume day really reinforces for me that my strength is real, because once a weight I struggled at makes it to volume day, it feels like a huge victory.

But there is never any volume day for deadlifts.

Can deadlifting at my max for 2 reps be enough to stimulate progress? I have tried to add another set and often cannot. Have you seen any women benefit from adding volume deadlifts at a relatively light weight? I'm thinking that if I deadlifted 170 today, that a volume day could be 140, which was the last warm-up set I did. Not sure how many sets, maybe 2 or 3? Something like that. What do you think? Or do you have any suggestions?

[Mac Ward]

PM sent.

[Tom Campitelli]

PM sent.

That's no fair, Mac.

You can compare Mac's PM to my answer. I don't think pulling 2 reps every 10 days is going to be enough for you. Deadlifts aren't really an intensity day lift, although many people do them on intensity day. For men, pulling a set of 5 once a week or so provides sufficient volume to drive progress. It does the same for women, although at some point, women may need to go to triples across. The other option is as you mentioned, putting in a lighter volume day. Try pulling two sets of five on volume day for something manageable. Then on intensity day, do a heavy triple. Given your extended schedule, this should be fine.

[Mac Ward]

I basically told her to pull heavy every week, drop 10% and do sets of 5, AMRAP, or 3x3 or 2x3...make jumps for 4 weeks, then reset 2 weeks worth and start again...

[sbhikes]

Yes, I got the PMs. I'm going to try and see what I can do. I do my deadlifts on a separate day from squats, so perhaps the double or triple or whatever I can manage plus some volume after will work. Progress is really super slow for me, but it's progress. I feel so much better about my body and what I can do that I just want to keep going even if it takes me another year or two to be able to deadlift 200lbs.

[hollismb]

For what it's worth, my wife has been getting good results by adding 3 sets of 5 on Friday at 85% (or a little less) of Monday's intensity for a single set of 5. We added this in for a couple reasons, right after a slight reset for some form issues. I pulled the sets/reps/percentage from a suggestion Rip had made in this old thread.

Also for what it's worth, I tried this myself one week, and it sucked. But, I am not a woman.