Why strain your back pulling heavy deadlifts?

Spending time mastering the back pulling basic movements, such as deadlifts, will get you on your way to massive increases in both areas. I have recently refocused my attention on power training and then used powerlifting contests to measure my progress. I competed RAW, which means using only a belt and knee and wrist wraps at the most. That way it is easy to tell if I am getting stronger, as opposed to simply learning to use my power lifting equipment better.

Since returning to power training in August 2006 my body weight has gone up about 20 pounds and my lifts have all increased dramatically. When I began this training, my best competition RAW deadlift was 725. I did a push/ pull competition in September 2006 where I bench pressed 490 pounds and pulled a new personal best of 755! That was after only 6 weeks of my new power training system. I weighed in at 345 muscular pounds and left the contest with the confidence that my new training was working better than I had imagined.

I continued training hard and competed RAW in a full power lifting contest on April 7, 2007. I weighed in at 362, so I had gained 17 more lean pounds, but more importantly I was much stronger. I lifted 650 pounds in the squat with only a belt and no knee wraps. I bench pressed a personal best of 535 pounds and dead lifted a personal best of 785 pounds for a 1,970 pound total. I made all 9 attempts and the best thing about it is that I am still getting stronger. Who knows how much stronger I can get? Now, I know all you future big muscle guys want to get your back pulling those big weights right away, but first let me tell you how I trained my back to be able to handle those weights.

I picked Wednesday evening for my Squat and Deadlift workouts. I did not do both exercises in one day, but instead I would Squat one week and Deadlift the next. The reason that I would do this is that I have found that my lower back cannot take more than one heavy exercise per week or it hurts constantly and my performance suffers. You might think that I wouldn’t be able to get stronger by only Dead lifting once every other week, but I believe that this is the number one reason that my lifts have increased so much this past eight months.

I begin each Deadlift workout by doing regular deadlifts. I warm up with 255 for 5 reps, then 455 for 2 reps. A typical progression would be 545 for a single repetition and then one or two more sets at a higher weight. These last sets are usually for only one rep and the weight varies depending upon how strong I am that day. I follow that exercise with barbell shrugs for sets of 10 reps, and I do this in an explosive manner rather than slow and smooth. I always do an exercise for my abdominal muscles and if time permits, I do some calf raises, leg extensions, and leg curls to round things out.

By making sure I get my back pulling heavy dead lifts every other week I make sure that my strength keeps going up, and I keep getting bigger muscles, just the way I always wanted.

Find more back pulling workouts here.