QUEST FOR A BIG DEADLIFT

Later that year my first child was born and due to the combination of work schedules and caring for the baby, I stopped training completely for 6 months. My Quest for a Big Deadlift was put on hold. I trained at home from April 1998 until October of that year when I started having elbow problems. That slowed my training and I ended up having surgery on it in February 1999. I started training again In April and did my first deadlift contest in May 1999. I won the 308 lb. Open class with a big deadlift of 661 pounds. For a variety of reasons my training wasn’t consistent for much of that year and so I did my first full meet in March 2000 and deadlifted 672. Although it was a PR, I expected to do at least 700 and I knew that my inconsistent training was the culprit.

Again my training took a back seat to the rest of my life and I did not squat more than once or twice for the entire rest of the year. I benched and deadlifted occasionally but not consistently. In January of 2001 I trained for about 4 weeks for a local contest and deadlifted 650 and missed 705. I decided then and there that I would compete in April and break that 700 pound barrier.

I set up my first 8 week lifting cycle (I had never tried cycling my weights up and decreasing my reps for more than a couple weeks before). After about 2 weeks I realized that squatting and deadlifting in the same week wasn’t going to work. My lower back was killing me all the time and my strength wasn’t improving. I knew that would hamper my goals of attaining a big deadlift. I decided to squat, wait 5 days, deadlift, wait 5 days, squat, etc. I adjusted the weights accordingly since I would have less total workouts with this extended rest time.

In another week or two I noticed that my deadlifts were good for the first rep but the following reps were done in poor form. By now I knew I only had about 3 big deadlift workouts left and this program wasn’t working. I fell back to my usual program of heavy singles. I did one more workout with just a belt, warming up and doing a heavy single. The next two workouts were with my 5 year old Inzer Champion suit and a belt. Same thing, work up to a heavy single or two. I felt confident. I had done an easy single with 675 in my final workout. That was on a Wednesday night, 11 days before the contest. I have found that 10-12 days rest before a contest is best for me as far as the deadlift is concerned.

I should also mention that I tend to eat more as a contest nears. I always have been a big eater, but I pick it up a little before a contest. I also made sure to get some quality sleep to help with recovery. A few days before this contest I weighed 322 but on the morning of the contest I weighed in at 317. It was the USAPL Washington state championships. I squatted 611, benched 485 and had a big deadlift of 710. I had finally done it! And yet I wasn’t satisfied. I had hoped for more.

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Again I slacked off on my training for a few months. I didn’t deadlift at all until July. I started back slowly, with 225 for reps, then 315 the following week. My brother Sam and I had decided to start training seriously again and see if we could reach the potential for a big deadlift that we thought we had. Sam has longer than average arms for his height which help him stay in good position even at the start of the lift. He has a long lean torso and legs so I wouldn’t say he was born to deadlift, but his long arms do help. I have shorter arms relative to my height and a larger waist so I always round my back at the start of the lift. My form isn’t that great, but I try to make up for it with explosive strength.

I was going to do a strongman contest in August and a Bench/Deadlift contest in September. I trained the deadlift a little differently for the strongman contest. I would work up to a heavy single with just a belt, and then drop the weight to 425-455 and do ten reps. These were not regular reps, however. I would do one rep, let go of the bar and stand up, and then go down and do another rep. Basically I was doing a rep without weight in between reps with weight. This ensured that each rep was a true deadlift, as well as helping condition me for the grueling tire flip. A side note on the effectiveness of that tactic for flipping tires. It didn’t help. You absolutely have to practice the event. It is nothing like a big deadlift.

Now during this same time, Sam was training differently. I read somewhere that Garry Frank likes to do singles with short rest periods for his deadlifts. So we set up a program similar to that. For a few weeks Sam would do 6 singles with 30-45 seconds in between sets. The 3rd to last workout consisted of 4 singles with 2 minutes between sets. The next week was the same except he wore his Inzer Champion suit. The last workout was 2 singles with 5 minutes between them. He did this in my basement and I witnessed him do big deadlift of 625 easily. Both of us usually get 50-60 pounds more at a contest than we do in our last workout due to the 10-12 day rest. So I fully expected him to set the APA Junior world record with a 675 or more. He was weighing 225 and was 23 years old.

Back to my training. I took my normal time off before the strongman contest, finished 4th, and took a couple weeks off after it. That left me time for 2 deadlift workouts before my September contest. I did the same schedule for the last two weeks as Sam did, but I could tell I still wasn’t recovered from the strongman contest. It really wore me out! My final workout I deadlifted 685 in pretty rough form. I was not pleased with that, but I learned my lesson. If I wanted to do well, I needed more time between contests.

The contest was on September 15, 2001 so Sam, who was in the Army and restricted to the base after the terrorist strikes on September 11th, was not able to attend. I was having trouble getting motivated to lift with all that was going on, and had not eaten much during the week, but I decided to lift anyway. I opened with 675 and it was easy. I jumped to 715 and lifted that faster than the 675. For my third attempt I called for big deadlift of 735. I got it half-way up my thighs, but couldn’t lock it out.

As you can see, My deadlift improved from 550 to 715 or so in 4 years despite my lack of consistent training of the lift. Or maybe because of it? I think that it is a little bit of both. I have little doubt that if I trained consistently with the goal of getting stronger and never took more than a month off, I would be much stronger than I am now. But on the other hand, I have gotten something out of the extended rests. When I have trained hard and heavy for too long, my strength plateaus and sometimes declines. A rest of three or four weeks can refresh the body and mind. Each time I come back, I regain and then surpass my previous records in a couple of months or less. I was training 4 to 6 times a week and almost never missing workouts when I was stuck at 545-550 in the deadlift. It wasn’t until I took extended rest breaks and trained with increasingly heavy singles that my deadlift improved. I honestly thought that I would never deadlift 600.

I know that 4 years seems like a long time, but seldom do big gains like 170 pounds on a lift happen in a short time as some people would have you believe. The reality is that it is unlikely if not impossible for someone to follow a program for 4 or 5 years with no interruptions due to injuries, family concerns or just everyday life. My program allows for gains towards a big deadlift while still living an otherwise normal life.

I have set a goal to deadlift 800 pounds in 2002. I will see how close I can get at some contest in the spring and keep at it until I reach my goal. Although it is a pretty good jump from my best of 715, I believe I can do it by sticking to my program.

I will warm up and do a couple singles on the deadlift, followed by some heavy shrugs and heavy ab work. I also might have access to a reverse-hyper machine and I will use that if I can. After each contest I will rest for 3 weeks instead of 1 and then get back to it. I think it will work, and if you decide to try it, I hope it works for you as well.