What will help your Deathlift?

Most lifts improve through the same methods. Build muscle, train weak points, eat more food. There’s no real short cut on any of them. Most people don’t have a ton of trouble building their squats or presses up, but many find that the deadlift is that one movement that seems to stagnate the longest. So let’s help you smash through some plateaus and build a sick pull.

The thing that makes the deathlift (as I like to call it) tough is that you have to be smart with how you get extra volume in. 10 rep maxes on squats and benches will put on slabs of muscle and help build those lifts. Squatting every day is a popular program that works wonders for squats, especially for people with intermediate level squats. The deadlift is different though. You can’t really deadlift everyday heavy enough to build it and stay injury free, and I promise you don’t want to do 10 rep maxes. So here’s some great accessories to help make the most out of your deadlift days.

First you need to find your weak spot in your pull. Typically there are 2 spots where people are bad: Off the floor or at lockout. If you are rough off the floor or if you get stuck at the knee there are a few exercises that have served me well in the past. Deficit pulls, hamstring work, and pauses just below the knee all have a ton of carryover to your issue. When doing deficit pulls I would advise no more than a 3” deficit and not working heavy doubles or singles. Realize we are treating this movement as an accessory to your deadlift training. We want to build the erectors not tear them off of your spine. Leg curls, Glute Ham Raises, and even lunges will do a lot to help with issues off the floor due to lack of hamstring activation and strength. Paused deadlifts actually fix darn near everything. If your hammies are weak they stay under tension longer. If your erectors are week they are put in a position where they have to work their tail off. The only thing that doesn't get hit really hard is the upper back, which brings us to the next section.

The second part people struggle with on the deadlift is lock out. Now, barring an actually technical issue like not relaxing your shoulders at the finish, this difficulty comes from your upper back being a little too weak. My personal favorite exercises for this issue are Snatch grip deadlifts, front squats, rows of all kinds, and my favorite (more for IG posts than anything) Zercher Squats. So let’s run down this list. Snatch grip deads force your upper and middle back to stay tighter since your back has to stay super set into place throughout the pull to hold on to the bar. Front squats are great too because if you don’t want to dump the weight you have to stay upright once again having to keep your upper back tight. Tighter upper back for longer equals more time under tension and more hypertrophy. Rows are an easy choice. They develop the mid and upper back. My favorite variation of these are chest supported rows either with dumbbells or on the plate loaded thingy. Usually I will do them after my deadlifts so it’s nice to not have to stabilize any more. Lastly the infamous Zercher Squat! If you compete in Strongman I would definitely include these as it puts you into a really bad body position then demands you figure out how to stay tight and lift which is basically the whole sport of Strongman. These have all the benefits of front squats since the weight is fighting to pull you forward out of position but to a greater degree than front squats. Also when you post a video doing these you will get either a ton of love, a ton of hate, and likely both, so that’s fun! Disclaimer: be sure to have either an axle bar to do these with, some fat grips, or the pussy pad, gym maxi, or whatever else you call that foam thing you put on the squat bar to keep your fragile traps from hurting.

A final caveat would be that if you are only deadlifting one time per week to a heavy triple, double, or single the main issue is going to be volume. Put your big girl panties on and do some sets with higher reps. 5x5’s work great and 3x6-10 work well too. Start with more reps and creep down as you approach your competition. I know they hurt and are hard but if you looked at the amount of lbs moved per week on your presses or squats I bet you would see that you definitely get more volume in on your squats and you may even be getting close on benching. I’m not saying you need to deadlift every other day but if your squat volume is three times more than your deadlift volume then I bet I have a good guess as to why your squat is going up but your deadlift is stagnant. As a buddy of mine would say: There’s no room for BitchAssNess.

Talk soon,

Dan is a top 10 ranked amateur

strongman competitor in the 242lb and 275lb classes and a pro powerlifter in the RPS 275lb class. He holds instructor level ranks in Taekwondo, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He has been training people for strength and martial arts since 2004.

You can follow Dan on Instagram @RoninStr and @RoninStrApparel
For training and nutrition advice and tips email roninstr@gmail.com