There’s not much more primal than picking up a heavy deadlift from the floor. It’s a straight up test of brute strength and often humbles quite a few ‘strong’ people.
So let’s talk about what strong is anyway when it comes to the deadlift. It’s hard to blanket approach what is strong since people can be strong for the amount of time they’ve been training or their size or a bunch of other factors but we’ve come up with some levels to give a solid idea.
Sure there’s some big exceptions to this with beasts out there like Stefanie Cohen deadlifting 247kg while weighing around 50kg. If watching this as a guy doesn’t make you want to get stronger than you might be a lost cause :P.
If you’ve not quite made that first level yet or you want to push yourself up to the beast status than you might need to look at how you’re approaching your training for the deadlift. Louie Simmons says the deadlift is like a hot girl, if you want their interest you have to flirt with their friends instead.
So rather than spending all your time training just the deadlift we’ve given you our top 5 movements to help you build your deadlift so you can hit PR’s and build yourself into a pulling beast.
Stiff Leg Deadlift
These things are like to me like what happens to Popeye when he eats his spinach. Feeling weak smash a few weeks of stiff legs and boom back to full strength. They help build massive glute and hammy strength while challenging the trunk to stay solid.
Stiff leg deads are also handy in the amount of variability you can allow on them helping you emphasise different parts of the lift. Need extra grip strength or isometric strength in the back to keep tight, do them for higher reps without touching the floor. Can’t break the floor with your deads work stiff legs for lower reps from the floor, resetting the bar every rep.
Sumo Deadlift
Sumo deads are one of those things that when done well a hugely valuable but most people do them terribly. The biggest problem being most people (myself included) try to sumo the same way they do normal deads since it lets them lift heavier.
The problem there is you keep hiding the weakness in your glutes that you build by training the sumo. The intention should be to keep the hips low and drive outward into the floor like you’re trying to force your way into the splits. If you do this well you will no doubt be feeling your glutes the next day.
Vary up your reps on the sumo from sets of 3 up to sets of 10-12 can all work well at the right time.
Deficit Deadlift
As if it wasn’t bad enough having to reach all the way down to the bar let alone going even lower to reach it. Deficit deads are an awesome movement to help teach you to push the floor away before driving the hips into the bar.
These can be awesome if you find it hard to break the bar off the floor and its best to reset each rep and keep sets to less than 5 reps.
Glute Ham Raises
GHR’s and their variations have been a staple of my program for many years. I used to feel my hamstring tendons pulling on the bone once the weight got anything over 160kg. Then after starting using GHR’s in my training I went on to deadlift 205 a few months later with no pain in the tendons at all.
Squats and Lunges
Now there’s no list of ways to help build the deadlift without making mention of building the squat as well. For most people you will get significant carryover by training both lifts. Likewise, lunges are a man’s (or woman’s) best friend when it comes to building lower body size and strength for all lifts! In my last powerlifting comp I dedicated majority of my ‘heavy’ training to the squat and only used the deadlift variations above along with accessory work. Sure thing at the meet I hit a 20kg PB from before the prep!
Change up your variations and set/rep schemes from time to time to ensure you providing your body with a new stimulus to keep adapting to.
Get Lifting
There you have it 5 lifts to help build up a massive deadlift and get chasing Stefi Cohen… Ok let’s be real not many people are going to catch her but you can try!
If you’re after some more tips on deadlifting check out this article here.
What’s your favourite deadlift builder?
Did we miss one off the list?