Deadlift Getting Worse

Sounds like you might be doing too much volume. Wendler say to just do your 5/3/1 sets and some ab work if you are doing BBB. Adding two heavy posterior chain exercises sounds like too much for 99% of people. Also, if your technique sucks it will only get worse by doing sets of 10, especially with such light weights that you can easily get away with even worse technique. Personally, I don’t go over 5 reps on the competition lifts and only do high reps on variation and assistance work. Rep maxes are a bad idea for someone with unstable technique.

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My current training max is about 290. My last 1+ set I only got 275 for 3

Well I usually only choose one or the other on dead days. I usually only follow those up with abs.

Reset your training max to 255. (85% of your estimated max).

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Will do, thanks.

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Still, that’s a lot of volume for your lower back. You would be better off doing gm/rdl after squatting and more squatting or a squat variation on deadlift days.

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I have had times when my deadlift went backwards, and times when I wanted to focus on driving it up. For me, when it has gone backwards I was just too focused on other lifts, and generally not doing enough to maintain my grip strength. In any case, what has been effective for me when I wanted to drive my deadlift up was to plan basically all of my workouts around it. That meant, for me, including power cleans before deadlift and squat (never for high reps, always focusing on power), dumbbell rows after bench or press (including sometimes working on increasing weight at lower reps until I was using the heaviest dumbbell in the gym, and other times working on high rep kroc rows), heavy farmers walks (I think I did those mostly, but not exclusively, after squatting), hanging leg raises after deadlifts, and sometimes glute-ham raises, weighted sit-ups, grip work, or the like. I did not tend to find that BBB for the deadlift would help much for increasing my deadlift, but those other lifts drove my deadlift up fairly quickly (of course, “fairly quickly” still means working on it for 6 months to a year). Of course, that might just be particular to what was for me my weak link at that time, but the general strategy of planning your assistance work on all days with an eye to strengthening your deadlift may be useful to you.

Deadlift is the one lift where often “less is more”.

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So… This is the fix you need. Your TM is too high. Here’s how we fix it:

275 x 3 x .0333 + 275 = 302* estimated 1RM (300 - always round down)

300 x .8 = 240 (80% TM)
300 x .85 = 255 (85% TM)
300 x .9 = 270 (90% TM)

If you goal is a widowmaker set (20 reps) @75% - then I recommend using an 80% TM. That means your week 3 (5/3/1 week) widowmaker set (for 20 reps) would be 180 pounds.

I know it seems low, but please, trust the program - in the long run you’ll be stronger if you do the work.

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Pretty much what everyone has said already, definitely lower your TM. My deadlift did the exact same thing, didn’t progress from 365 in 8 months. I lowered my TM more than I would care to admit, and I got a 20 pound pr in 3 months. This stuff works man!

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I don’t make widows, I make babies. 1-3 at a time.

I think I got the thread titles confused with another one I replied to. I think it still applies though, less the “goal is a widowmaker” stuff.

to save for confusion, reset your TM to 80% or 85% of your estimated 1RM. I suggest 80% (240), but 85% (255) is fine too if you can hit that number for 5 truly solid/fast reps.

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