Loss of Back Position and Rounding in the DL

I have been getting stronger and to just keep on getting stronger is half the answer at least for sure.

It’s just that my max is where it’s at because of form break down instead of not being strong enough to move the weight at least in my lower body.

For sumo the sticking point is off the floor and the 240 actually was going quite fast when it broke the floor so going off bar speed there was like a little more left in the tank if form didn’t break down.

Rounding out on the deadlift made a second hard abrupt sticking point for the sumo near lockout like hitting a wall which is why it ended up being a max effort. It doesn’t have to be like that I think

So like form breakdown is preventing me from maximally expressing my sumo powers so that’s why I think it’s worth working on. I can still get stronger while working on my weaknesses so the end result is better.

I should have given my opinion on this earlier. Yes, you can definitely do too much for your lower back and either injury yourself or just have your back feeling sore and cramped up for an extended period of time. It’s better to start with moderate volume and increase it, and overall if you are starting a hypertrophy block I would recommend starting with less sets and adding a set here and there for the first couple weeks. Remember what Mike Israetel says about MRV, you have a whole body total MRV but also individual MRV for each muscle group. I would not expect to do a ton of lower back-focused work if you are already doing plenty of squatting and deadlifting.

On a tangent now but IMO this statement isn’t quite accurate.

Might be true for novice, inexperienced or lifters who just don’t give a rats about technique.

Sure at higher percentages of 1RM its harder to maintain tightness/position but it doesn’t mean we just roll over and die. Many lifters from intermediates all the way through to world record holders have little to no form break down at near max or even maximally weights. Even missed or failed lifts can exhibit no form breakdown unless we count not being strong enough to get through the sticking point. It’s not unrealistic or unreasonable to train towards this.

While there are some lifters at high and to some degree intermediate levels that maintain form even through a miss, this doesn’t seem to be the norm. Sure, Mike Tuchscherer and a few others that are well known for their near flawless technicality are like this and yet others like Lamar Gant are totally the opposite. There is a spectrum.

Now I’m certainly not saying throw form and technique to the wayside. This is something that I think needs practice during every phase of training.

I’m just saying to the OP that I wouldn’t go crazy with highly specialized movements and drastically change his program that has been giving him results. Maybe just switch a couple supplementary and/or assistance exercises out for the alternatives offered.

While I’m here already typing I’ll throw in a couple observations and potential fixes. I watched the vid at .25 speed and noticed the upper maybe mid back rounding started before the bar even left the ground. The back did this instinctively to give the hips and legs better leverage since either they weren’t strong enough to bare all the brunt at the bottom or OP was rushed with excitement, got jittery, and then got impatient with setup. I noticed the rushed setup in the 2nd vid.

So I’m thinking wide stance front, zercher, or SSB squats to a box and/or from pins could help nail keeping the back straight at the same time the inertia of the bar is broken since these lifts can be very unforgiving in the sense that they’ll make you fail the lift if you round much. They’ll also work the lower body and upper back hard.

To practice solid setup while simultaneously using max force, I like speed deads at 60 or so percent where you can focus on keeping the back straight while using a lot of force with enough training volume to practice the movement. If it’s earlier in the cycle I might even go with just fifty percent and do 15-20 singles w/ 30-60 seconds of rest between sets depending on conditioning level. Be sure to accelerate as hard as you can through the whole movement while maintaining solid form as you can.

P.S. I didn’t see this in the second vid, but in the first one for just a small split second soon after the bar is off the ground I see the hips shoot up faster than the shoulders and the back pitches forward. Again, it might be the body shifting the load from the legs onto the back.

You realize his deadlift is plateaued, right? Why would you be opposed to a hypertrophy phase?

I count the bar going in the wrong direction as poor form :stuck_out_tongue:

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My bad for not being clearer. Not a passive aggressive ‘my bad’, but a real one.

Periodization is so much of a given for me that I can forget to mention it. I think hypertrophy phase is great. That’s where I spent the most time in when I trained PLj and I also included a heavy dose of conditioning and GPP early in my hypertrophy phase as I slowly ratcheted up volume on muscle building work so I would have the capacity to train at the volume needed to spur growth.

So I’m not at all against a hypertrophy phase.