ME Deadlift Went Down :(

[TheBlade]

My previous PR was 465. I hit it perhaps two months ago.

Today I did:
135X5
225X3
315X1
405X1
465 Failed
455 Failed

Fuck. I was too fatigued to do more so just finished with zerchers and calf shit

I failed in the middle. Like I lifted it up to right below my knees and couldn’t pull it back. For the record last time I did rack pulls it was 405 for 4 reps

I’m thinking I went down for possibly a few reasons:

1. I fucked last night. So
   a) I only got 2 hours of sleep so I was pretty tired. I took Power Drive and Spike (yeay for Biotest whoring) but I was still not fully there (btw I’m so tempted to one day on ME go to the bathroom and snort some blow before doing my set, that would good form, but stupid for many reasons, and I quit that shit)
   b) I busted a nut 3 times and I bet there is an acute testosterone lowering effect

2. I went on a mountaineering expedition a few weeks ago and lost strength in general. When I got back my squat was down 10 lbs and bench even 20. But lately my bench is back at PR levels

Any thoughts?

But more importantly, my DE day is Sunday. Last time I did speed reps of box squats then 2 sets of rack pulls then 2 of lunges, 1 good morning, and breather squats and leg curls. Should I change it up? Seems like my lower back is limiting, but perhaps it is my hip extensors or whatever and I exhaust my lower back as I do the first half of the motion, so perhaps speed rep sumo deads would help?

Any tips would be highly appreciated!

[teencraft]

Probably lack of sleep. If I don’t get 8 hours of sleep every night, I can feel the lack of strength, sometimes up to 20-30% depending on how much sleep I missed.

[jumper]

How long has it been since you pulled for max effort? When did you do the rack pulls? What is your training template? What are your other ME variations? Are you doing speed work? What are you training for?

[jarvis]

There are a couple of things that struck me about your post.

Firstly, your weight progression seems pretty strange.

If you were looking to hit 465, starting with 135 for your warm up sets is too low.

You should be looking to hit 185-190lbs for a couple of sets of 4-5 as a decent warm up weight.

Later on, you took a massive 60lbs jump from 405lbs to 465lbs, generally I feel stronger if I keep with the rule of performing at least 4 lifts at above 85% of 1 RM.

Maybe you could have put up that 465lbs if you’d have gone for:

395lbs
420lbs
445lbs
465lbs

The second thing I noticed is that 405lbs x 4 on the rack pull is weak in comparison to the 465lbs you were shooting for on the Dead. What is your 1RM on the rack pulls and what height are you pulling from?

You must have some serious acceleration on your Deads to be able to lockout that much more than what you rack pull.

Of course the fact that you were out fucking the night before and got minimal sleep is going to have had something to do with your results too.

[jumper]

“But more importantly, my DE day is Sunday. Last time I did speed reps of box squats then 2 sets of rack pulls then 2 of lunges, 1 good morning, and breather squats and leg curls.”

I think this is your problem. You are doing rack pulls and good mornings right before your ME dead session. There is no need to rack pulls three days before ME deads. You are probably only gonna hurt your attempts. Check out Eric Cressey’s article on Frequent Pulling for faster progress at Elitefts and give that template a try.

[ExNole]

[quote]jarvis wrote:
There are a couple of things that struck me about your post.

Firstly, your weight progression seems pretty strange.

If you were looking to hit 465, starting with 135 for your warm up sets is too low.

You should be looking to hit 185-190lbs for a couple of sets of 4-5 as a decent warm up weight.

Later on, you took a massive 60lbs jump from 405lbs to 465lbs, generally I feel stronger if I keep with the rule of performing at least 4 lifts at above 85% of 1 RM.

Maybe you could have put up that 465lbs if you’d have gone for:

395lbs
420lbs
445lbs
465lbs

The second thing I noticed is that 405lbs x 4 on the rack pull is weak in comparison to the 465lbs you were shooting for on the Dead. What is your 1RM on the rack pulls and what height are you pulling from?

You must have some serious acceleration on your Deads to be able to lockout that much more than what you rack pull.

Of course the fact that you were out fucking the night before and got minimal sleep is going to have had something to do with your results too.

[/quote]

First off, 135 is a whole lot easier to put on the bar than 190. I make my jumps using 45s, up to the last one before my attempt. Why would you mess around with 2.5s on warmup sets?

Second, 445 is ~95% of 465. Why would you have someone pull a near max lift before trying to hit a PR? Last time I pulled a max I made a 60lb jump.

The time before that it was 95lb.

For a 465 pull I’d do this:

135x5
225x5
315x1-3
405x1
465x1.

[jumper]

Just for my info, why are you attempting 465, if your previous record is 465. Seems like confidence may be a factor. You should be trying to break records on ME day, not tie them. Usually, pulling too heavy, too often is the problem. Don’t be that guy in the warmup room trying his opener just to see if he can get it, seems like you may be doubting yourself a little to me.

Try only pulling once every 4 weeks for ME and alternating speed deads and rack pulls for 3 sets of 3-5 reps as assistance movements on the other ME days. May not work as well for you, but worked wonders for me.

[jumper]

[quote]ExNole wrote:
jarvis wrote:
There are a couple of things that struck me about your post.

Firstly, your weight progression seems pretty strange.

If you were looking to hit 465, starting with 135 for your warm up sets is too low.

You should be looking to hit 185-190lbs for a couple of sets of 4-5 as a decent warm up weight.

Later on, you took a massive 60lbs jump from 405lbs to 465lbs, generally I feel stronger if I keep with the rule of performing at least 4 lifts at above 85% of 1 RM.

Maybe you could have put up that 465lbs if you’d have gone for:

395lbs
420lbs
445lbs
465lbs

The second thing I noticed is that 405lbs x 4 on the rack pull is weak in comparison to the 465lbs you were shooting for on the Dead. What is your 1RM on the rack pulls and what height are you pulling from?

You must have some serious acceleration on your Deads to be able to lockout that much more than what you rack pull.

Of course the fact that you were out fucking the night before and got minimal sleep is going to have had something to do with your results too.

First off, 135 is a whole lot easier to put on the bar than 190. I make my jumps using 45s, up to the last one before my attempt. Why would you mess around with 2.5s on warmup sets?

Second, 445 is ~95% of 465. Why would you have someone pull a near max lift before trying to hit a PR? Last time I pulled a max I made a 60lb jump.

The time before that it was 95lb.

For a 465 pull I’d do this:

135x5
225x5
315x1-3
405x1
465x1.

[/quote]

ExNole is right, don’t make to much out of a warmup, work up to 90%, then a new max, don’t try to tie an old one. Another key point, get really pissed at the bar.

[jarvis]

[quote]ExNole wrote:

First off, 135 is a whole lot easier to put on the bar than 190. I make my jumps using 45s, up to the last one before my attempt. Why would you mess around with 2.5s on warmup sets?
[/quote]

To be honest with you, I’m not too concerned about what is easy to put on the bar. I’m willing to mess around with plates in order to get the results I need. Going up in increments with the 45s, because its easy, seems to me to be missing the point of lifting weights in the first place.

I suggested starting at 185-190. 185 is easy to get on the bar anyway, no 2.5 plates involved.

I personally find that working with weights below 40% of 1RM is useless as I’m expending more energy decelerating the bar than anything else.

Furthermore, I feel that using this lighter weight allows my CNS to adjust to an inferior load, thereby making my 1RM seem proportionately heavier. This is not something based on formulae or a particular study but rather my own experience.

[quote]ExNole wrote:

Second, 445 is ~95% of 465. Why would you have someone pull a near max lift before trying to hit a PR? Last time I pulled a max I made a 60lb jump.

The time before that it was 95lb.

For a 465 pull I’d do this:

135x5
225x5
315x1-3
405x1
465x1.

[/quote]

Again, I recommended this because it is what works for me.

If big jumps worked for me that is what I’d be recommending. Personally I get stronger by working with circa maximal weights on the way to a 1RM.

Poliquin has his lifters work up to maxes with an 80%, 85%, 90%, 95% progression as mentioned in this article:

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=07-017-training

I’ve used that same progression over the last few weeks and its worked out great for me.

If you check out this article of Jim Wendler’s at Elitefts:

http://www.glutehamraise.com/documents/max_effort_waves.htm

Most of the progressions he talks of involve at least one lift at 95%. The reason for this is that this is the way things are set out in Prilepin’s Table:

http://www.angelfire.com/pe/txpls/prilephin.html

The accepted rule, if you are following the Westside Standard Template at least, is that in ME work you perform 3 lifts at or above 90% of 1RM.

I hope this clears up for you why I said what I did.

[TheBlade]

Lots of good responses in a few hours, you guys rock

teencraft,
Damn, sex is too good to pass up, man

20-30%? That much? In the last week lack of sleep from sex didn’t hurt my oly lifts or later my shoulder day (both went up)

jumper,
Last Deadlift max was on 2/16. Rack pulls last Sunday. Routine is:
Day 1: ME Chest, RE Upper back
Day 2: Shoulders
Day 3: Arms
Day 4: ME Legs and calves
Day 5: ME Upper Back, RE Chest
Day 6: Oly Lifts, forearms, abs
Day 7: DE Legs
I mostly cycle between Squats, Deadlifts, and Stiff-legged-deadlifts. I did 3rep max on Zercher Squats before as well, though
I do 8 sets of 3 reps of speed work in the beginning of DE day, though I only started doing DE a few weeks ago. Have been doing box squats for this

Training mostly for hypertrophy, though strength is a big 2nd priority, and if I were to be exact I probably want primarily more upper body mass and lower body strength.

jarvis,
I don’t know my 1RM on rack pulls.
Also, my bad but it’s actually 415 lbs on rack pulls, I read the log on the wrong week.

As for the progression, yeah that’s something I’ve always been curious. Seems like there’s definitely debate on this and experience will be the best judge. I’ll try out the slower progressions to see how it goes next week. Also next week I guess no sex on Wednesday night, I’ll aim for Tuesday and Thursday:)

jumper,
That’s half a week of rest in between, I think every WS program has two days a week for lower body work, so I’m a bit skeptical that my lower back would be fatigued (I mean, wouldn’t that hurt my old max, too?). I’ll check out the article when I get the chance though.

As for beating it, yeah I guess I wasn’t too confident in being able to go above because of thetwo factors I mentioned.
You don’t do ME every week? Definitely an unorthodox approach to WS. Why such rare ME work?

and yeah I get pissed at the bar. What I do before my ME set psyches me up a lot, I growl at the bar and shit. My lifting partner says I draw a lot of stares.

[redsox348984]

2 hours of sleep is very low. thats oviously gonna effect your lifting

[ExNole]

[quote]jarvis wrote:
ExNole wrote:

First off, 135 is a whole lot easier to put on the bar than 190. I make my jumps using 45s, up to the last one before my attempt. Why would you mess around with 2.5s on warmup sets?

To be honest with you, I’m not too concerned about what is easy to put on the bar. I’m willing to mess around with plates in order to get the results I need. Going up in increments with the 45s, because its easy, seems to me to be missing the point of lifting weights in the first place.

I suggested starting at 185-190. 185 is easy to get on the bar anyway, no 2.5 plates involved.

I personally find that working with weights below 40% of 1RM is useless as I’m expending more energy decelerating the bar than anything else.

Furthermore, I feel that using this lighter weight allows my CNS to adjust to an inferior load, thereby making my 1RM seem proportionately heavier. This is not something based on formulae or a particular study but rather my own experience.

ExNole wrote:

Second, 445 is ~95% of 465. Why would you have someone pull a near max lift before trying to hit a PR? Last time I pulled a max I made a 60lb jump.

The time before that it was 95lb.

For a 465 pull I’d do this:

135x5
225x5
315x1-3
405x1
465x1.

Again, I recommended this because it is what works for me.

If big jumps worked for me that is what I’d be recommending. Personally I get stronger by working with circa maximal weights on the way to a 1RM.

Poliquin has his lifters work up to maxes with an 80%, 85%, 90%, 95% progression as mentioned in this article:

http://www.T-Nation.com/findArticle.do?article=07-017-training

I’ve used that same progression over the last few weeks and its worked out great for me.

If you check out this article of Jim Wendler’s at Elitefts:

http://www.glutehamraise.com/documents/max_effort_waves.htm

Most of the progressions he talks of involve at least one lift at 95%. The reason for this is that this is the way things are set out in Prilepin’s Table:

http://www.angelfire.com/pe/txpls/prilephin.html

The accepted rule, if you are following the Westside Standard Template at least, is that in ME work you perform 3 lifts at or above 90% of 1RM.

I hope this clears up for you why I said what I did.[/quote]

Jarvis,

You are supposed to get a lift above 95% when working out heavy, and in Westside 3 over 90% is the rule.

But, for 3 lifts over 90, you are going to be able to move the most weight if you take your max first, followed by 2 or 3 lifts in the 90% range. If you go 90, 95, 100, you are going to be tired and not perform as well.

The second point is that going 80, 85, 90, 95 is a really good workout. It will get you stronger. It’s just not the best way to test a max.

[jarvis]

[quote]ExNole wrote:
Jarvis,

You are supposed to get a lift above 95% when working out heavy, and in Westside 3 over 90% is the rule.

But, for 3 lifts over 90, you are going to be able to move the most weight if you take your max first, followed by 2 or 3 lifts in the 90% range. If you go 90, 95, 100, you are going to be tired and not perform as well.

The second point is that going 80, 85, 90, 95 is a really good workout. It will get you stronger. It’s just not the best way to test a max. [/quote]

To be honest, I hadn’t considered dropping down after the PR attempt in order to get in the 3 lifts at or above 90%.

The Jim Wendler article shows progressions occurring in a linear way from highest to lowest. I can see now that there’s no reason you have to do it this way as long as you complete each of the lifts at some point during your training session.

The one exception to this is the bulgarian method which looks a lot like a form of wave loading. In that one you do:

1x5 @ 50%
1x3 @ 60%
1x2 @ 70%
1x1 @ 80%
1x1 @ 90%
1x1 @ 95%
1x1 @ 100%
1x1 @ 90%
1x1 @ 95%
1x1 @ 100+%

I think I may give that a go at some point but maybe drop the first 95% attempt in order to get a higher 1RM. What do you think?

The thing I liked about the Poliquin progression is that after handling 95%, the 100% tends to feel quite easy.

Working on larger jumps hasn’t worked so well for me in the past. I put this down to the fact that my body seems to need 2 warm-ups when working up to a 1RM one for my muscles and another for the CNS. Making a 95lbs jump would leave me with the equivalent of a sprained CNS.

I think this might have a lot to do with training age though, my lifts are a lot lower than yours and I guess my CNS is still getting used to higher weight training.

To the OP:

I think that jumper was saying to only pull 1 out of every 4 ME days, so the other 3 would be squat or good morning variations. You still would be doing ME work every week.

Looking at your weekly plan I can’t imagine how you’re progressing whilst working out 7 days a week.

How often do you take a de-load week and how does it differ to your regular training?

Finally, for your DE work generally 8x3 is the Bench set/rep scheme.

For squats you should be looking to go for 10x2. This can also be followed by singles (8-10) of speed pulls. (either regular, sumo, snatch grip, defecit or rack pulls depending on your sticking point).

[jumper]

[quote]TheBlade wrote:
Lots of good responses in a few hours, you guys rock

teencraft,
Damn, sex is too good to pass up, man

20-30%? That much? In the last week lack of sleep from sex didn’t hurt my oly lifts or later my shoulder day (both went up)

jumper,
Last Deadlift max was on 2/16. Rack pulls last Sunday. Routine is:
Day 1: ME Chest, RE Upper back
Day 2: Shoulders
Day 3: Arms
Day 4: ME Legs and calves
Day 5: ME Upper Back, RE Chest
Day 6: Oly Lifts, forearms, abs
Day 7: DE Legs
I mostly cycle between Squats, Deadlifts, and Stiff-legged-deadlifts. I did 3rep max on Zercher Squats before as well, though
I do 8 sets of 3 reps of speed work in the beginning of DE day, though I only started doing DE a few weeks ago. Have been doing box squats for this

Training mostly for hypertrophy, though strength is a big 2nd priority, and if I were to be exact I probably want primarily more upper body mass and lower body strength.

jarvis,
I don’t know my 1RM on rack pulls.
Also, my bad but it’s actually 415 lbs on rack pulls, I read the log on the wrong week.

As for the progression, yeah that’s something I’ve always been curious. Seems like there’s definitely debate on this and experience will be the best judge. I’ll try out the slower progressions to see how it goes next week. Also next week I guess no sex on Wednesday night, I’ll aim for Tuesday and Thursday:)

jumper,
That’s half a week of rest in between, I think every WS program has two days a week for lower body work, so I’m a bit skeptical that my lower back would be fatigued (I mean, wouldn’t that hurt my old max, too?). I’ll check out the article when I get the chance though.

As for beating it, yeah I guess I wasn’t too confident in being able to go above because of thetwo factors I mentioned.
You don’t do ME every week? Definitely an unorthodox approach to WS. Why such rare ME work?

and yeah I get pissed at the bar. What I do before my ME set psyches me up a lot, I growl at the bar and shit. My lifting partner says I draw a lot of stares.

[/quote]

“You don’t do ME every week? Definitely an unorthodox approach to WS. Why such rare ME work?”

I didn’t say that, I said I only do a pull for ME lower once every 4 weeks, which is the standard westside template: Sq/GM/Sq or GM/Pull(using variations on all movements).

Here is your problem:

Day 1: ME Chest, RE Upper back
Day 2: Shoulders
Day 3: Arms
Day 4: ME Legs and calves
Day 5: ME Upper Back, RE Chest
Day 6: Oly Lifts, forearms, abs
Day 7: DE Legs

I can go into detail with this, but I just don’t have time. With the exception of feeder or recovery workouts, how many days do westsiders typically get work in? 4, that’s it, and most of them are juiced to the gills. You are doing 3 max effort days(ME back?) a week and a dynamic lower after an oly day? I know what you are trying to do, EVERYTHING all week long, trust me, the more is better does not work when it comes to deadlifting. Here is your prescription:

Joe Defranco’s westside for skinny bastards. Since you are not training for football, throw in a dynamic lower day. If you want to do oly lifts alternate them with speed deads on DE lower day. It is a reasonable template and you wont overtrain. I don’t recommend Deadlifting heavy more than once every 3 weeks for ME nor will anyone else who has made this system work for them unless they are truly built to deadlift and throw in a SQ and GM the other weeks for the ME movement.

If you want to do ME work for back substitute weighted chins every 4th week on ME upper. Every body part doesn’t get its on ME day. There is a ME upper and lower, that’s it. Upper being bench or shoulder press variations and a chin every once in a while if you like and lower being a GM, DEAD, OR SQUAT variation if you would like.

You are trying to combine Oly, powerlifting, and bodybuilding together into some big overtraining nightmare. The skinny bastard routine will give you the results you are looking for size and strength without overdoing it. Guys that go to the gym every day for two hours and do every exercise for every bodypart all have one thing in common, they waste time. You are substituting quanity for quality and your last ME pull is proof.

P.S. please don’t say ME chest or ME Legs, it’s ME upper and ME lower. Unless of course you are doing Leg extensions and cable crossovers for ME movements. And what the fuck is ME back?

[TheBlade]

jarvis,
OK. I thought generally you’d do two weeks of ME for each lift then change it up after that?

This program is definitely not something regular. It’s a 6 week overreaching program I’m doing now. I’ll deload in 3 weeks and change up my routine to probably something 5 days a week (haven’t decided whether to have it be WS or a bodybuilding routine yet)

OK, didn’t know about the DE work being recommended 10X2. I’ll try that next time and singles speed pulls.

jumper,
OK, I see your point. I definitely didn’t see the program as something to maintain for a long period of time, just something that’s overreaching a bit. In general I’ve been going up on all my lifts, with this one unusual case, so I don’t think I’m overtraining, though my food and supplement spending is massive these days.

for ME upper back back I do weighted pullups. I don’t see why it’s a big deal to call it by main muscle group rather than half of the body

I’ll check out the WS for skinny bastards thing and try it out at some point in the near future. Thanks for the tips

[jumper]

[quote]TheBlade wrote:
jarvis,
OK. I thought generally you’d do two weeks of ME for each lift then change it up after that?

This program is definitely not something regular. It’s a 6 week overreaching program I’m doing now. I’ll deload in 3 weeks and change up my routine to probably something 5 days a week (haven’t decided whether to have it be WS or a bodybuilding routine yet)

OK, didn’t know about the DE work being recommended 10X2. I’ll try that next time and singles speed pulls.

jumper,
OK, I see your point. I definitely didn’t see the program as something to maintain for a long period of time, just something that’s overreaching a bit. In general I’ve been going up on all my lifts, with this one unusual case, so I don’t think I’m overtraining, though my food and supplement spending is massive these days.

for ME upper back back I do weighted pullups. I don’t see why it’s a big deal to call it by main muscle group rather than half of the body

I’ll check out the WS for skinny bastards thing and try it out at some point in the near future. Thanks for the tips[/quote]

The reason you are not increasing is you are overreaching. You can waste all the money on supplements you want, and thats what you are doing wasting your money if your training is shit, and if you don’t train westside the right way you are also wasting your time.

You probably need to stick to bodybuilding, that way you can have all your volume working a different bodypart everyday. By reading your posts you are obviously still young and probably not dealing with that much weight, but as you get older if you stick with it and the weights get heavier you will learn training smart is just as important as training hard.

Just don’t be one of those fags that says, “westside doesn’t work for drug-free raw guys or westside doesn’t work for me, I tried it”, when the reason it didn’t work is you refused to do it the right way.

[barryjenkins00]

From an old fart, listen to your body. With 2 hours of sleep sometime prior to the 465 you had to say" what the hell am I trying to do today"? I like to move the rack pulls to just above the knee to the bottom pin, try 'em you’ll like 'em. Around the knee you should be able to pull 600+ and it’s good for your head(ego). You’ll blow through 465 in no time. Good luck.