First, I applaud you. Second, keeping two focuses -goal and reporting progress via Substack -hopefully presents progress notes through the months of work to encourage others. My personal exercise regimen is rather less demanding, and honestly based upon escape. I encourage all to reach out and we can smoke weed and drink together until this Superman urge goes away. LOL. https://youtu.be/bplfkC2l0mE
*Caveat of unsolicited advice which I despise people doing to me is incoming so feel free to ignore*
Did a good, knowledgeable about body mechanic coach mention deficit deadlifts? I'm not one, but did go through a big deadliftin focused period of my life. Depending on limb lengths (shin, femur, arms, hips) some people are just never going to be able to get in a good position near the bottom of a deadlift and trying to do deficit deadlifts is asking for pain.
There is no science to the height of a 45lber nor does it make sense to think tall/long-legged guy vs short long-armed guy should start the pull from the same height.
When I first read that, I balked. 'No one is going to tell me that standard deadlift isn't God's lift'. But it nagged away and does make sense.
Pulling 2x as much from a 2" higher starting height and feeling comfy makes sense vs. pulling less from a deficit and keep tweaking your back.
As a fellow middle aged lifter, staying injury free and pulling big weight in a modified has become a bigger priority than pushing mediocre standardized lift numbers.
Regardless - that is a good pull since I think you were ~190lb weight or so.
Helpful and relevant. Just the kind of feedback I'm looking for. The very best thing about writing as a generalist is to elicit reactions from specialists willing to rescue a well-intentioned but imperfect effort. In this case making it up as I go on a Sunday but all of it will be run by my coach 6 AM Monday before I do anything. I'm just ultra eager to have anything at all to show from a pivot towards strength so I don't somehow lose what I'm fading without gaining what I seek so winged it today a bit. Not sure how usual or unusual this is: but the bottom few inches are about 90% of the battle. Once it is moving, I'm just completely comfortable but getting into position is taxing and unsteady. Work in process. Grateful for the reactions.
Exactly - It's hard to know if the bottom is a sticking point you just need to train with deficits to strengthen or a thing you just won't ever make much progress on due to body shape. You can have a coach who knows biomechanics well (not just larping as one) answer that.
It is easy to get sidetracked in lifting by focusing on something that tangentially seems to align with your goals (get better deadlifting off the floor), that just distracts from your actual goals (getting stronger and looking good nekkid).
What feels best for me is doing conventional deads heavy starting ~3" elevated (lowest pin on the gym's rack), then lighten up and do deads from floor with legs just outside shoulders (the narrowest stance sumo deadlift you can imagine) if still want to do a few extra sets - longer legs and shorter arms and 6'4" tall always made the start of the deadlift hard and tweaked this old back a few too many times trying. Glutes & hams feel much more worked from the low rack pulls than they ever did doing conventional floor deadlifts
First, I applaud you. Second, keeping two focuses -goal and reporting progress via Substack -hopefully presents progress notes through the months of work to encourage others. My personal exercise regimen is rather less demanding, and honestly based upon escape. I encourage all to reach out and we can smoke weed and drink together until this Superman urge goes away. LOL. https://youtu.be/bplfkC2l0mE
*Caveat of unsolicited advice which I despise people doing to me is incoming so feel free to ignore*
Did a good, knowledgeable about body mechanic coach mention deficit deadlifts? I'm not one, but did go through a big deadliftin focused period of my life. Depending on limb lengths (shin, femur, arms, hips) some people are just never going to be able to get in a good position near the bottom of a deadlift and trying to do deficit deadlifts is asking for pain.
There is no science to the height of a 45lber nor does it make sense to think tall/long-legged guy vs short long-armed guy should start the pull from the same height.
When I first read that, I balked. 'No one is going to tell me that standard deadlift isn't God's lift'. But it nagged away and does make sense.
Pulling 2x as much from a 2" higher starting height and feeling comfy makes sense vs. pulling less from a deficit and keep tweaking your back.
As a fellow middle aged lifter, staying injury free and pulling big weight in a modified has become a bigger priority than pushing mediocre standardized lift numbers.
Regardless - that is a good pull since I think you were ~190lb weight or so.
Helpful and relevant. Just the kind of feedback I'm looking for. The very best thing about writing as a generalist is to elicit reactions from specialists willing to rescue a well-intentioned but imperfect effort. In this case making it up as I go on a Sunday but all of it will be run by my coach 6 AM Monday before I do anything. I'm just ultra eager to have anything at all to show from a pivot towards strength so I don't somehow lose what I'm fading without gaining what I seek so winged it today a bit. Not sure how usual or unusual this is: but the bottom few inches are about 90% of the battle. Once it is moving, I'm just completely comfortable but getting into position is taxing and unsteady. Work in process. Grateful for the reactions.
Exactly - It's hard to know if the bottom is a sticking point you just need to train with deficits to strengthen or a thing you just won't ever make much progress on due to body shape. You can have a coach who knows biomechanics well (not just larping as one) answer that.
It is easy to get sidetracked in lifting by focusing on something that tangentially seems to align with your goals (get better deadlifting off the floor), that just distracts from your actual goals (getting stronger and looking good nekkid).
What feels best for me is doing conventional deads heavy starting ~3" elevated (lowest pin on the gym's rack), then lighten up and do deads from floor with legs just outside shoulders (the narrowest stance sumo deadlift you can imagine) if still want to do a few extra sets - longer legs and shorter arms and 6'4" tall always made the start of the deadlift hard and tweaked this old back a few too many times trying. Glutes & hams feel much more worked from the low rack pulls than they ever did doing conventional floor deadlifts
Good luck - enjoy these posts every week