Deadlift diagnosed!

Last June 10, 2007 was an ME day and I tried 150kgs in the deadlift shooting for 5x5. I only managed two sets. The lift was slow, the ‘pop’ at the bottom when I lifted 160kgs just a few weeks back was gone. At that time we were scratching our heads what went wrong. There were a number of things that changed in my setup that was observed by coach. My butt was higher during the setup compared to past efforts, my legs were narrower, and my shins are farther from the bar. A week passed and we tried again last Sunday, June 17, 2007. This time the load was 155kgs and tried to shoot for 5 sets of 3 reps each. For the first set I was allowed to do I my way. I finished the set, but it was quite slow and the speed off the bottom wasn’t there. The same problems I had last week was still there plus coach also observed that I was ‘stiff-legging’ the lift. For the next set, coach asked me to widen my stance a little bit, bring my hands as close to my legs as possible, align the bar to the second or third (from the bottom) eyelet of my Chuck Taylors, and most importantly to put my butt down and bring my chest up, ensuring that my shoulders are atleast directly above the bar if not behind it. In the first set my shoulders were in-front of the bar because my butt wasn’t low enough. The second set was a lot better than the first, the first rep was fast and felt easy, but the 2^nd and 3^rd rep was not that satisfactory. I managed to get 3 more sets.

To attempt to remedy the problem we did 5x5 @110kgs of low start conventional deadlifts (on ~4” platform). The low start position forces me to put butt down since won’t be able to do the movement properly and safely if I am started high. Rounded out the training session with leg curls (to balance out the leg work), and some direct ab work like toe touches and leg throws.

I tried to think it over on why my form changed from my last PR. I think it was my focus on getting speed out of the bottom during speed day. I got too pre-occupied with lifting it as fast as possible with out really taking precautions to ensure proper setup every time. Thus my work for the next few weeks would be to learn setting up properly and focusing on technique without sacrificing speed.