Mark Brown
November 15, 2022
Tonight’s squat and deadlift lifting session was both long and hard. It took almost 3 hours to get done because of the rest breaks during the squat. I hit a heaviest set, 3 of them to be exact, of 425 pounds for 2 reps. I worked up to that through the warm up sets at 175 and 265 then to the working sets at 355, 375, 405 ands 415 or 2 sets of 3. Last Tuesday I felt like I had 435 in me but not this week.
What really has inspired me to write this is what happened with the banded deadlift. I noticed 3 weeks ago that I forgot about how to leverage the bar properly, especially when wearing my powerlifting belt. I ultimately figured out that I couldn’t do the exercise with the belt on because of that. Last week, it felt better and smoother. My leverage position was improved but not perfect. Today I started my initial set at 225 with the 70 pound rogue bands over the barbell hooked onto the band pegs on the power rack. I narrowed foot position, moved my hips back as I held onto the bar and made sure my body was fully behind the bar. I noticed immediately the lift was much smoother and faster.
The revelation that sets led me to is something I wasn’t necessarily prepared to hear. I had noticed in my weekly training log for week 43 that I had forgotten how to do a banded deadlift. I had noticed prior to that a few weeks prior to even that when I did heavy single deadlifts from the floor that it was still off. Using the belt on the banded floor pulls proved undoable for the same reason why they floor pulls without bands are harder than even 12 inch pulls with the belt on. I just can’t get low enough. The belt physically gets in the way. The extra 3 inches given to the 12 inch pull negates that lack of leverage the belt creates on floor pulls.
What tonights lifting session shows me that if I truly want to increase my deadlift intensity I need to work on improving my leverage position when lifting with the powerlifting belt because it is a necessary piece of gear to perform the lift at 405 or above. I may have to start lower weight, say 225 to 315 pounds, to really concentrate on the technical aspect of a traditional deadlift from the floor. I noticed that my narrow foot position in tonight’s lifting session that lift was smooth. I may experiment with narrower foot spacing, especially with the belt. The squat tells me I have the strength in my legs to do better on deadlifts but I need to fix my leverage position.
Life Through Lifting 