Are You Deadlifting Too Much?

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Last week we heard from readers who wanted more advice on deadlift. That’s what we’re covering below. We will also answer a few reader questions from the past few weeks. If you have specific questions, please let us know in the survey!

Featured Resources

• Are You Deadlifting Too Much? Here’s How to Tell

• How to Calculate Your One-Rep Max

• What is a Powerlifting Recovery Workout?

• The Best Pull Day Workout: 12 Exercises

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How to Tell If You’re Deadlifting Too Much

You may think that training the deadlift harder leads to more gains. And that’s true — your deadlift training needs to progressively overload as you get stronger and more experienced over time.

However, you need to make sure that you are not training the deadlift too much when it comes to frequency, volume, and the amount of weight you’re lifting.

Here are a few signs you’re deadlifting too much:

• You lose motivation to deadlift

• Your squat performance degrades

• Your soreness doesn’t dissipate

• Your deadlift performance trends down

• You develop joint or muscle pain

Ask a Coach

Here’s a question from one of our powerlifters.

That is frustrating! Muscle recovery depends on the type of injury.

Here’s what Coach Lucero had to say:

“I always recommend reaching out to a doctor for medical clearance before physical training.

However, if clearance is granted, the best way to approach this would be with machine-based intervention before any kind of free weights.

With machines, there is less muscle coordination and recruitment of stabilizing muscles. With a machine, movement is fixed and can help you to feel safe and confident in every rep.

Then with time, perhaps consider rotating some movements with free weights as you get stronger each session.”

Remember, you can book our coaches online.

Powerlifting As You Age

Here’s another recent question from one of the powerlifters in our community.

Coach Lucero responds, “Strength training has the effect of making our anatomy much more tough and rigid than without. Because of that, it can also put us in situations where range of motion is limited and can cause issues with flexibility.

Make sure that not only are you challenging you flexibility through static stretches, but also make sure that as much as you press, is as much as you pull.

Your chest and back should be balanced in strength. One way to do this is to make sure that every rep you press, you pull.

So if you do 40 chest press exercises, you need to do 40 pulling exercises so that your anatomy doesn't get too strong and favor one side of the body. This could also be causing your flexibility to diminish as well.“

Is Bracing Necessary for Squats and Deadlifts?

Check out our bracing video on YouTube. And please let us know if you have any questions in the comment section.