My journey to finding out what it takes to deadlift 1000lbs

[Leeman]

I love keeping a training log. it really motivates me to push my self harder when I know il have to show people my workouts, and I know for sure that I work smarter when ever its easier for me to keep track of what Im doing and have a place to write down my thoughts and bounce them off other people/get suggestions on any issues I may face

this log may be filled with injuries, excuses, and general bitching and whining about things that only I can help my self overcome.. none the less Il be writing it all here for you guys to see... for better or worse.

I want to start off by saying that Iam very open to suggestions of all sorts about diet/training/rehab/prehab/supplements etc, and appreciate input from those who are confident their advice is what I need to hear... but for me to actually take the advice it has to make sense to me and fit in with what I know works for me. it doesnt mean I dont appreciate the input, or dont respect the people giving me their time and effort to help me, I just find that feeling confident in what Iam doing is very important for my training, even if it is totally a placebo effect.

I keep my training logs more like a blog than anything, and like to let the people who follow my log in on my life somewhat so that I feel that the people reading know me on a more personal level. I find doing that creates more of online team of mental support and help than just random strangers coming in to say "good job", so feel free to post in here as often as you like, if I didnt want people to post in my training log I wouldnt keep it online on a popular bodybuilding/powerlifting forum.

Il continue to write a little more about my self over the next few days on here, so that the first few pages of my log tells people alot about myself and how I arrived at this point.

[Leeman]

did back/biceps today

cheating yates rows with straps (bar not passing my knees, using hip drive)
135x10
225x10
315x10
straps on
405x10
495x10
585x5

wide grip pullup
me x 13 good form

neutral grip pullup
me x 11 not locking my arms out

t-bar pulldown to sternum leaning back a lot
stack x 15ish

rope pulldown to sternum leaning back a lot
3/4th stack x 15ish

wide grip pulldown to sternum leaning back a lot
3/4th stack x 15ish

wide grip pulldown
3/4th stack x 15ish

wide grip cable row to my face, for rear delts
2 sets of 15ish reps

incline bench dumbbell curl
40's x 3 sets of 10-20 reps

standing dumbbell curl
40'sx 10+ reps

single arm cable curl in the front double bicep position
30lbs on the stack for 3 sets of 10-15 reps

25lb plate cross body hammer curls
3 sets of 10-20 reps


I do a lot of bodybuilding work, its also a passion of mine and training for size gains has always been important to me.

I find for back work that the cheating yates rows I do help my deadlift more than anything, they give me the ability to REALLY overload my lats and the hip drive around my knees really helps with power around that area and helping me lockout heavy weights on deadlifts. by far my chosen lat exercise for improving my deadlift.

the majority of my back work is done rowing towards my belly or my sternum, I dont find pullups or pulldowns to be nearly as beneficial for deadlifting strength as rowing movements done that way. I think your lats job are to hold your shoulders and upper back in position during the lift, and so they should be primarily trained in that same position (which is why i love yates rows, and generally rows that simulate a bent over rowing movement)

I also think its important to have a rowing exercise where you go heavy where you dont let your shoulders come forwards to stretch your lats, and also movements where you let your shoulders come forwards and then pull them back to contract your lats. one of them being more of a static contraction (more similar to deadlifting) and the other being to help get your shoulders back into position if them come out of place during your lift.

[Leeman]

next saturday if all goes as planned I will attempt 905lbs for reps on deadlifts (using straps to hold onto the bar, touch and go reps)

heres a video of last workout

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[Leeman]

so bad news, pulled/tore my lat warming up on deadlifts on Saturday when I had planned to try for 905 for reps

the back workout I did just didn't let my lats recover enough, I could feel my shoulders coming forwards while warming up and on 805lbs shortly after it left the floor my shoulders came forwards and just kinda overstretched/tore my lat

theres no bruising, no swelling that I notice (all though there could be some) and generally its not very painful unless I would try and do lat work or something.

Im gonna look at this as a forced deload, a chance to get back into squatting, and gonna try and learn my lesson about not getting enough recovery between workouts on back/leg stuff.


after deadlifts I did some light squats with 135lbs just trying to get to depth and stretch out. im SUPER inflexible so im gonna work back into squatting very slowly and focus on getting my form right and to proper depth for a long time before I get heavy


did biceps after squats

dumbbell curl
20x10
40x10
60x10
80x12

barbell preacher curl
95lbs x 3 or 4 sets of 10-20

single arm cable curl
4 sets of 10-20

cable rope reverse curl
4 sets to failure at 10-20 reps

incline dumbbell curl
40lbs x 4 sets to failure

[Brian Hopper]

Love the title, lol! Looking forward to following your progress. Where in Florida did you live before moving?

[Leeman]

Love the title, lol! Looking forward to following your progress. Where in Florida did you live before moving?

a little place called spring hill, close to tampa. the place didn't have a ton to offer in terms of things to do or opportunities in general so I figured I should just go ahead and get out of there and experience the world a little more, and maybe invest a little in my future (which will hopefully involve bodybuilding/powerlifting)

right now my progress will kind of suck, because Im going light on basically everything. but hopefully il build back up higher than ever in everything in the next few months while maybe even getting leaner and definitely bigger.

[J L S]

I sense this journal will pick up momentum very quickly with weights being used and followers! welcome to the board! You're a god damn monster.

[muscle_g]

How's your weekly routine broke down? As in what days do you train the lifts and body parts on and all?

[Leeman]

How's your weekly routine broke down? As in what days do you train the lifts and body parts on and all?

I don't have a set schedule for anything, but lately ive been doing my leg work on Saturday.

ive always done all my own training etc, never had a coach or really even anyone who id consider a mentor of any sort, so ive never established much of anything in stone other than general principals that I tend to follow even when it looks like my training makes no sense at all.

general I
train as often as my recovery seems to allow (now i try and keep injuries/aches and pains in mind)
peak my lifts, always building up up up after starting light the first workout
lots of assistance work (or at least in the past)
if im not injured or beat down I train a lot of volume, a lot of exercises, and for a long time


my problem is my training works, but it beats the shit out of me and I cant do it for too long without getting hurt from the combination of gaining strength while weakening my joints/tendons/not fully recovering my muscles

im learning powerlifting is more about not getting hurt than it is being able to make gains, getting stronger is easy as hell.. its not tearing your body apart under the heavier weights that's the real task.




I sense this journal will pick up momentum very quickly with weights being used and followers! welcome to the board! You're a god damn monster.

thanks man

[Leeman]

rebahing a pec pull, took 2+ weeks off any chest work so im coming back light, with a close grip, focusing on getting my bench up instead of bodybuilding etc

close grip bench, light touch and go (usually I let the bar sink in and pause and then press)
135x10
185x10
225x10
275x10
315x10 had more for sure, but I noticed I was favoring the arm that didn't have the pec problem, and in my left pec even tho I felt no pain I could tell it was freshly healed and could give again.. not ready for insane training yet

dumbbell shoulder press at a high incline
40x10
75x10
100x10
125x10
140x12 nice

lots of tricep and bicep work, not much worth talking about.. lots of exercises and angles but for triceps it was all isolation stuff.

heaviest I went on biceps was 75lb dumbbell curls and 155lb barbell curls

[muscle_g]

Thanks for explaining your training :)

[Leeman]

Thanks for explaining your training :)

no problem, all though now obviously my training wont represent what got me to this point

I believe aside from genetics and bulking (I bulked from 200lbs to about 400lbs going from 15 to 19 years old) was the fact that I did TONS of volume and TONS of frequency
(which of course led to injuries and aches and pains long with insane natural gains)

I would do stuff like bench 5 days a week, train legs multiple days in a row sometimes weeks in a row and then take time off to "supercompensate" from the beat down.

I used to look at good training as beating my self down as hard as possible, with super high volume, really heavy weights, and very high frequency... followed by taking a few days off to fully recover from all the stress on my body.

I found that training that way made my body used to doing that kind of work load and volume etc, and it drastically sped up my recovery over a person who did maybe 1 workout a week per body part. so I basically conditioned my self to be able to handle more weight, more volume, and more frequency than a normal weight lifter, while recovering faster between those workouts than a normal weight lifter... the result was I gained much faster.

of course later on I learned that Olympic lifters conditioned them self in a similar way, and then it all made sense to me.

after years of reading/training/trial and error (I used to be a incredible forum geek, reading thousands of hours worth of articles and posting like probably 30,000 times on various forums) I found that a lot of the methods that I found to work on my own were the same methods that a lot of very successful programs shared, but it seemed like because I found them on my own that I had only taken the good parts of multiple different styles of training and combined them together to make something that worked extremely well for me.

I basically did a mix of-

DC training, in that id focus on improving a heavy set for my compounds

various forms of peaking and progressive overload using a wide range of different sets/reps/ideas

sort of a form of Olympic lifting conditioning to improve my work capacity and recovery

and a lot of my training agreed with the principals of westside, but it wasn't structured like westside because I didn't have max effort or speed work and didn't have a weekly schedule... but it seems like the more I read about westside training the more I found that those guys seem to do a little of everything



for the life of me I can never explain my training to people because I have found so many different things to work and be beneficial.. I think training is more of a mind set where you just kind of know what to do based off how you feel and what you see going on in your workouts, because that's how Ive always done it.

[J L S]

that explanation is actually pretty good haha, I understand it. Basically you train very very hard, and get very very good results.

[Judas]

I have always found that more is more, and that even more than more is better yet... as long as you're recovering from it. I've dispelled soooo many training myths in my 8 1/2 years its laughable.

Someone made up a name for instinctual training (what you and i do) on some other forum years ago... it was called 'cybernetic periodization'... or 'hell if i know' training. Sounds about perfect.

You're basically training kind ov like a Bulgarian weightlifter, in terms ov just doing as much max work as possible and trying not to break. Abadjiev forced 10000 lifters through his meat grinder, and broke 9985 ov them irreparably, but the 15 that lived were all world champions or world record holders. Heh... its all about trying to be one ov the 15... haha

Fucking ridiculous pulls in that video, by the way...

[Leeman]

pause squats, working on form trying to get the depth right, took me a while but I was getting below parallel (or at least I was told I was and it seemed like it)
135x3 sets of 5-10
225x3 sets of 5+ reps
315x2 sets of 5+
405x5
405x10, had at least 20 reps with this pausing them at the bottom for a few seconds each it seemed

high bar goodmornings with deadlift stance
135x10
225x10
315x10

back extensions
45lbs x 2x failure

cable rows, light
3 sets of 15-20 reps


all light stuff, calling it a deload and getting back into squatting/lat training. didn't want to overdo it on my hamstring or quad work either

[squatter69]

Hahaha I'll definitely follow this one. I kind of train the same way you do. I am not deadlifting 800 pounds though.

[Leeman]

monday i did

close grip bench
135x10
225x10
275x10
350x10

dumbbell shoulder press
40'sx20
70'sx12
100'sx12
125'sx20

lots of tricep extension stuff for a pump

side laterals
45'sx20
70'sx10
100'sx9


yesterday i did

barbell cheatcurls
135x10
185x8
225x13

incline dumbbell curls
40'sx10
70'sx10

other bicep pump stuff light

[Leeman]

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[Leeman]

so i finally got a better feeling squat form where i can hit depth easily and get some rebound out of the hole instead of pause squating with a wide stance

close stance highbar squats, first time really ever trying these
135x5
225x5
315x5
405x5
495x1

knee wraps on (3rd time using knee wraps in my life probably, didnt know what to expect)
585x3

felt a bit weird, not used to high bar or knee wraps at all, but il train this new form hard and get used to it and hopefully do well with it!!

deadlifts
135x1
225x1
315x1
405x1
495x1
585x1

no lat problems, good stuff. pulls were slow and felt like they were ALL hams and glutes, quads were kinda dead from doing deep squats for the first time in years.

leg curls
5 sets to failure

cable rows with a rope, standing
stack x 4 sets to failure

bicep stuff, went up to 85's x 11 curls swinging and did some other stuff



didnt do much at all today in terms of volume, but i was content just being able to pull something moderately heavy without any pain and having found my new squat position and gotten some weight on my back

EDIT:

the knee wraps make me timid on squats, i didnt go down fast with the wraps and so im told I didnt get much help from them, they were also wrapped (moderately) which felt tight as FUCK but apparently that was nothing

[Leeman]

close grip bench pausing the last few reps of the heavy sets
warm up
375x13, might have been 14, either way ass came up on the last rep about 1/2" but i had another rep in me

405x8, same thing, ass came up like 1/2" but mighta had another rep

cable flys
4 sets

lots of light tricep cable stuff

some bicep stuff

[Leeman]

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special thanks to eric for putting my lifting in there too

[Leeman]

tried squating yesterday, quads cramped, so just did pulls first

warm up
765x8 mighta had more but plates were sliding and so were straps lol

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leg curls
4-5 sets to failure

light back work

[Brian Hopper]

That's insane bro! Is that a PR?

[Leeman]

yeah my best was 6 before

but when I did my best i was taking other oral sups that seem to give me a HUGE boost in strength. so im guessing il be stronger than ever soon enough.

its all about not getting hurt, id deadlift 1000lbs for reps if my body held together long enough

[Leeman]

couple days ago i did

close grip bench
135x10
225x10
315x6
365x4
405x4
435x6 paused the 6th rep probably had 7
465x1 paused fast

cable flys
4 sets

pushdowns
4-5 sets

single arm reverse grip pushdown
4 sets

cable upright row
3-4 sets

[Leeman]

squats, not high bar not low bar, mid traps id say. finally felt right today while hitting depth too!!

135x10
225x10
315x5
405x10
495x5
545x5 had maybe 7

iam going to get verryy strong on squats again :) i can tell already. 2 workouts in with this new form and i already feel good for like 650 in just a belt.

wont be long il be at 700, then il be repping it :D then 800 in a belt here i come!!!

some light back work so i dont overtrain my lats before pulling next saturday

[joey54]

Did you play football or anything in HS? Do you still think Fuzzy was using fake plates when he put his older videos up?

[Leeman]

never played football it was way too hot and humid in florida and I was way too fat.

fuzzy was using Olympic lifting plates and saying they weighed more than they did, they weren't fake.

obviously hes much stronger now, this was back in the day before he got on a good "supplement" stack. hes grown up a lot, he used to lie for attention and now he actually does what it takes to achieve the lifts he states, I dont hold it against him anymore.


legs were really sore today from doing my first real squat workout in like forever, really effected how strong I felt on bench

close grip bench
135x10
225x10
315x5
405x9, last 2 reps paused

barbell seated shoulder press
135x10
225x10
275x13

machine flys
5 sets to failure

10 sets of various tricep extension exercises

some bicep stuff

[joey54]

Haha. Yeah fakes plates wasn't the right term to use. I remember the two of you having some disputes. Both are quite the beasts these days.

[Leeman]

yeah hes made a ton of progress, hopefully he doesnt try and stay in too low of a weight class so he doesnt limit his strength too much, because its pretty obvious his max strengt potential is verryy high

[Jimboslice123]

Do you close grip because it's better or you got an injury/pec that is bothering you ?

[Leeman]

Do you close grip because it's better or you got an injury/pec that is bothering you ?

I had pulled my pec a few times right before I started this training log and so I went to close grip to let it recover better


sick as hell all week, hardly eating, sleeping all the time, constantly cold and sweating and shivering and coughing etc, wasnt quite as sick today tho so I did legs

belt only squat
warm up
550x9 PR

deadlift using hex plates and a normal gym bar
warm up
700x1 bare handed holding it in my fingers

straps on
765x1
815x1


pulldowns
6 sets

curls
5 sets to failure with 75's,50's,50's,40's,40's

[Leeman]

few days ago i did close grip bench
arm up
405x3
440x1
485x1
405x5

dips
me x 10 sets to failure

pushdowns
4-5 sets to failure

cable upright row
4-5 sets to failure

some curls



on saturday I did

squat in just a belt n knee sleeves
warm up
605x8
675x1

deadlifts bare handed
warm up
740x1 with a static hold at the top for 5-8 seconds

leg curls
5 sets to failure

bunch of back stuff

some bicep stuff

[Stumprrp]

Are you seriously 21 years old? Ive never seen anything like this in my life. Dave Hoff didnt even hit numbers like this at 21. Freaking amazing.

[Leeman]

yeah thanks, may 9 1991

sadly still so much work to do before any of this will translate to a total.

need grip strength, need to drastically increase my bench, need to learn to squat without looking in the mirror etc



tonight

wide grip bench, first time in months, felt like crap due to pecs/shoulders working harder than they have in a long time.

changed my diet recently to lean up a bit aswell and the lowered cals/carbs really seemed to hit me hard this workout

wide grip bench
135x10
225x10
315x10
365x10
405x6
345x11

dips
3 sets to failure

hammer machine incline
135x20
225x?
315x?
225x?

high incline dumbbell press
40'ssx20
70'sx20
100'sx10

pushdowns and cable rope overhead extensions, some cable flys, some cable upright rows, some bicep stuff

[Rock1984]

A friggin' tank!

[macdaknife]

A friggin' tank!

this^ (couldn't have said it better Rock!)

[Invain]

Nice to have you posting here again George.