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I've been weight training for the last 5 years, but (and I know I'll get friendly abuse for this) have never done a proper deadlift session until now. The story behind this is that basically in the last 3 months I've lost about 28lbs of blubber and am finally back to the stage of being able to do pullups, instead of just sitting on the lat pulldown churning out sets and not improving as much as I could be.
Anyway now that I'm back to pullups I decided to work other compound movements into the routine, and so finally I attempted some deadlifts. I dont really know why its taken me this long to incorporate them into my routine, and unfortunately I'm faced witht he realisation that I could have used the last few years training a lot more effectively. Anyway I know I dont need to tell you guys this, but MAN those things are awesome. I could really feel it working my back, glutes and core, and I felt awesome afterwards like I'd really given my body a challenge. Because I was cautious of never having deadlifted I kept the weight low and worked my way up to 100kg over 5 sets of 5. Once I feel my lower back has acclimatised to this new stress I will start to up the weight and test things out, and hopefully get my name in a decent place on the deadlift chart.
Just thought I'd share this little anecdote. Deadlifts will now be a very firm feature in my weekly routine.
Even though I'm a new poster to this site, I have been through a similar epiphany. I would rather congradulate you and tell you that it took me a lot longer. Some people never figure it out and they go in a never ending circle that never goes anywhere, full of machine curls and lat pulldowns with wrist straps. Maybe this is a time to take a look at the basics and reevaluate your training. I always recommend Starting Strength for everyone. This book is so in depth; it has over 50 pages just on the squat. It teaches you to completely brake down the basics and to get back to a simpler, more effective method of training. I know the effectiveness of this program since I put 100lbs on the squat at the beginning of the first workout of the forth week. Within a month! So get the book.
I'm always glad when someone breaks out of the lat pulldown, smith machine world. Machines are garbage. No one that does lat pulldowns will ever experience the overall toughness that weighted pullups and excercises like powercleans give you. You also might want to travel over to crossfit.com. Even if you don't want to train like them, you will find tons of real information that you will never find in men's health. Scroll down the right side of the front page and you'll see links like Ironmind and westside barbell club. Folks that know what real strength is all about. Go on over to Dan John's web site for some great literature.....That's about it.
I too have been working out for a while, 2 years, and never have done a deadlift before. I don't know what it is about deadlifts that people avoid. Even regular lifters like us are skipping the DL. Well I'm also very happy that i started deadlifting. It has a very different compound feel to it unlike isolation exercises.
Deads and RDL are AMAZING! People avoid them b/c "there to hard" and "i dont think its good for my back"......:bitch slap!!:.....if you keep doing deads every week you will become than you ever have been in the 5 years you have been lifting.
They ARE hard. people don't want to do hard things. I'm not a Ronnie Coleman fan but I always use one of his quotes."Everybody wants to get big but, no one wants to lift no heavy ass weight." People like to do easy stuff. Sit in the leg extention machine and try not to sweat. They don't understand what it truly takes to get stong or big. Picking up heavy stuff and putting it overhead or walking around with it. Heavy squats that make you lay on the ground after the fifth rep. Sandbag training. Powercage training. Odd objects. Go outside and find something heavy and pick it up. This is what true strength is all about.
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