Swings and Pulls

Have you been building strength with swinging? Start pulling. Made progress on pulls and swings? More progress.

400kgx4

Benni.

Getting Exlposive for Your Deadlift

• Grinding through the lockout portion of a deadlift isn't a necessity, nor is it ideal.
• A key to blasting through the lockout is training to be more explosive, which is a skill not exclusively governed by your genetics. (So don't use that lame excuse.)
• The faster you lift the bar off of the floor, the less work you'll need to do during the lockout.
T-NATION channels Louie Simmons.

Specializing in the Deadlift - Louie Simmons

" Even great deadlifters have to do rack pulls or pulls off boxes. Those better built to deadlift, i.e., long arms, short torso, fairly long legs - don't need to do as much assistance work because of good body mechanics. I was not blessed with great leverage for deadlifting yet did fairly well: 670 at 181, 710 at 198, and 722 at 220. I was going nowhere fast until I read an article by Bill Starr. He had a program that was designed to increase the deadlift by not doing the lift in the usual manner. This, along with learning the conjugate method of training used by the Russians, was and still is the foundation of my training philosophy. To increase the deadlift, you must gain strength in the legs, back, abs, and glutes, as well as address all aspects of strength: explosive, accelerating, and, of course, absolute strength."

Dead Serious - Taylor Wilson

The deadlift is the easiest lift to perform, and the most difficult to train, for me. It lends itself to over arousal, since there's really no "over" with deads, and I love that. But, past the novice stage, I've always burned out pulling heavy from the floor. The result was that I was forced to consider one of my least favorite things: conjugate periodization. My deadlift is really the only lift I figured out, and trained, alone.

Overcoming Plateaus: The Deadlift By: Louie Simmons

"Most litters deadlift too often and too heavy. This has an ill effect on the central nervous system. A better method is to use a variety of exercises that mimic the deadlift or special exercises that develop the individual muscles that are used while deadlifting (the conjugate method). One must build the muscles that start and finish the lift. Also, there must be methods used to develop speed and acceleration; the quicker the bar Is locked out, the less chance for the grip to give out. "

I am not whole-hog Westside by any means, but endorse the idea that you can use lighter pulls and heavy "other" exercises to increase your max pull.

Increasing the Deadlift for the Collision Sport Athlete

Great piece by Dan John.

You need to pull to pull heavy, but you don't need to pull heavy all the time to pull heavy.

A few years the past I had achieved 90% of my current deadlift max (done after some deadlift focus) by never doing deadlifts except for a couple "tests."

Grip Training for your Deadlift By James Smith (www.dieselcrew.com)

Have trouble opening jars? Your hands look someone who got smashed by a house in the Wizard of Oz? You’ve got problems. Well, fortunately you are doing something about it. You are accessing a wealth of knowledge, on the greatest Powerlifting site on the web – www.EliteFTS.com. To increase your bench, dead and squat, one essential aspect everyone forgets – is strengthening your grip. Gripping the bar with the strongest / tightest grip possible is essential for locking your body into a solid, weight bearing structure. There are many different types of grip strength; supporting, pinch, crush, levering, bending and tearing – for instance. For this article we will focus on supporting strength as it pertains to your deadlift.
Here are 3 quick, simple exercises that will help increase your deadlift grip.

How to Strengthen Rosie and her Five Friends - Grip

By Jim Wendler
One of the biggest things that I struggled with during my deadlift training was my grip. This was never a big deal when I was lighter (under 250lbs), but as I became bigger my grip began to suffer.

...


The big embarrassment came when I pulled 585 and it fell out of my hands. I had everyone telling me to go see a doctor because of the numbness, but I knew what the real story was; I had not taken my grip training seriously enough.
Now I was in somewhat of a dilemma – I know I needed to train my grip but everything I’ve read was contradicting itself. I’ve heard that the best way to better your deadlift grip is to deadlift. While I believe this is true, the only problem with this is that when one becomes more advanced, the less you can perform deadlift workouts. The deadlift is extremely hard on your body and can take a long time to recover from. So what was going to suffer? My overall training or my grip?
Then I got the shot in the ass that I needed. (No, not that shot.) I met Jed and Smitty from the Diesel Crew at the 2003 Boston Seminar and they got me on track. First, they showed me what it is like to have fun and train again. Like many of you, training often became a job for me; something that I did only because of habit. It was the same routine over and over again and I would feel guilty if I didn’t do Reverse Hyperextensions or ab work at the end of a workout. I know that many of you are or were in the same boat. Then I met the Crew and things changed. They loved what they did and it showed. I had a renewed sense of training after seeing them.
The Diesel Crew (www.DieselCrew.com)  is known for grip prowess as well as doing lifts that have long been forgotten. They’ve got dozens of strange videos on their website; most of them showcase some kind of lift that will make your head shake in amazement.
Anyway, with their guidance (along with some other people) here are some of the things that helped my grip tremendously. They are simple to do, but grip work takes time. While I noticed results in about 6 weeks, it took about 8 months of training my grip to get it where it needed to be. To give you a point of reference – when I began doing this, I couldn’t close the Captains of Crush Trainer with my left hand (this was my numb/weak hand). In about 6 months, I was able to close the #2 fairly easy. I think this was a substantial improvement. The biggest thing that you will notice is that I didn’t really focus on improving my crushing grip, but my finger strength. In doing so, my overall grip improved. Remember the saying, “You are only as strong as your weakest link”? Well, much of grip training focuses on the thumb and forefinger. These are already strong on most people. It’s the pinky, ring and middle finger that are usually weakest.

Deadlift Grip Development - Ernest F. Cottrell

There are many reasons that lifters fail to make a record deadlift they have worked so hard to attempt, and one of the major problems appears to be in grip strength for two important reasons: 1. Obviously, if the grip isn’t strong enough to hold the bar it is lost during the lift, and 2. If the grip is just strong enough to get the weight up in an accepted lift, your grip strength may not be strong enough for you to do this at any given time, and you either lose the lift now and then, or when it weakens, your confidence weakens too, and it’s left up to accident whether you make it or not. Naturally, this is a big problem you’d like to eliminate if possible, and develop a grip that has reserve power at all times.

Adding 100 pounds to my deadlift by Paul Carter

"So for all of you crappy deadlifters out there such as myself, I'm going to write about how I took my deadlift from the 550 range to it's current 650-660 range over the last few years, and put into a program you can use combining some of the methodologies I used to get there.  So I hope you enjoy benefiting from my mistakes."

The Finnish Deadlift Routine

A lot of work in the lower % area makes this volume intensive program good for people with an already heavy pull. (new link)

Coan/Phillipi 10 week Deadlift Routine Calculator

Nice calculator for the well known Coan/Phillipi routine here.

Finnish Deadlift Secrets

by Sakari Selkäinaho
Through out the years, the deadlift has been our ”national sport” here in Finland. World records has been broken since early 70´s. What makes Finns pull so much, what is their secret ?

I took a look and after collecting training information of many new and former greats, here is some background and information.

Deadliftin'

With Andy Kerr.