Get a Bigger Deadlift in Five Seconds
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How can you possibly improve your deadlift in only five seconds? What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
I’m glad you asked.
The Situation
This is a common problem with all lifters, and it runs especially rampant among newer lifters. The situation is as follows . . .
You are set up to pull the deadlift. You start pulling on the barbell. You barely break the weight off the floor - it moves a couple of inches - and you set it back down on the floor.
To be blunt - you bail on the lift.
anjali gets an oscar nod as she demonstrates a typical failed deadlift.
You’ve been there, and sometimes, the weight didn’t even come off the floor before you stopped pulling. You know you need a solution so that you stop bailing on your pulls, but you’re not sure what to do.
Why Is It So Easy to Bail on the Deadlift?
Make no mistake - it is easier to bail on the deadlift than on any other lift. After all, the bar starts on the floor, and if you fail, the bar just goes right back to where it started.
Not only that - you don’t get to feel the weight of the deadlift before you start the ascent, and this is different from the other lifts. In the squat, you become acclimated to the weight during the descent - you know how hard you’re going to have to drive up out of the hole because you can feel that load on your back on the way down. The same is true for the descent of the bench press. Even in the press, you support the weight of the bar for a bit before launching it upward.
The deadlift is different - you don’t get to feel the weight of the bar before you start pulling, so it can be a mental shock once you actually start the lift.
How Do You Learn to Grind?
For these reasons, it’s easy to bail on a deadlift, so you need a way to teach yourself to grind on the lift. To Just. Keep. Pulling.
(It’s worth noting that the lift almost always goes faster than you think - record yourself deadlifting and watch the video afterward if you don’t believe me.)
The solution is mind-numbingly simple - you must pull for five seconds.
here, anjali keeps pulling and successfully pulls 102 kg (225 lb) for three smooth reps.
From the moment you start pulling, you pull for one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three, one-thousand-four, one-thousand-five.
Ideally, you get someone to count for you so that you can’t stop pulling until your buddy stops counting. A typical situation is that your lifting partner starts counting, “One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one–” and bam - you’ve already locked out your deadlift successfully.
You’ll be amazed how fast it goes even though it doesn’t feel nearly that fast.
If you train on your own, you take a different approach. As you gain experience, you can tell yourself to “just keep pulling,” but for now, record yourself on video and watch both the good and the bad lifts.
See how long you pull. It’s probably only a second or two even though it feels like forever.
You can also find a song with a memorable section that’s about five seconds long. Start pulling at the start of that section and don’t let yourself stop until the end of the section.
You can even make a recording of yourself counting for five seconds, and although it is rather annoying to listen to yourself count as you pull a heavy deadlift, it’s remarkably effective.
The concept is simple, but the results are profound.
You need the ability to pull on the bar for longer than you think - this will help you develop that ability - and nine times out of ten, the pull will be finished sooner than you expect.
As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.
-Phil
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