10/02/2026
The biggest mistake I see in training the deadlift.
Here are three examples of athletes I've had the opportunity of working with.
Jennifer Lyle
Adam Derks
Dr. Ben Pollack
All three are among the best deadlifters in the world. All three have distinctly different deadlifting styles and builds. All three share these two same things in their training.
1. They never sacrifice position. Maybe they have to back off and stick to lighter working sets. Maybe they have to skip deadlifts that week because something's just off. Maybe they have to spend an hour warming up to get things moving right. It doesn't matter, they never ever have a rep less than 100% quality.
2. Along with that quality is velocity. Respecting a certain velocity cap is very important for your deadlift to progress. I find it's an rpe point down from other lifts. You can push most lifts to a 9, 10 sometimes. The deadlift you want to keep no higher than an 8. Anything above that needs to be reserved for competing. There's so much breakdown and fatigue that occur above 8 that it can really mess up the data points in your program.
Another thing to note. I use bands or reverse bands a lot with my athletes in order to accommodate the fatigue build up. 10-15% of total weight in bands or chains. This really helps with maintaining quality and velocity, and allows for more training sessions in a row to be able to accumulate rather than having to go back and fix something every training cycle.
DM for coaching
