Heavy ground lifting is needed to build maximum strength.
Light or heavy lifting increases muscle mass.
The most important part of building muscle is a high relative strain on the last rep, regardless of how much weight is used.
Whether you should deadlift heavy or light is not the right question.
You can actually do both in most degree programs, which is recommended.
If you’re struggling with deadlifting due to back pain or any other pain, this article I wrote a while back should be able to help!
In the rest of this article, I will tell you when it is appropriate to lift light, heavy, or both. is it safe to lift heavy and what is the injury frequency of powerlifting and other types of lifting athletes.
heavy deadlifts are necessary to build maximum strength
a combination of light and heavy deadlifts is probably the best way to make long-term progress
heavy deadlifting is a safe form of exercise.
As with any exercise, you should learn the form and then build up the weight slowly and methodically over time.
The injury rate in weightlifting is one of the lowest of any sport
When are heavy deadlifts most appropriate?
If your goal is to lift as much weight as possible, heavy deadlifts must be part of your training.
Depending on the type of training program, this may have you lifting heavy in the low rep range for 1-5 reps several times a week.
There are other programs that require heavy deadlifts 1-2x/week.
The challenge with doing very heavy deadlifts in a week is that it is a very energy intensive movement that engages many large muscle groups.
I’ve found that if I lift heavy more than twice a week, I need at least 9 hours of sleep every night to feel rested.
At this point in my life, being a new dad, it’s not reallypossible, so my training intensity is a little lower.
I still get one heavy deadlift a week and it’s manageable.
When are light deadlifts most appropriate?
Light deadlifts should be part of any deadlift training program.
Light deadlifts are used on warm-up days, low-intensity days, high-intensity (high-rep) days, and as part of your supplemental training.
Light deadlifts are a great way to work on your form because you can more easily control the weight.
In the program I currently run, most of my work is done at 60-70% of my 1RM, but I do 8-15 reps during each set.
This is still very high intensity, especially on the last set, but it feels less stressful on my joints and you can still build muscle and strength this way.
Strength gains come from being able to do progressively heavier weight, but with more repetitions.
When should a combination of deadlift intensities be included in a training program?
I think most if not all programs should consist of a combination of high and low load.
If you only lift heavy and do this several times a week, this is probably heavier than if you add a day or two of low load training (it can still be high intensity = high RPE)
Helps you get more reps so your body can become more efficient in movement.
The more repetitions you get, the better your body will get the workout.
Is lifting heavy, safe?
Yes, deadlifting is safe.
There is a misconception that lifting heavy objects is the leading cause of injury.
While it is true that it is possible to injure yourself lifting heavy, it is also very possible to injure yourself lifting light.
In fact, the only time I’ve ever experienced back spasms was when I was doing 50% of my 1RM, literally the warm-up weight.
Below I will tell you what the scientific literature says about injuries in powerlifting vs.
What is the injury rate of powerlifting?
“The general consensus is that powerlifters sustain 1.0-5.8 injuries per 1,000 training hours, which equates to 0.3-2.1 injuries per year” – source
In comparison, if you compare powerlifting with alpine skiing, 3.7 injuries per 1,000 hours, or football with 9.6 injuries per 1,000 hours (during practice, 36/1,000 hours in games), powerlifting has the lowest injury rates of any sport.
It’s important to note this because many people are afraid of lifting heavy things for fear of injury, but compared to most other sports, it’s one of the safest things you can do.
He competes in powerlifting and has recently run longer distances, played football and baseball in college, successfully completed one mountain climb (barely), Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog (a memoir about Nike) is his all-time favorite book and captures his own ethos, and few things get him so excited like presenting to groups of people eager to learn about the science of pain and talking about future technology and its integration into health.