Thoughts on high frequency deadlifting?

[SSJBartSimpson]

Obviously the schematic of low frequency high intensity deadlifting has been around for a long time and lots of people have had success with it. Anyone here had success with more frequent and lower intensity deadlifting? Multiple times a week, multiple sets x reps?
Guys like Matt Vena advocate for that, and it seems to me to be more common with lighter weight competitors. (An observation I think I see, not sure what the numbers actually are).

[dw]

High frequency low RPE can work for everything imo for strength training.

Greg Nuckols templates skew in that direction.

[CaptainAwesome]

It's hard to really say, squatting and deadlifting often overlap so much. You have to appreciate that once you get decently strong at deadlifts though they seem to require you to be very mindful of how often you do them heavy. If you do wanna do them more often, you probably need to dial back intensity quite a bit. I can't say if that will lead to good results, but it will definitely be needed for recovery's sake, unless you are omitting any kind of heavy squatting. The only times I've been able to deadlift with frequency and succeed at progressing were when I was a novice (deadlifting from mid 200s to mid 300s), and when I dropped squatting entirely from my programming to do lighter box squats on account of a chronic knee injury.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

If you're doing comp deadlift on one day and a deadlift variant on the other days do you count this as high frequency ? Also, what percentage do you consider "high intensity" ?

[MarkKO]

Obviously the schematic of low frequency high intensity deadlifting has been around for a long time and lots of people have had success with it. Anyone here had success with more frequent and lower intensity deadlifting? Multiple times a week, multiple sets x reps?
Guys like Matt Vena advocate for that, and it seems to me to be more common with lighter weight competitors. (An observation I think I see, not sure what the numbers actually are).

I certainly haven't, but a lot of how successful that approach could be is going to depend on what you're trying to achieve.

If you're a full power competitor, it probably isn't going to work particularly well because the high frequency pulls will likely get in the way of squatting. You might get away with it if you're built to deadlift to an almost ridiculous degree, with a very short torso and arms that hang to your knees. You'd also have to be technically perfect. Arguably, in that scenario if you pull sumo and squat with a wide stance you might do quite well because the deadlift would work to drive the squat as well and you could limit squatting to a few sets a week just for technique practice.

If you were a deadlift only PLer or a push/puller there would be absolutely no reason it wouldn't work because any squatting you did would be relegated to accessory work.

If you weren't a powerlifter at all, again there is no reason it wouldn't work because you could set your training up however you needed to accomodate the high frequency pulling.

@CaptainAwesome is also right about there being a difference between someone whose DL isn't very strong and someone who is moving significant weight. If you're looking at low intensity being in the 50-70% range, you'd probably be OK if your max is 600 pounds or less. At most you'd be using 420 lbs in training. Anecdotally, a 550-600 pounds max is where I've found deadlift training has to change a little assuming you're squatting as well.

On the other hand, if you look at strongman training it almost always involves some kind of lift off the ground, but most of that is at relatively very low intensity compared to what their standard deadlift is and you're not going to find a better puller than a strongman competitor. However, squatting isn't generally a particularly important event and is just an accessory movement. So it does seem to come back to what you do with squats.

[houzi]

Obviously the schematic of low frequency high intensity deadlifting has been around for a long time and lots of people have had success with it. Anyone here had success with more frequent and lower intensity deadlifting? Multiple times a week, multiple sets x reps?
Guys like Matt Vena advocate for that, and it seems to me to be more common with lighter weight competitors. (An observation I think I see, not sure what the numbers actually are).

I sort of tried it in the tail end of 2021, I had a primary deadlift day (Conv.)and two lighter deadlift days (RDL, Pause Squat and SLDL). It didnt move the needle at all for me, however i used the AtS2.0 template and perhaps that choice was the problem but there were likely other factors at work too. I think I would have made more progress training 1x a week, as I am now. Im also not built for deadlifts: Im tall, long torso and my arms arents particularly long with a lockout just below groin height.
I think the more suited you are for deadlifts, the higher success you would likely have: short torso, long arms, sumo stance. However, I am sure there are outliers out there.
As for people who I have seen on social media who have used a high frequency approach with deadlifts, Blaine Sumner seems to have used high frequency while doing full power meets in the past. Chris Duffin also did a deadlift-only challenge and was pulling insane deadlifts 2-3x a week. Lots of his training logs online.
Finally, there was a bloke on reddit who did Deadlifts everyday Bulgarian method-style for 2 months and hit some big PRs (700 range). Search about for Overtrained Deadlift Every Day DLED, it should turn up.

[Hardartery]

It depends onyour goal. If bumping your 1RM is your goal, it's probably the wrong plan for you except maybe in an early hypertrophy block. It will make you good at reps, and probably help your overall form, but it is unlikely to work at 70%1RM or greater and natty. I'm not arguing about natty or not tweaks for whatever program, it is largely irrelevant, but you CAN actually push volume/frequency with NOS and under 80%1RM work. You go over 80% and you run into CNS recovery issues as the barrier with high frequncy.
Duffing was openly very gassed, and claimed to be pulling avery day, and I am certain that he was not pulling many reps per session. It's a very different approach than most of the high frequency plans. He also wasn't really doing anything else so that all if his recovery was focussed on that one thing.
My personal experience from tha pandemic restricted lifting experiment is that there is way less overlap between Squat and Deadlift than everyone likes to think. Working one is NOT working the other. One can be relegated to accessory status and work just fine, but you are definitely fooling yourself if you decide that you can pick one and have real carryover to the other. The carryover is pretty minimal. If your concern is not 1RM and you can keep the ego in check you will make some gains for a while on high frequency without appreciable loss of 1RM, at least not a loss that you can't recover from quickly in a peaking cycle.

[ChasingCurls69]

Obviously the schematic of low frequency high intensity deadlifting has been around for a long time and lots of people have had success with it. Anyone here had success with more frequent and lower intensity deadlifting? Multiple times a week, multiple sets x reps?
Guys like Matt Vena advocate for that, and it seems to me to be more common with lighter weight competitors. (An observation I think I see, not sure what the numbers actually are).

I've had my best deadlift performances pulling 3x/week leading into meet, and squatting 3x/week during these same blocks. There's been a few configurations for me, but usually it's a typical competition DL day, a DL variation with lighter top set+volume at 65-75% e1rm, and another DL variation that is just ramping sets up to 4-5@6-7.

With my tested DL max in the 622-635 range I was doing 14-15 sets per week across these 3 days, and most of the volume was in the 381-440 range for those load limiting DL variations. The 3rd DL can be something like paused haltings if you run into issues with back fatigue.

So far I haven't really had any of the lifters I coach do this, but mostly because they've consistently gotten stronger from 1-2 days and it was unnecessary. But I have a strong preference towards 3x/week because I really enjoy deadlifting so it's fun to benefit from doing it more.

[SSJBartSimpson]

If you're doing comp deadlift on one day and a deadlift variant on the other days do you count this as high frequency ? Also, what percentage do you consider "high intensity" ?

Yes! Most programs I've seen do it like this way.
I'm no authority, but probably 1-5 reps at anywhere >80% of 1RM.

And for clarity, as far as goals I was asking this question in regards to increasing your 1RM on your comp. lift.

[SSJBartSimpson]

Very interesting perspectives, funny how they can be so different.

[CaptainAwesome]

Very interesting perspectives, funny how they can be so different.

Well, that's the other weird part of this whole thing and programming in general. Responses can vary. Something that works great for one guy can work not so great for another. Great cardinal rule I've found for programming when it comes to how much work you're doing on something is that if it's stuck you probably need more, and if something starts going backwards you probably need less. It can be hard to recognize and differentiate the two, but it's your best bet for finding your way around. I have yet to find any other reliable indicators for what kind of programming works best for a person, and I've really tried. If you're young, you can probably get away with aiming high and titrating down, and if you're not, you should probably err towards aiming low and titrating up. The further back my novice gains are behind me, the more I'm convinced this entire game is a LOT of trial and error.

[dw]

Very interesting perspectives, funny how they can be so different.

Well, that's the other weird part of this whole thing and programming in general. Responses can vary. Something that works great for one guy can work not so great for another. Great cardinal rule I've found for programming when it comes to how much work you're doing on something is that if it's stuck you probably need more, and if something starts going backwards you probably need less. It can be hard to recognize and differentiate the two, but it's your best bet for finding your way around. I have yet to find any other reliable indicators for what kind of programming works best for a person, and I've really tried. If you're young, you can probably get away with aiming high and titrating down, and if you're not, you should probably err towards aiming low and titrating up. The further back my novice gains are behind me, the more I'm convinced this entire game is a LOT of trial and error.

I use this formula as well.

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

If you're doing comp deadlift on one day and a deadlift variant on the other days do you count this as high frequency ? Also, what percentage do you consider "high intensity" ?

Yes! Most programs I've seen do it like this way.
I'm no authority, but probably 1-5 reps at anywhere >80% of 1RM.

And for clarity, as far as goals I was asking this question in regards to increasing your 1RM on your comp. lift.

I have had good success with something like that over my last blocks:
DAY 1: Comp deadlift 1@8 4x6@75%e1RM
DAY 2: deadlift variant 8@6 8@7 8@8 8@6
DAY 3: glute Ham Raise 4x10-20
Per your definitions this is "high frequency" but not really "high intensity with high frequency".

[CheekiBreekiFitness]

Very interesting perspectives, funny how they can be so different.

Well, that's the other weird part of this whole thing and programming in general. Responses can vary. Something that works great for one guy can work not so great for another. Great cardinal rule I've found for programming when it comes to how much work you're doing on something is that if it's stuck you probably need more, and if something starts going backwards you probably need less. It can be hard to recognize and differentiate the two, but it's your best bet for finding your way around. I have yet to find any other reliable indicators for what kind of programming works best for a person, and I've really tried. If you're young, you can probably get away with aiming high and titrating down, and if you're not, you should probably err towards aiming low and titrating up. The further back my novice gains are behind me, the more I'm convinced this entire game is a LOT of trial and error.

Yep, trial and error combined with fancy guessing.

[Hardartery]

Very interesting perspectives, funny how they can be so different.

Everybody is a little different. Training history, fibre types, technique, insertions...it all created variety. I suck at reps above 5, period. Somebody that is better at 5-10 reps is going to need to train quite a bit differently than me. I'm also 50, so my recovery is not what say a 30 year-olds recovery is. If I do a heavy session, I am going to feel it for a few days. My muscles are fine the next day, but I am not recovered. For me, my Squat day is my main lower day but it is really an accessory day for DL, even though I am hitting squats more frequently than DL. For me, that accessory is more important right now because I have an obvious deficiency holding back my DL and that is hopefully going to address it. When I hit DL's or a variation 3x a week I went backwards. My capacity went up a little, but my max went down.

[Hamburgerfan]

I don't like it and never got good results from it. I know the new conventional wisdom is that the deadlift can be trained as frequently as any other lift, but it never seemed to work out that way for me. I invariably felt like shit, didn't get stronger, and became more susceptible to minor injuries and tweaks. Might be different if you aren't squatting or if you're keeping the volume/intensity very low on any given workout.

[cz]

Take a look at this study. The participants trained SBD three days per week with high volume and increased their deadlift maxes over a 16 week period on average by 76.9%. The results might be fabricated because they sound too good to be true, but I know of some lifters who tried the protocol and while they didn't match the inconceivable results from the study, they still made some pretty good gains.

[CaptainAwesome]

Take a look at this study. The participants trained SBD three days per week with high volume and increased their deadlift maxes over a 16 week period on average by 76.9%. The results might be fabricated because they sound too good to be true, but I know of some lifters who tried the protocol and while they didn't match the inconceivable results from the study, they still made some pretty good gains.

Subject selection says they're "elite powerlifters", but I'm not so sure. The average first assessment of 1rm deadlift was 291 pounds. That is not what you'd get from a group of elite male powerlifters, even at lighter weight classes.

[DanCR]

Lolz.

[cz]

Take a look at this study. The participants trained SBD three days per week with high volume and increased their deadlift maxes over a 16 week period on average by 76.9%. The results might be fabricated because they sound too good to be true, but I know of some lifters who tried the protocol and while they didn't match the inconceivable results from the study, they still made some pretty good gains.

Subject selection says they're "elite powerlifters", but I'm not so sure. The average first assessment of 1rm deadlift was 291 pounds. That is not what you'd get from a group of elite male powerlifters, even at lighter weight classes.

I know, but the point I was trying to make is that if they were able to do this protocol (maybe with some Vitamin S in the mix) with Squats and Deadlifts in the same session three times per week, then it should be doable for a natty with Deadlifts only and maybe some light Squats for maintenance. And OP doesn't have to do the same amount of volume. His question was about success with more frequent and lower intensity deadlifting, and this is one example where it worked great. The first two blocks (10 sets of 6 @65% and 8 sets of 4 @75%) are basically the same as Hanleys HVLF training.