Reactive Training Systems

jamwithtupac · Veteran Member

rackpulls or reverse band deadlifts?

deanredzic · Veteran Member

You will hit a better groove with the reverse band, the rack pull is hard to set up in the correct position.

Date: Mar 27, 2009

how do you set up reverse bands? I need the bar to be off bands at around mid shin dont i how high so I set pints to wrap the band around? also what colour band to use

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

You'll have to play around with setups because everyone will be different b/c of height, rack height, leg length, band length, etc.

And if memory serves, you deadlift conventional, correct? I have found that in almost every case, a top end weakness from a conventional dl'er has more to do with being in a bad pulling position rather than a strength deficiency -- i.e. if they fixed their position, the top would be easy and in many cases they'd hit a PR.

JordanLinteris · Senior Member

For Mike,
Sorry I dont want to steal this thread, just perhaps add on to it....
You just brought up a very interesting point of perhaps not being weak on lockouts, but just being in an improper position. I think you saw my vid of my 765 pull. My lockout was pretty tough, and it felt like it was a large movement to lockout. Was this because of improper positioning? It looks that I might be leaning to far forward at the start of the pull. I think I might need to focus on keeping more upright to begin. If you get a chance to take a look and break it down that would be cool. I am sure others have the same issues who pull conventional.

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

It's very difficult to tell from this angle. If it's shot from the side, I can see a lot more.

Usually, people that have trouble at the bottom are pulling very flat-backed with lots of knee bend. If you have trouble at lockout, often, it's because you start off round-backed (which for some reason seems to help people off the floor, but when it gets about knee level, they die). That's not considering levers, either -- some people just have weird levers, but this is typically what I see.

Tony Parrella · Senior Member

i have used below knee rack pulls for a while and i think because you start in a strange position that alone helps to build strength. me personally i pull conventional and im usually slow off the floor but my midrange is strong and that helps put me in a good position to lock the weight out. Ive never done reverse bands but you may get more out of the rack pulls. If you have access to chains as well those will get your lockout going.

Little D.J. · Member

LOLOL! yea tony loves the chains!!

Yea tony and i (before i got hurt) always did rack pulls. We train in 8 week cycles. My best raw pull is 640 which i got from alternating heavy below the knee rack pulls with heavy pulls off a 4 inch block every other week (just completely dominating both ends of the lift to there extremes ya know). Than i did an 8 week cycle just for the hell of it where i did a week off the 4 inch block and than the opposite week i pulled of the floor with bands....i ended hitting a hard 600, no where NEAR 640. I think you'd be much better off working in the rack bro. Do midshin and below knee work. ABove knee is cool once every 8-12 weeks or so because your gonna jack up like 250 lbs more than u can deadlift which is cool to just completley shock your body, but they wont transfer over to your overall deadlift.
Have fun with it man, mess around with different rack heights and stuff, you'll enjoy it a lot. Band pulls, id just use for speed work, but they should be NO substitute for heavy straight weight rack work IMO.

jamwithtupac · Veteran Member

Mike Tuchscherer wrote:

It's very difficult to tell from this angle. If it's shot from the side, I can see a lot more.

Usually, people that have trouble at the bottom are pulling very flat-backed with lots of knee bend. If you have trouble at lockout, often, it's because you start off round-backed (which for some reason seems to help people off the floor, but when it gets about knee level, they die). That's not considering levers, either -- some people just have weird levers, but this is typically what I see.

Yes Mike I am a conventional deadlifter, ok I know I had problems with form but changed it and its not that bad, but never tried lockout work, so I guess that can help to lockout heavy weight, I dont think form is everything as not everyone is perfect, and Ive lifted for a while to know when I have to change things around. Never done lockout work, so trying it now.

JordanLinteris · Senior Member

jamwithtupac wrote:

Mike Tuchscherer wrote:

It's very difficult to tell from this angle. If it's shot from the side, I can see a lot more.

Usually, people that have trouble at the bottom are pulling very flat-backed with lots of knee bend. If you have trouble at lockout, often, it's because you start off round-backed (which for some reason seems to help people off the floor, but when it gets about knee level, they die). That's not considering levers, either -- some people just have weird levers, but this is typically what I see.

Yes Mike I am a conventional deadlifter, ok I know I had problems with form but changed it and its not that bad, but never tried lockout work, so I guess that can help to lockout heavy weight, I dont think form is everything as not everyone is perfect, and Ive lifted for a while to know when I have to change things around. Never done lockout work, so trying it now.

I disagree. I think FORM IS EVERYTHING. I have had far too many injuries in the past to say that. You will not get proper leverages, or safety in your lifts without it.

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

jamwithtupac wrote:

Mike Tuchscherer wrote:

It's very difficult to tell from this angle. If it's shot from the side, I can see a lot more.

Usually, people that have trouble at the bottom are pulling very flat-backed with lots of knee bend. If you have trouble at lockout, often, it's because you start off round-backed (which for some reason seems to help people off the floor, but when it gets about knee level, they die). That's not considering levers, either -- some people just have weird levers, but this is typically what I see.

Yes Mike I am a conventional deadlifter, ok I know I had problems with form but changed it and its not that bad, but never tried lockout work, so I guess that can help to lockout heavy weight, I dont think form is everything as not everyone is perfect, and Ive lifted for a while to know when I have to change things around. Never done lockout work, so trying it now.

I'm not singling you out on the form issue. I'm saying this is a general problem I've seen from conventional deadlifters at large.

Form (as it's tailored to fit your levers) IS everything if your interest is pulling as much as you can in a competitive setting. If you just want to manhandle weight, that's your issue. But you'd manhandle more weight if you used perfect form. Can you ever achieve perfect form? Yes, you can, but it takes more than most are willing to put in (even me at times). The thing is you may think you need lockout work, but all you need to to is tweak your technique and your lockout is suddenly a powerhouse and you need to work your off-the-floor strength. I'm just saying that you have to be open to all approaches.

But then again, what do I know?

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

Little D.J. wrote:

LOLOL! yea tony loves the chains!!

Yea tony and i (before i got hurt) always did rack pulls. We train in 8 week cycles. My best raw pull is 640 which i got from alternating heavy below the knee rack pulls with heavy pulls off a 4 inch block every other week (just completely dominating both ends of the lift to there extremes ya know). Than i did an 8 week cycle just for the hell of it where i did a week off the 4 inch block and than the opposite week i pulled of the floor with bands....i ended hitting a hard 600, no where NEAR 640. I think you'd be much better off working in the rack bro. Do midshin and below knee work. ABove knee is cool once every 8-12 weeks or so because your gonna jack up like 250 lbs more than u can deadlift which is cool to just completley shock your body, but they wont transfer over to your overall deadlift.
Have fun with it man, mess around with different rack heights and stuff, you'll enjoy it a lot. Band pulls, id just use for speed work, but they should be NO substitute for heavy straight weight rack work IMO.

Again, not trying to single out anyone's experience, but please consider the possibility that more is at play than just the exercises here. Just a couple of things that could have happened (off the top of my head):
Maybe your efficiency in the contest movement tanked
Maybe your preparedness tanked from doing 2 8-week comp cycles concurrently
Maybe your functional state was crappy because of... any of a million possibilities
Maybe the band tension used caused the load to be too high
Maybe the protocol was changed (you would know) that resulted in too much volume/intensity/training stress
Maybe your squat/bench program changed that drew too much from your current adaptive reserves

Again, not singling out your experience, but this does happen a lot -- when we try something and it doesn't work the way we think it should, we scrap it without considering the other variables at play. I'm guilty of this too from time to time. If you had changed any of a number of variables, maybe it would've worked like a charm. I'm just saying there's nothing magical about a rack pull or band deadlifts. They are like medicine. If you give viagra to an AIDS patient and the patient isn't healed, does the medicine not work or is the doctor an idiot?

jamwithtupac · Veteran Member

I'm not singling you out on the form issue. I'm saying this is a general problem I've seen from conventional deadlifters at large.

Form (as it's tailored to fit your levers) IS everything if your interest is pulling as much as you can in a competitive setting. If you just want to manhandle weight, that's your issue. But you'd manhandle more weight if you used perfect form. Can you ever achieve perfect form? Yes, you can, but it takes more than most are willing to put in (even me at times). The thing is you may think you need lockout work, but all you need to to is tweak your technique and your lockout is suddenly a powerhouse and you need to work your off-the-floor strength. I'm just saying that you have to be open to all approaches.

But then again, what do I know?

Yeah I agree think Im worried about losing speed off the floor, I got strong legs so I expect to have good speed off the ground. What do you think of the ed coan conventional style technique? I use to do this before untill some powerlifters said I shouldnt do that, but I liked it and felt more fluid as I got down closer to the ground.

And Im sure it made my back pretty flat and not curved, maybe I should go back to that again.

Ok mike Im going to post a video of my deadlift pass and one failed so you can see what happened, as you see in both speed off ground is fast

the first attempt was a 220kg pb, 10kg pb, the 2nd attempt was a 240kg attempt would have been a 30kg PB. What do you guys think. Cna you see the reasoning behind me wanting to do lockout work, my knees started caving a bit on 2nd lift which is why I failed it but speed was fast.

-- Edited by Mike Tuchscherer on Monday 30th of March 2009 12:00:53 PM

-- Edited by Mike Tuchscherer on Monday 30th of March 2009 12:02:41 PM

jamwithtupac · Veteran Member

also Ive added exercises back into my arson which brought my deadlift up in the first place such as romanian deadlifts use to do 3 sets of 10 after deadlifting, this should bring up weaknesses again

Mike Tuchscherer · Guru

Just like with Jordan's videos, I can't tell a lot from the front. It's hard to tell what position you are in when you start and when the bar passes your knees.

Regarding Ed's style of pulling, that may or may not be something for you to immitate. Ed has developed his own style (Ricky Crain talks about this: there is proper technique and then style differences within proper technique). Ed also has control over his inefficiencies, and as a result, they aren't inefficient for him anymore. If you do the same, that's fine. My setup on conventional pulling is probably not 100% efficient, but I have control over it and it is well rehersed, so it helps me rather than hurts me (style). So, if you can do the same, great. It's time to be honest with yourself too, because if you're not, it will only result in less weight lifted.

Back to your videos: I'm not saying lockout work without a doubt won't help you. Given enough evidence, I could make a fairly accurate assessment of whether it would or not, but I'm not real interested in that. I'm more interested in teaching you how to make the assessment, which is why I'm being so difficult.
So, will lockout work help? Maybe, but like my doctor's analogy before, first we should get an accurate diagnosis of the problem, then figure out the proper treatment. You mention adding RDL back to your program. I understand this has worked in the past, but it may or may not work now. I would say since you pull conventional, there will be *some* neuromuscular efficiency gained, but the real purpose is to drive morphological changes. If that's what you need, then this has a better chance of working (provided nothing else in the program takes away from it overall).

As I've said before, weakness correction is about so much more than just doing work for triceps and hamstrings.

I'm going to leave it at that for now. Let me know if this is making sense and we can explore it further if you like.