Darren, just be careful about doing heavy deadlifts following a speed workout on the track (especially a speed endurance workout). It’s common for the spinal erectors to tighten up significantly following a speed endurance workout. Following up one of these workouts with deadlifts is often a bit much for the spinal erectors and you can end up tearing a muscle.
Mega dittos on this one. You gotta be FRESH on DEADS or you seriously risk injury.
I hate to reply with only “i agree”, but i definately agree with this. Last year i usually did my weights after my track work. After my workouts (which are mostly speed endurance. I am a mid-distance runner) doing hvy deadlifts made my back spasm. Unfortunately, i didn’t realize that deadlifts were causing it for a few weeks. I guess i am a little slow to question the workouts 
I hate to be party pooper, but I actually have had great success deadlifting after speed work. In general, I tend to lift better after speed work due to the CNS activation from the sprinting. Of course a lot of this depends on individual conditioning and work capacity in the lower back, as well as the speed of the runs and the weight being lifted (I don’t claim to be impressive in either department). However, I do agree with the general caution about the fatigue in the lower back, which should be taken into consideration. In fact, this was part of the old Central Drive thread, in which Charlie talked about how he eventually dropped deadlifts from Ben’s training due to the stress on the back muscles from sprinting.
Thinking back to a couple of posts on the old board: Charlie said that some of his sprinters did squats 2x a week and Oly lift 1x a week during max strength phase, switching to Olys 2x a week and squats 1x a week during maintenance. DCW is a fan of deadlifts and power cleans - not squats - for female sprinters.
Combining this we get deads x2 and power cleans x1 during max strength and cleans x 2 and deads x1 during maintenance. Two work sets only for each exercise.
How does this sound for an experienced girl (19) doing no other low back work? Any thoughts Flash, DCW? I don’t want to put 2+2 together and get 5!
I guess it depends on what she can handle. I love deadlifts, but they are taxing. Two dead workouts a week plus olympic pulls might be rough, but of course that depends on total volume, deadlifting volume, intensity, training history, recovery factors, etc. It certainly seems reasonable.
To be honest, I’ve really gotten away from planning weightlifting workouts. I consider it all general now, so I usually just go in after the track and do what feels comfortable on that day. I usually have a rep range in mind and usually limit myself to 1-3 exercises, 2-3 sets each. Other than that, I just wing it, because I honestly don’t know what I can do until after I’ve run.
Snatch Deads: I’m a convert. What a great exercise!
Snatch deadlifts are great. However, they definitely load the lower back more than regular deadlifts. For that reason, they might be better suited for the accumulation period, when there’s less speed work in the program.
Damn - Snatch grip deads gets my vote for the hardest exercise in my training! :mrt:
A definite CNS smacker
I’m looking forward (in a sort of twisted sense of humour) to try snatch deadlift probably during winter.
Looks like they will done as far as way from squats as I can.
Originally posted by ontheball
Combining this we get deads x2 and power cleans x1 during max strength and cleans x 2 and deads x1 during maintenance. Two work sets only for each exercise.
Gordon, what sort of poundages and training experience are we talking?
In max strength phase we lifted twice a week with one power med ball session in between. One was deads one was power cleans.
In maintenance I have removed deads and left power cleans once per week but am still keeping the power med ball session. My reasoning is that in this phase I want to get more speed and want the athlete to be able to direct their available energies this way and the deads can impact on the athlete “opening up”.
dcw
we’re talking 2-3 sets of 6 cleans @ 40-45kg at 54kg bodyweight. Just started deadlifts with a conservative 60kg for same reps.
I like your set-up, which would certainly be easier on the low back … my major concern … as well as leaving plenty energy for speedwork. How many sets/reps would you do
Thanks
I agree…Snatch-Grip Deads are great! This is a great maintenance exercise because it works almost the whole body.
Originally posted by ontheball
I like your set-up, which would certainly be easier on the low back … my major concern … as well as leaving plenty energy for speedwork. How many sets/reps would you doThanks
For us, the sets reps depends on the phase of training. I would do the 2-3 sets of 6 early in the season. Then in max strength phase, something like 3 sets (4,3,2), Maintenance 3 sets (5,4,3).
In the max strength phase, I also quite like a 3 sets of power cleans (6,6,6) approach with 60-70% of max weight on the med ball day in between the two heavy sessions. High speed reps. It seems to have some positive effects with priming the system for the next heavy workout.
Why do you do as many as 6 reps for power cleans?
For me, six reps is about right most of the time for the athlete I’m coaching. More reps might hit the lower back too hard but continually doing 1-3 reps might not keep the work content high enough. Sets of 4 reps during max strength would be fine, still giving us something to taper from during maintenance. It just depends on the individual athlete. However, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with 2-3x6 power cleans IMHO.
form and power output drops quite a bit after the 3rd rep.
Yes! I do multiple sets of 2 or 3 now in just about everything at 60-70%. Its easy when you have something to measure velocity of the bar though.
Although everyone is different
But I’d rather do 6x3, rather than 3x6 that’s for sure. Every rep will crisper and cleaner.
Or you can reset each rep and rest 30 sec or so and do it cluster style.
Who cares about studies, do the exercise and see how it feels, I know personally my form and power output drops after the 3rd rep, regardless of load.
If you have one of those devices that can measure bar speed, then you’ll know for sure. Anyway it just isn’t possible to explode with Maximal force for more than 3 reps and sustain the power output, fast twitch fibers fatigue rapdily. Note the emphasis on maximal - pushing with every single ounce of energy you can muster.
Sure if you “coast” you could do 6 reps and not have power output drop. But then peak power will not be as high.
I find form can suffer after 3 reps on PC’s - but I always do a lighter set of 5 b 4 doing 2 or 3 x 3 , it seems to make the later sets more explosive than if I go in at a higher weight .