So you could only max at 225 when you began (meaning your lifts would have been well under the 300lb range for a while), or you just had never tried before? Pretty incredible if true, maybe you should powerlift.
why compromise back stiffness and mobility using heavy deadlift?
i can hear all of my athletes complaining because of doing over 90% on DL
please dont skin cats!!!
225 was not my max. -S
The only time there was ever any back stiffness was when I tried to do consecutive days with about 400+. Other then that I had no problems.-S
Just to clear up some misconceptions of the Ross Dlift protocol.
-
He does not recommend that you Dlift 3X per week. He just states that he doesn’t have any problem with his students going 3X per week. Every athlete is different and responds differently to various stimuli.
-
Don’t forget that the Ross protocol when deadlifting is that you drop the bar at the top. This saves some energy.
-
Ross did say Green, Powell or Gatlin may have run faster if they deadlifted…but he also said they may not have any effect as well!.. in the same sentence.
-
Ross sees nothing wrong with squats. Squats will make you stronger just like deadlifts. The reason he advocates DL’s over Squats is for a couple of reasons. Less time under load. (if you drop the weight!) Dlifts will get you strong faster vs Squats but there is nothing stated that says DL’s will get you stronger than squats. DL’s are easier to learn…less technical, and with squats you need more equipment and you probably need a squatter unless you have the right equipment.
-
If you are deadlifting or squatting, the plyometrics you perform are just as important. You still need to utilize your new found strength into a quicker elastic response.
In my humble opinion you cannot get faster without doing heavy squats. The key is to not gain weight while getting stronger.
Extra weight will slow you down.
And the only way to get stronger is to do heavy weights with minimal reps.
The absolute best equipment for this is the powerrack, since you dont need a spotter.
That is not true. In his supposed Felix program he did this, he has said before you can deadlift as many times as you wish (I have seen him on his board before say 4 is possible and easy to implement).
- Ross did say Green, Powell or Gatlin may have run faster if they deadlifted…but he also said they may not have any effect as well!.. in the same sentence.
Actually, he said this after. Before, he said they WOULD run faster, positively. He changed his wording when people asked where his athletes were. By the way, just some info for you. On his board, he boasts about have 2 great athletes in Felix and that Olear girl. Funny that he takes credit for Olear when she was 4th at CA states as a FRESHMAN in the 200m before him and her first year in his training program she suffered a hamstring injury (he criticizes other programs for injuries, yet Felix had 3 under him and Olear had one her first season under him, all hamstring injuries).
Oh ya, I spoke with people from the Felix family and they said she had back pain and stiffness the whole time she was under Ross, but refused to complain because of her attitude. They said it took months for this to finally go away (only after leaving him as a coach).
- Ross sees nothing wrong with squats. Squats will make you stronger just like deadlifts. The reason he advocates DL’s over Squats is for a couple of reasons. Less time under load. (if you drop the weight!) Dlifts will get you strong faster vs Squats but there is nothing stated that says DL’s will get you stronger than squats. DL’s are easier to learn…less technical, and with squats you need more equipment and you probably need a squatter unless you have the right equipment.
Question, how will they make you strong than squats will? I heard this garbage before. While my deadlift increased, all other lifts stayed the same or went down. When doing squats, all lifts for me have gone up, including deadlift. I also didn’t add as much hypertrophy to the lower back and my hamstrings and leg muscles were stronger when doing squats vs deadlifts.
- If you are deadlifting or squatting, the plyometrics you perform are just as important. You still need to utilize your new found strength into a quicker elastic response.
Why do you have to do them immediately after the set? To bring science into it (since Ross loves to), where is the proof for this method? Why within 1 minute of each set?
What about “TIME UNDER TENSION”? I along with several world class sprinters who i’ve been fortunate enough to strength train, experienced gains in muscle size using low reps/heavy weight… that was similar to performing a Hypertrophy phase. Some individuals (Fast twitch) will grow regardless of what reps/sets are used as long as the muscle is forced to work within the same time period.
Please give this some serious thought.
carl lewis.
if u analyze the current body type of a top 100 metre man he is not as bulky as yester-years,
moreover, lean and top light.
asafa powell, for example from waist down he is
thick in the butt area, but lean in the leg area,
and upper body is half of justin gatlin, yet he is
on paper the better athlete.
squatting may help your first 20 metres, but after wards, its all hamstrings baby.
a samantha fox would say.
“make it fast, make it last”.
ciao
its interesting to me that Barry Ross would say to deadlift so often to improve sprinting speed.
If you turn this on its head it becomes - improve your deadlift = improve your sprint speed.
Any pl’ers i know preach to me about box squats and how they improve their deadlift so much.
So is it not reasonable to use box squats over deadlifts??
Personally i cant do anything after a session of deads for about a week. But box squats i can recover from much easier even with high %'s
Its a strange one - because its like using something to improve something to improve something. When do you stop breaking things down?
I agree withj most of what Barry Ross says except that I’d subsitute the deadlift with the squat.
http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/269/
His rule of doing heavy weights for minimum reps is absolutely spot on
I’ve read it before and i know its old but i just cant get my head around the reason for writing that article
there is nothing special about it at all.
It common sense that gains in strength must be balanced with gains in BW.
Also where is the actual running in the program? None seems obvious to me. Are olympic sprint medals won solely in the weights room? i doubt it…
And its not “his” rule. Its no-ones rule. Its surely common knowledge for over 50 yrs ar this stage…
But still many athletes trained the wrong way by doing too low of weight for too many reps
I think the running is obvious, so why bother mention it???
Maybe so, but if its common knowledge then why do so many athletes still train the wrong way??!!!
yes its true that running is obviously a part of the program but what exactly and when more importantly.
It just seems to me like a nothing article. No disrespect to the man - im sure he’s an excellent coach but that article kinda seems to be a one size fits all solution which is just not the case in a lot of situations. And its not even complete as it doenst even mention a running program yet the way its phrased it seems like a complete program…
Personally i feel the deadlift is a poor choice of exercise. for me it’d be the clean or the box squat.
As i said i just think its incomplete and not worded as well as it could be. I totally agree with MSF though
You gotta look at who the program is geared toward. It seems to be mainly written for high school kids. A total newbie kid or novice coach who doesn’t know how to use weights to develop his speed would learn alot from Ross’s book. He’s not going to go read Supertraining, he just needs something simple that can help.
Verkhoshansky’s “sprint / acceleration” programs don’t have any speed work either.
if they want to be a good coach or athlete they will seek out every venue for information including supertraining.
MSF ??? 
Not as your first book. You have to start somewhere manageable, c’mon.