There really is nothing more primal than ripping a massively heavy weight off the floor, so every serious lifter should be able to deadlift at least a respectable weight! I find that a lot of novice and intermediate guys often underestimate how much progress they can make on this lift in the medium and short term, because frankly, deadlifts hit different. They're just fucking hard. The max outs are hard, the work required to build it is hard, and they often make you really damn sore as well!

But with a slight re-calibration in mindset, and little bit of judicious effort, most of us can, ultimately, vastly exceed our initial expectations in terms of what's possible for our deadlifting strength.

So today we will be discussing a few exercises and techniques aimed at helping you to build a bigger, stronger back and posterior chain, and move more weight through the deadlift pattern.

Up to this point, most of this series has covered movements and assistance exercises that are designed to build the target exercise. In this case, however, the best movement to build a big deadlift...is probably the submaximal deadlift!

Now hear me out: within the context of a properly designed strength training program, you don't have to do anything crazy or include any fancy exercises to build a big deadlift. All you have to do is log a bunch of high quality, submaximal reps and the deadlift will come along for the ride. The thing is, a strong person will automatically have a BIG DEADLIFT by default.

Sure, depending on your leverages and the techniques you employ, there's voodoo magic that you can perform to materialize a big deadlift even if you aren't actually all that strong. But, conversely, a strong person will always have a big deadlift by default. If you don't have a big deadlift, then you aren't strong. Point blank.

And the thing is, most people deadlift too heavy, too often. They hamstring their own progress by overshooting on what is in reality probably the single most taxing weight room movement that you can perform. It can literally take a weeks to bounce back to full strength after a taxing deadlifting session. You cannot say this about any other exercise!

So what I like to do is create a strength training program that makes people strong in general, and along with that I give them a moderate dose of submaximal deadlifting for months at a time. Now what happens is these people get very, very good at deadlifting. They build a lot of skill at the movement while they are also getting very strong in general.

So with this approach we can often take a guy who I have never had do rep work with more than 3 plates, let him test the waters one day as we conclude a training cycle, and find that he can easily deadlift 400 or even 450 pounds. When we get that same guy repping in the mid or high 300's at the same RPE's, suddenly he's a 500 pound deadlifter without even ever having done a rep with 400 pounds in his life.

This approach also leaves the future wide open because now we have all this big ace card up our sleeve. As we gradually titrate the average intensity level of the workload up over time, instead of using solely submaximal work in our training, we can expect another big round of gains quite predictably.

So never underestimate the utility or value of submaximal deadlifting work. I have seen it build big deadlifters time and time again. The context of the program is important, as you must be getting very generally strong at the same time. But a strong person will always have a big deadlift.

Once you have become a highly skilled deadlifter there is also going to be immense value in using other movements to build the strength and size of the deadlifting muscles in order to raise the ceiling of your deadlifting potential.

In this case, pure hinging movements, such as good morning and Romanian deadlift variations, are going to yield the greatest long term carryover into the deadlift because they absolutely trash the erectors, the hamstrings, and the glutes. The inclusion of a true eccentric phase in these movements, where the muscles are lengthened to end range under massive loads, is good for hypertrophy, as well as building hamstring strength, mobility, and resilience.

My personal favorite of these hinging variations is the SSB good morning, specifically done to pins. The SSB emphasizes the upper back in a way that a straight bar cannot mimic, and the inclusion of the pins adds a dead stop component that yields higher carryover and specificity to deadlifting.

You can also grade the range of motion this way and train multiple different pin heights, which is another nice benefit of using pin lifts. But you can't really go wrong here! Regular good mornings with the straight bar or the SSB are also great, as are pin good mornings with the straight bar. 

Romanian deadlifts offer up slightly different benefits from good mornings. They tax the upper back less because the bar is in your hands rather than on your shoulders, but with that, there is slightly more specificity to deadlifting.

They also require far more weight than good mornings because the lever arm acting on the hips is much smaller. This favorable leverage is a good thing when implemented judiciously. I like to use a deficit here, either by taking a snatch grip or standing on a platform. This increases the range of motion that's available and is useful from a resilience perspective as well as for hypertrophy.

No matter what your favorites are, you should hinge often, you should hinge with a high level of effort, and you should rotate through multiple different variations over time to become strong and skilled at all of them.

Finally, we have perhaps the most controversial thing I'm going to say today:

If you want to build a big deadlift you should become a strong, skilled, and prolific front squatter. 

Now, I already know front squats are worthless, only Olympic weightlifters should do them, they have no value for strongman or powerlifting or bodybuilding, and they offer absolutely nothing that you can't get from a high bar back squat. And even that they do far less efficiently!

See, I know all of this, but I still can't help myself. Instead, I feel compelled to tell you that if you can learn to love front squats you will be rewarded with:

• A stronger lockout on your deadlift, courtesy of the massive strengthening effect that front squats have on the erectors, specifically in the upper region of the back.

• A stronger pull off the floor courtesy of the enhanced leg drive you will be able to generate due to now having quads that are actually strong. 

• Better positioning during your heavy pulls

This enhanced quad and erector strength will lead to being able to hold better positioning off the floor, which will increase your efficiency up the chain of the movement pattern. Better position off the floor →  better position at the transition over the knees → better position at lockout.

All of this means you will no longer be that guy who thinks they can break any weight off the floor but just "has a weak lockout and if you could only fix your lockout issue then you'd finally be a respectable deadlifter." Show me someone with a "weak lockout" and I'll show you someone who has terrible positioning off the floor. End rant.

Basically, if you want a big deadlift you should learn to love the front squat. Get good at it, get strong at it, and you will be rewarded with a cleaner and stronger deadlift. All of that among the thousand other benefits that front squats already offer. Yes, I'm still rolling my eyes at that lame ass Mike Israetel cope video.

So there ya go! 3 exercises that will make you a far more skilled and stronger deadlifter while also blowing up your back and posterior chain, and making you a much more resilient, well rounded, and versatile lifter in general.

Keep training hard and I will catch you guys next time!