Combining Foundation 1 With Deadlift Program

I recently bought the full foundation course, and the material looks fantastic.

My primary focus for the next few years is increasing my deadlift, and I am following steve justa's singles program, which entails finding your 70% 1RM, doing 3 singles on monday, and adding 2 singles everyday until you are doing 15 singles on sunday, 7 days a week/365 days a year.

Due to the relatively low frequency/daily volume, this leaves me feeling very fresh to do other work, especially upper body, and I would like to start at the beginning of foundation 1 and work my way up.

Would following the 3 day a week template in addition to the deadlifts be acceptable? I was thinking I may have to temporarily ignore the SLS elements of the foundation (I would still do the related mobility aspect though). Would this be too much weekly work?

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Thanks

Everything depends on your recoverability. You will have to see how your fatigue levels are and what impace is any is had on your GB work. If you have no interest in testing then dropping the SLS for the deadlifting will help some. I would advise to do a set or two of the SLS for some added balance but no so much to add fatigue if it is taxing for you.

Also are you deadlifting Conventional, Sumo or inbetween (Smolov sumo)? That will play into things a bit also.

I also was planning on not doing the SLS series, as pistol squats are something I can already do just fine.

I have life goals for weighted squatting that don't match up the foundation program, but all my upper body life goals do match up with the foundation program. 

I plan on testing but I don't need to do the SLS series to test out of it. I just need to work on my hip internal rotation mobility and then I can fully test out of F1 SLS. 

I think F1 is a complete program and is intended to be used as a whole.  SLS PEs and iMs in F1 may be required for other movements later on in the foundation series that are not for SLS.  I am doing it all so I know I am being thorough.

I use snatch grip deadlift singles after my lower & core days in F1 rather than a replacement for SLS for this reason.

My first thought is that doing dead-lifts and the sPL progressions at the same time might be really hard on your back. If your dead-lift volume is actually low enough that it doesn't interfere with the sPL progressions, then it won't interfere with the SLS progressions either, so you should not neglect those. Even if you have a mastery of the strength for the SLS exercises, you still need to work through the mobility. And harder SLS elements in the coming foundations may not be as easy as you think.

Have you tried the combination of dead-lift and F1 work yet? If not, I'd try a 4-week cycle where you do dead-lifts and follow the 3-week F1 template. See how that feels and then decide whether you think it will work long term. 

Nic Branson said:

Everything depends on your recoverability. You will have to see how your fatigue levels are and what impace is any is had on your GB work. If you have no interest in testing then dropping the SLS for the deadlifting will help some. I would advise to do a set or two of the SLS for some added balance but no so much to add fatigue if it is taxing for you.

 

Also are you deadlifting Conventional, Sumo or inbetween (Smolov sumo)? That will play into things a bit also.

I'm deadlifting conventional, what was your line of thinking as to how this may affect combining with F1? I'm thinking that as I can already do SLS's fairly comfortably, I may combine the deadlifts with the SLS progressions from the very beginning, and then if I find it get's too taxing once the progressions get harder, drop the volume/frequency of practising SLS, or as you say, just doing a set or two.

Hari_Seldon said:

My first thought is that doing dead-lifts and the sPL progressions at the same time might be really hard on your back. If your dead-lift volume is actually low enough that it doesn't interfere with the sPL progressions, then it won't interfere with the SLS progressions either, so you should not neglect those. Even if you have a mastery of the strength for the SLS exercises, you still need to work through the mobility. And harder SLS elements in the coming foundations may not be as easy as you think.

 

Have you tried the combination of dead-lift and F1 work yet? If not, I'd try a 4-week cycle where you do dead-lifts and follow the 3-week F1 template. See how that feels and then decide whether you think it will work long term. 

Interesting, I didn't consider the sPL progressions being a problem but that makes a lot of sense. I'll try what you suggest and report back in a month.

Thanks

Conventional DL will tax the lower back more, so keep mind to pay attention to your leg drive when deadlifting and also your lower back recovery. Your individual capability will decide how well you recover from it. Start conservative, you can always add later.

If you had said sumo then the back fatigue is less but you would need to watch hip and glute more so.