Deadlifts with short rest times?

Hi,

I'm currently doing deadlifts where I do 3 sets of 5 reps. My rest time between sets is around 5 minutes. Every week I try to increase the weight with 2kg and so far it's going well. Including warmup sets, I'm probably spending about 30 minutes (or more) just on deadlifts alone, which is a long time.

If I would reduce the rest periods to, for instance, 1 minute between sets, and correspondingly also reduce the amount of weight I'm lifting (f.e. 20% less), will I still be able to make a weekly progress of 2kg?

An example will make it perhaps more clear.

Currently I'm lifting 120kg for 3x5 reps with 5 minutes rest, and I built up to it like this:

...
Week 1: 110kg 3x5, 5 min. rest between sets
Week 2: 112kg ...
Week 3: 114kg ...
Week 4: 116kg ...
...

If I would reduce the weight to for instance 100kg and the rest time to 1 minute, can I expect to do the following:

Week 1: 100kg 3x5, 1 min. rest between sets
Week 2: 102kg 3x5 ...
Week 3: 104kg 3x5 ...
Week 4: 106kg 3x5 ...


I wouldn't mind lifting a bit less (20% less for instance), as long as I would still make similar increases in progress compared to what I'm doing now, and in the mean time cut down the total training time.

The question came up because I'm following F1 and the rest periods there are also short and still I'm making good progress.

So, would this also apply to deadlifts or will I stall and should I stick to what i'm doing?

Thanks,
Mark

 

Rest periods of 5min will allow you to do more (max) strength based training.

Rest periods of 1min will be training more strength-endurance.

It depends on what your goals are and how much you value the time decrease. You could probably make similar progress.

I agree with Art. A great deal depends on your goals. If you are interested in pure strength longer rest periods are recommended. For endurance and possibly hypertrophy you might want to lower the load but do more sets with shorter rest periods. If I were to add deadlifts to F1 I would probably do 5x5 twice a week with long rest periods purely for strength.

I think that 5 sets twice per week is too much, especially if you expect to get more flexible as well, but this will probably be an individual thing.

If you're going purely for strength gains, you should probably stick with what you're doing for the DL. You will not get strong quite as quickly with the changes you are proposing, but they are good for saving time and still making gains.

I personally do 2-3 sets of DL twice a week and that's it. I don't like doing more than that, it interferes with my flexibility too much.

At this point I'm mostly interested in building up strength, so sticking to what I'm doing is probably the best choice. Currently I'm doing DL twice a week with 3x5 reps on the leg days of F1 and the duration isn't a real problem now, I can live with it. It might become a problem when F2 starts, but perhaps by then I will already have built up enough strength in DL so that I can switch the exercise to maintenance mode. I don't want to become über strong in it, just "strong enough" .

Joshua Naterman said:

I think that 5 sets twice per week is too much, especially if you expect to get more flexible as well, but this will probably be an individual thing.

 

I personally do 2-3 sets of DL twice a week and that's it. I don't like doing more than that, it interferes with my flexibility too much.

Interesting point. I've already felt that my hamstrings are always sore the day after the deadlifts, and it started when I began doing the hamstring stretches in F1. I was hoping it would become less over the weeks, but it seems to stay the same, even though I don't really push myself in the stretching. Could the combination with the deadlifts be a littlebit too much?

Deadlifts are a strange beast. Going moderate on weight can have fantastic results when done heavy too often the breakdown from them tend to out weight the benefits. You do not need to push hard often with DL to get stronger at them.

I can't say that I have truly learned this yet, since I have really just made these changes out of necessity since I want to have a flexible body as well as a strong one

My plan is pretty simple: I'm only going up in weight, not in volume, and I'm not trying to break records anymore. I figure that at the rate of ~5 lbs per month I'll be plenty strong, again, in 4-5 years. I'm tired of rushing, there's just no real benefit.