Dropping the Deadlift

[jzt]

I don’t train for work, just for general fitness. After a few lower back injuries a year ago (pre TB) dropped DL completely and currently run a Bench / Squat / WCU cluster. My HICs are mainly focussed on KB swings and sprints (Apex Hills, ME2, Single handed swings).

For me personally I don’t think I’m missing out on much, though I’m not trying to compete in a powerlifting competition. Being able to work out consistently vs having to stop start due to injury is worth more to me than deadlifting.

I have a home gym set up and would love to try trap bar deadlifts but I don’t have the bar and can’t justify the expense on buying it just to see. I would prefer to invest in a heavier KB next and continue doing what I’m doing.

TBH I swear by the Trap DL, but if you Squat pain free and without awkwardness, you're golden imo. Can't go wrong with anything listed below:

LOWER Deadlift / Trap DL / Back Squat
PUSH Press / Bench / W Dips
PULL W Chin Ups / W Pull Ups

I think your big lifts should always be picked based around your leverages, injury history, equipment access and anthropometry. Once you have those, you patch up the lacking areas with assistance lifts. For example, if you Squat, you supplement with grip training like Farmer's Walk. If you only Press, you supplest chest work with Push Ups / Dips, etc.

[godjira1]

short answer is:
No, i wouldn't cut out the deadlift.

long answer is:
You don't have to do heavy conventional pulls from the floor. The idea to train the hip hinge/extension movement, which is crucial in many sporting activities - for judo/bjj/mma for example you use it to pass the guard, or to shoot for a double (or sprawling against one).

Trap bar deadlifts, pulling from blocks, kettlebell swings are all worthy substitutes in that they help you get stronger/more powerful in the hip hinge action.

[jzt]

short answer is:
No, i wouldn't cut out the deadlift.

long answer is:
You don't have to do heavy conventional pulls from the floor. The idea to train the hip hinge/extension movement, which is crucial in many sporting activities - for judo/bjj/mma for example you use it to pass the guard, or to shoot for a double (or sprawling against one).

Trap bar deadlifts, pulling from blocks, kettlebell swings are all worthy substitutes in that they help you get stronger/more powerful in the hip hinge action.

I agree 100% with this. Too often do people hurt their lower back and are completely done with Deadlifting (which they confuse with Hinging). The conventional deadlift is just one way to do it, it's well known because it's part of powerlifting/strongman, but trust me when I say, little to no hockey players, football players or fighters train conv deadlifts, yet they do train their hinge pattern.

Couple examples of substitutes:
-Single RDL (doing these controlled with just 135lbs is an absolute killer, BW is fine too for volume)
-GHR (BW, Bands or weights)
-Trap Bar DL (Deficit, regular, high handles, off blocks, etc.)
-RDL
-Rack Pulls
-Power Cleans
-Reverse Hypers
-Back Extensions (bands/weights)

Same goes for Squats where people only think of Back Squats, you can substitude it for Front Squats, Box Squats, Split Squats, Lunges, Goblet Squats, Zercher Squats, etc.

You basically have to find what works best for your personnal leverages and how to avoid injuries.

[Barkadion]

short answer is:
No, i wouldn't cut out the deadlift.

long answer is:
You don't have to do heavy conventional pulls from the floor. The idea to train the hip hinge/extension movement, which is crucial in many sporting activities - for judo/bjj/mma for example you use it to pass the guard, or to shoot for a double (or sprawling against one).

Trap bar deadlifts, pulling from blocks, kettlebell swings are all worthy substitutes in that they help you get stronger/more powerful in the hip hinge action.

I agree 100% with this. Too often do people hurt their lower back and are completely done with Deadlifting (which they confuse with Hinging). The conventional deadlift is just one way to do it, it's well known because it's part of powerlifting/strongman, but trust me when I say, little to no hockey players, football players or fighters train conv deadlifts, yet they do train their hinge pattern.

Couple examples of substitutes:
-Single RDL (doing these controlled with just 135lbs is an absolute killer, BW is fine too for volume)
-GHR (BW, Bands or weights)
-Trap Bar DL (Deficit, regular, high handles, off blocks, etc.)
-RDL
-Rack Pulls
-Power Cleans
-Reverse Hypers
-Back Extensions (bands/weights)

Same goes for Squats where people only think of Back Squats, you can substitude it for Front Squats, Box Squats, Split Squats, Lunges, Goblet Squats, Zercher Squats, etc.

You basically have to find what works best for your personnal leverages and how to avoid injuries.

And I am going to qoute KB from TB3:

"Use a little common sense when choosing your cluster and ensure it’s balanced. There are many ways to get balance. For example, this is a popular cluster amongst some hardcore tactical types:
Bench Press/Squat/Weighted Pull-up
Where’s the deadlift? There isn’t any. What?! The horror… the horror! What you’re not seeing here is that these types are also doing a conditioning protocol that includes heavy kettlebell swings, hyperextensions and the like. They’re getting more than enough pulling and posterior work on their conditioning days. Heavy deadlifts take more from them than they give for their particular lifestyle. Balance can be obtained through activities outside of your max-strength protocol."

[JudoRob]

I figure I would add an anecdotal example.

Just recently I got back to strength training after a hiatus, but roughly 6 years ago I was an avid gym rat. I worked in a gym, I worked in a supplement store, and every waking moment was spent wanting to go to the gym.

My lifts weren't considered phenomenal, but I managed to work my way up to a tested 1RM Deadlift of 435, and could crank out 315 double overhand, no straps for sets of 12 at 5'9 170.

I tore my sacrotuberous ligament pulling less than 225 off the floor on the first rep.

There's a reason why many of the westside barbell guys rotate their lifts out and don't often directly train Squats or Deadlifts, and that's because there are many other options available that can provide the stimulus needed to generate that kind of force without the associated risks.

Another example would be several years ago Ross Enamait pulled a 495 deadlift as someone who did not train the deadlift. Much of his work around that time consisted of Kettlebell Work, Bodyweight Exercises, and other forms of conditioning.

These days I stick to Trap Bar, Trap Bar RDL, and Rack Pulls.

[Maxrip13]

For those of you who have dropped the deadlift entirely and chosen a cluster like SQ / OHP / WP, have you noticed any negative effects to your athletic or job performance?

I'm looking to scale back my total volume during base building and focus on improving my cardio base, and sticking with a spartan approach of SQ / Press / WP seems to suit my fancy.

Some good advice from other people. Another good option is to use other exercises in your warm up.
For example I am going to use lunges, single leg deadlifts and 1 arm over head presses to warm up for my usual Squat, bench, pull cluster.
I have gone 6+months at a time with no deadlifts, but I am finding that I do need to touch on something like that occasionally.
I have become very quad dominant from all the squats and need a bit of specific hamstring work to balance that out.

A short 5 round circuit with bodyweight or light weights before I get into my main lifts is one of the options I am going to give a go.
It also lets me get in some variety without taxing my recovery.

[CD51]

I wouldn’t over analyze this. Strength is a very general adaptation. As long as you are doing or practicing your sport or job regularly, strength increases on the core lifts will carry over. I don’t recall ever seeing any evidence that a front squat caries over to a sport skill and better or differently than a back squat. Get stronger at basic lifts and practice, you’ll improve.
I am a big fan of deadlifting, nothing gives you the an equal bang for the buck as pulls. But they are also costly in terms of wear and recovery. If you need to do a lot of job specific training or work heavily on another fitness mode, conditioning in your case, dropping pulls to free up recovery assets makes a lot of sense.
You could also use the approach of one work set a week instead of chins/pulls ups?

[VenomousCoffee]

Let me put my years of expertise as an English teacher to use here and offer a few thoughts.

1) The first point I'd make is that, if the question, Do you need to deadlift to be strong, I think the answer should be, What do you mean by strong? A lot of people would say that you have to deadlift to be strong because they define "strong" as (among other things) being able to deadlift a lot of weight. But if your definition of strong means being able to do the pull-ups, rucking, etc. to pass a physical fitness test, or, say, being able to walk around pain-free at 55, then maybe not. I think this is an obvious point once we are explicit about it, but it gets lost sometimes. Almost 15 years ago I did something (pulled a muscle?) in my lower back doing conventional deadlifts and the damn thing still bothers me. It hurts as I type this. But I use sumo now and it's ... functional, if not exactly great. Honestly, running bothers it more than deadlifting.

2) As people have pointed out here, you can develop the deadlift without actually deadlifting. For a lot of people, heavy back squats, rows, and RDLs (or maybe a few others, probably up for debate) will increase your 1RM on deadlift. But, the reverse isn't true. If you're only interested in functionality and passing a work-related fitness test, that's probably a decent argument against deadlifting.

3) I'm in the middle of BB right now. Before that, I did a block of Operator when I was doing 3 sets of deadlift (sumo) and 3-4 sets of back squats every workout, 3 days a week. (My third lift was OHP.) And I was using fairly heavy 1RMs for that, at least relative to my age, I think (43). And I came out of that fine, didn't feel particularly worn down. But the Operator before that I was using the grunt cluster, so no deadlifts at all. The main difference I noticed was that I lost those rows of muscle down each side of my spine. After no deadlifts the whole block, I used a 1RM of 495 for that block of Operator and it felt fine.

[Adski]

Cut the deadlift or keep it if it makes sense to you for what your after. I’m deadlifting 3 days p/w (courtesy of still doing consultations with Jim) and have been since sometime last year. If you aren’t going all out all the time (using a decent t max) and don’t have any issues/contraindicators, then using the DL is fine.

For the OP, I have dropped the DL entirely before and didn’t really have any issues besides a couple of weeks where it took a bit to find the groove, after that, everything was pretty much back to normal.

[Green2Blue]

I’m going to introduce an alternative perspective.

I’ve been doing strongman for about a year and a half now. In strongman, the deadlift is king. It’s blasphemous to consider not training it. However, I occasionally have a chronic hip issue that flares up that makes conventional deadlifting a literal pain. One of the beauties of strongman though is the variety. You might have a conventional deadlift, but there is also block (rack) deads, frame (similar to trap bar) deads, farmer’s handle deads, car deads, duck walk deads, axle (thick bar) deads, etc.

Unless I have a specific deadlift coming up in competition, if my hip is an issue, my go-to is frame (trap) deadlifts. My frame is at a 16” pick height, versus the traditional 9” barbell height. Not only is it easier on my injuries, but it’s also a lot of fun.

Long story short, I agree with others that finding an alternative is better than dropping it. I think the trap bar is an outstanding alternative for the average tactical athlete, and also possibly consider a higher pick height.

Part two to this is that strongman has also taught me that no lift is essential. I haven’t done back squats or bench hardly at all since starting strongman. Olympic and CrossFit athletes barely bench. Olympic lifters barely deadlift, and don’t back squat a ton either. If you really hate deads, at least do some kind of squat.