For a long while now, I’ve been doing bent over barbell rows ’cause I’ve read that it’s the best workout to really help deadlift strength. I think I’m going to stop doing those for good simply ’cause I don’t feel safe doing them. I’m noticing that it’s messing up my left hip a little bit and hurting my left glute a little bit. Not sure why it is. Maybe my form was off a little bit and maybe you don’t need to lift superheavy weights on that one, I don’t know but I’m gonna stop doing bent over rows for something else. The pain wasn’t that bad and I’m completely okay now. I just don’t feel comfortable doing bent over rows for barbell and it’s not my favorite workout.

I think I’m going to swap it with t-bar rows ’cause they are better, I think. I haven’t done t-bar rows in a long while and I think I’m going to get back to it.

To lift really heavy deadlifts off the floor, you gotta have a really strong back all around. I’m trying to find back exercises that would help. I think the t-bar row will be better ’cause the t-bar row works your entire back… the bent over row for barbell only works your middle back and lats.

I’ll continue to do lat pull downs and seated cable rows ’cause they’ll be good to work the back. I’ve always done those two workouts.

If you want to have a big deadlift, you also got to work on your grip and I found that farmer’s walk will help grip strength. I’ve been doing farmer’s walk more and more.

The deadlift works the entire body so you also have to have pretty strong legs as well ’cause the deadlift is kind of like the leg press too. I’ve been doing exercises for the legs and all that. Getting back into using the leg press again, doing leg ext. and hamstring curl machines on leg days.

Working to get my 300 lb. deadlift back and doing all I can to get there but I want to get there without hurting myself with the other exercises so I’m going to ditch the bent over barbell row for something else.

When you want to get into powerlifting for the bench, squat and deadlift… you still gotta train like a bodybuilder on the other workouts. Even in powerlifting, you still gotta build muscle ’cause building muscle helps get you stronger too. Powerlifters will never admit that. They seem to focus on the big three only and I disagree. You can’t neglect the power of hypertrophy training ’cause I still do that.

Back to the bent over row, I’m just not a big fan of that anymore and swapping that with the t-bar row sounds good to me. I’m hoping to get my 300 lb. deadlift back in time before the Aug. 30th push/pull meet in Albany and I want to be completely injury free at this one.

I’m hoping to do 300 lbs. for more reps this year if I’m lucky enough and I will get there. Just gotta stay consistent. Losing my 300 lb. deadlift was my fault, though. The reason that happened is ’cause I stopped the heavy deadlifting too early before a powerlifting meet and I’ll never do that again. I’ll get it back soon enough. Just you wait.

I’ve also saw a video on youtube where a guy says you shouldn’t have to worry about de-loading after 4 – 6 weeks when strength training. This youtuber says the only time you should take a week off of strength training is when you get injured or get sick. You don’t de-load or take a week break too often at all. If you want to get strong and stay strong, gotta stay consistent on a weekly basis. I think de-loading will make you weaker and I’ll have a post on that soon.

I love powerlifting. I gotta do it right and do it smart.

Kev