30min Deadlift Challenge

[K_pem]

I thought I would share one of my old favorites that I use to kinda gauge where I’m at strength/muscular endurance wise.

This is tweaked and stolen from Dan John; essentially he says if you can’t complete this challenge you’re either weak or out of shape.

The original rules are simple: load a bar with 315lbs and pick it up for 2reps every minute, which is great.

I sometimes tweak that to make it a little more competitive to have a time to beat and say the goal is doing 60 reps in under 30minutes. Then try to beat my time.

Figured this might be fun for some of us to do through summer leading into season. You can obviously scale it up and down to your strength level but this is the OG.

Let me know what you guys think!

 

[Stickmark]

Adjusted for age, say over 50 years old, yeah, I think I do around 240...maybe more

 

[ETtikka]

315lbs regardless of weight or height???

 

[K_pem]

Adjusted for age, say over 50 years old, yeah, I think I do around 240...maybe more

I think adjusted for "Age" isn't really a fair way to gauge it, I know guys over 50 that are way stronger than me... haha.

But yes, I think that adjusting for your ability is fine. Obviously if your max DL is 240lbs you won't be able to do this challenge very effectively, even at say 225lbs. But I think that's what lends itself more to the "weaker" aspect more than the "out of shape aspect" of the challenge. Assuming my max DL is still around 475-500lbs, 315lbs would only be like 60-65% of my 1RM; so if we were making it purely based on endurance take 60-65% of 240 and you'd be doing this same thing at like 150lbs ballpark. Id encourage you to bump that up to say 165lbs or so as I think you'll find that 150lbs is far too easy, but you do you!

 

[K_pem]

315lbs regardless of weight or height???

That is what the original challenge was for yes. I think probably due to this guy being primarily a strength/conditioning coach for elite athletes, the assumption that most of them can deadlift 315lbs for reps is not a far cry.

Obviously, you can scale as needed, but I think if you're a normal sized-relatively healthy/active lifter; you should be able to do this. For reference I'm about 5'9" and around 195lbs, I'm not sure what my max DL is anymore since I just had my knee replaced in January... But I know it's a lot less than other "strong" guys my size.

 

[S.Clancy]

I do something similar for dips, pull-ups and BW Lunges. Basically, I pick one of those exercises and rep structure (usually 5 for pullups, 8 or so for dips, 10-12 for lunges) and do sets every 20-30 seconds for 20 min straight. Welcome to hell.

Personally, I would want to be doing an exercise that is really easy technically and has a really low chance of injury doing something like this. Deadlifts to me carry too high of an injury risk especially as you fatigue.

 

[K_pem]

Dude, 5 pull-ups every 30 second for 20minutes is pretty impressive.

I don’t disagree, this isn’t a challenge that I would encourage anyone without a good amount of experience/hardened form to attempt. But I think most people that would attempt should know to protect themselves when form starts to breakdown.

 

[strattonje2020]

Idk if this is a good example of muscular endurance but rather absolute strength. If you have to spread out 2 singles over 40 secs then 315 js way too heavy and you'd eventually sacrifice form as your gasping for air.

Muscular endurance would be more 40ish sec work rest of min rest emom.

Better test for hunting would be x wall balls and repeat that every min… last 5 mins should be very hard to meet the reps.

Strength endurance with a barbell would be bear complex, DT unbroken. Emoms
Cindy 20 min wod

100/150 pound sandbag cleans and drop over 48in box the jump over it.
Say 8-10 reps a min. Guessing here

 

[mulveymo]

Justy personal opinion, but super high intensity, short intervals don't have much carry over to hunting. Idk about y'all but I rarely find myself sprinting, jumping, or really doing anything explosive on a hunt. Not saying they're not valuable from a general fitness standpoint, but it's a low ROI if you're training these things and then expecting to see a payoff over 10 miles with a 50lb pack at elevation.

 

[mulveymo]

315lbs regardless of weight or height???

Yes, the kids absolutely HATE this workout

 

[strattonje2020]

Justy personal opinion, but super high intensity, short intervals don't have much carry over to hunting. Idk about y'all but I rarely find myself sprinting, jumping, or really doing anything explosive on a hunt. Not saying they're not valuable from a general fitness standpoint, but it's a low ROI if you're training these things and then expecting to see a payoff over 10 miles with a 50lb pack at elevation.

Crossfit isnt even the best way to train for crossfit. Lol

 

[mulveymo]

Crossfit isnt even the best way to train for crossfit. Lol

Shhh don't let them hear you say that, they'll sweat on you!

 

[K_pem]

Idk if this is a good example of muscular endurance but rather absolute strength. If you have to spread out 2 singles over 40 secs then 315 js way too heavy and you'd eventually sacrifice form as your gasping for air.

Muscular endurance would be more 40ish sec work rest of min rest emom.

Better test for hunting would be x wall balls and repeat that every min… last 5 mins should be very hard to meet the reps.

Strength endurance with a barbell would be bear complex, DT unbroken. Emoms
Cindy 20 min wod

100/150 pound sandbag cleans and drop over 48in box the jump over it.
Say 8-10 reps a min. Guessing here

I don't think it's meant to be a true test of muscular endurance but I don't disagree that a little more time under load is required for it to be more applicable as an "endurance" test. The whole premise of this challenge was that if you couldn't do it, you were either "weak or out of shape," which to me lends itself less to absolute strength but just the balance. Like you could be freakishly strong and this would be easy to accomplish because it's such a low percentage of load, making the endurance aspect of it kind of a moot point; or you could be decently strong and the load may be more appropriate, but you have enough stamina to recover between sets and stay on top of your 2 reps every minute. At least that's the way I see it; again, I didn't come up with this challenge, I just thought it was a cool way to test/compete with yourself (in the event you performed it for time as I mentioned I typically do).

I like the idea of an increased work time as far as looking for something more specifically to measure muscular endurance, but idk if 40/20 is realistic. At some point cardiovascular endurance would begin to hinder you there more so than muscular endurance. I do like barbell complexes also, as I think (if done right) you can hit your whole body and still test your cardiovascular endurance and recovery times.

Some sort of sandbag complex would be a cool idea too.

 

[K_pem]

Justy personal opinion, but super high intensity, short intervals don't have much carry over to hunting. Idk about y'all but I rarely find myself sprinting, jumping, or really doing anything explosive on a hunt. Not saying they're not valuable from a general fitness standpoint, but it's a low ROI if you're training these things and then expecting to see a payoff over 10 miles with a 50lb pack at elevation.

I don't think that every aspect of your training needs to be 100% mission specific, but I know for sure you will definitely see performance increases including max effort/explosive/sprinting type movements into your programming. Of course, this isn't the only way to train, and I think mission specificity needs to become more prevalent the closer you get to your hunt/event; but I would disagree that it's a "low ROI" because it isn't hiking with a pack on. There's a reason why professional athletes have block training cycles as well as differing focus of training modalities leading into events.

I can speak to this from experience studying different programming for athletes in my undergrad. Anecdotally, I can tell you that even a buddy of mine who is an ultra-marathon runner experienced and increase in performance by adding strength training to his programming early on (recommended), then tapering or focusing his training modality to be more mission specific as he neared the event.

I'm not saying if you can't do this challenge then you won't be able to hike 10miles with a 50lb pack. I'm not even saying that if you can do this that you'll be better than someone who can't. It was just a fun suggestion that I tend to like to throw in to challenge myself and test my abilities. I'm still sure to spend plenty of time under a heavy pack to go with it.