Why Your Deadlift Is Not Progressing (Eccentric Loading)
My professional opinion as a Powerlifting coach of 7 years is that more lifters would benefit from eccentric loading on deadlifts. The lack of eccentric loading likely hold’s back a lot of lifters deadlift progress and they don’t even realize.
If your deadlift is plateaued eccentric loading could very well be the answer to breaking that plateau and deadlifting more weight than you ever have before.
What is Eccentric Loading?
“Eccentric refers to the lengthening of a muscle while it is under tension, typically the lowering or "negative" phase of a repetition.”
In terms of the deadlift this means the lowering of the weight too the ground from the top position.
here is a visual of the eccentric portion slowed down.
Where the deadlift differs from the squat and the bench press is in that they both start with the eccentric and the deadlift starts with the concentric.
On top of this most lifters wont maintain any tension on the eccentric portion of the deadlift because you don’t have to in competition. However avoiding the eccentric tension on deadlift could be hurting your progress.
Why Skipping The Eccentric Portion Might Be Stalling Your Progress
First off its important to note that some lifters never control an eccentric on a deadlift and never stall progress.
I do believe however that controlled eccentrics of some form (could be an RDL or something else as well) related to the deadlift is very important for building up the musculature of the posterior chain.
Building muscle is imperative to improving as a powerlifter over time and building up the glutes, hamstrings, lower back and upper back is imperative to building up your deadlift. While maybe other ways can be found to build up all these areas I think one of the best ways is to control eccentrics on your deadlift at least some of the time or to do exercises that involve doing a controlled eccentric hinging pattern.
Ill leave you with one final example to illustrate my point in a bit of a round about but what I feel to be effective way.
If you performed all your bicep curls by curling the weights up then dropping them to the floor, picking them up and starting again, you wouldn’t gain nearly as much muscle from doing bicep curls. I believe to a lesser degree but in the same vane that this is true with deadlift strength as well as muscle gain, yet this is much more common in the deadlift. ( I don’t know anyone that drops the dumbbells doing bicep curls lol)
How I implement Eccentric Loading As an Athlete and Coach
As an athlete I do not control the eccentric on every single rep/set I do however I do control the eccentric on most of my sets and reps for a few reasons.
First of all I have found when I dont control my eccentrics my deadlift progesses slower than when I do. Secondly it helps me have more consistency from rep to rep to rep.
Here’s what a typical set of my deadlift looks like.
There are times when I don’t control my eccentrics however. The most common one being singles and the last rep of every set I perform. On singles and final reps of set I usually attempt to hold the weight until my grip gets exhausted to where I cant hold it much longer and need to drop the bar down (with my hands on it at the speed of gravity, I'm not a heathen that just lets go of the bar unless my grip actually fails me)
I also don’t control my eccentric on higher rep set PRs (like a new 5 rep PR) as I usually expect to need all my energy to go towards my concentric pulling strength and cant waste any on the eccentric, however I usually have 7-11 weeks of doing lighter weights where I do control the eccentric into these sessions.
Here is a video of me hitting a 5 rep PR so you can see what my deadlift looks like when I DO NOT control the eccentric.
With my clients I take a slightly different approach. If I have clients that find that they need to control their eccentrics like me on deadlifts I encourage them to do so.
However the first thing I look at is if a clients deadlift is progressing or not. If their deadlift is still progressing at a good rate I usually don’t even look at eccentrics and let them keep doing what they are doing (which usually default IS NOT controlling the eccentric portion of their deadlift).
If their deadlift is not progressing controlled eccentrics is typically one of the first things I look at. If a client has a tendency to have very inconsistent technique, they need to work on maintaining better tension, or they could have a better start position I will encourage them to control their eccentrics on their primary deadlift work, or program them controlled eccentric/tempo deadlifts or “Invisible floor Deadlifts” on their secondary deadlift days.
However if an athlete seems to be inhibited my muscle in their posterior chain this is when I will usually look to variations like RDLs or accessories like snatch grip back extensions to address this.
Sumo vs Conventional Considerations
I think something worth noting is I rarely have any sumo pullers that are limited by lack of eccentric loading on deadlifts however it may still be something worth trying to break plateaus for sumo.
Here is video of me with a controlled eccentric on a sumo deadlift.
If I had to guess why eccentrics don’t have as much carry over to sumo as they do conventional it would be because of there being less reliance on the posterior chain musculature. While glutes, hamstrings and back are all still needed in the sumo deadlift some of the load is shifted to adductors and quads. Which are already being trained eccentrically through the squat for most lifters leading to less reliance on the eccentric control in sets of the sumo deadlift.
While I still think controlling the eccentrics especially on higher rep sets for sumo pullers has value; I see less carry over and less lifters being limited by this with sumo. When I make the argument for controlling your eccentrics improving your deadlift I am mostly referring to conventional.
Although part of this could be that more sumo pullers are already likely to be training their eccentrics through an RDL or back extension so that could also contribute.
Accessories That Help With Eccentric Loading
So maybe you are not sold on the idea on controlling your eccentrics on your deadlifts but you think that some accessories could help. Here’s some of my favorites:
Invisible floor Deadlifts
The invisible floor deadlift is one of my favorites for teaching good starting position for conventional pullers. It is great bringing the conventional deadlift eccentric portion through a long range of motion while incorporating not only the hinge portion of the deadlift but also the quad loading that helps conventional pullers wedge better. I probably would not use this variation for sumo pullers due to how much more taxing it is and an RDL being probably a better tool for them with the additional focus being on the hinge.
To Perform The Invisible floor deadlift start by standing on a plate and performing a deficit deadlift from the floor. Then control the eccentric till the plates on the bar reach approximately the top of the plate you are standing on and stand up from that position.
Barbell RDLs
Barbell RDLs are a great versatile tool for loading the eccentric portion of a deadlift and probably the most used tool on this list. They can be done with less load or range of motion to make them less taxing or can be used to push the load and/or range of motion really hard to make them more taxing. i would push them harder for lifters that need more of the hypertrophy side of things, for lifters who just need a little posterior chain stimulus for strength purposes I would push them less hard. I think these are probably the best variation for sumo deadlifters needing posterior chain work while also being very useful for conventional pullers because of their versality. The are also a great tool for teaching and practicing the hinge pattern.
To perform the Barbell RDL pick the bar off the floor or a rack and start in a standing position. From here hinge to desired position (can be just below the knee or deeper depending on desired intent of the movement) and then return to the top position. If the desired intent is to load the eccentric the eccentric should be slow and controlled.
Snatch Grip Back Extension (or regular back extension)
back extensions are a personal favorite of mine and in my biased opinion are as useful if not more useful than the barbell RDL. They can be performed body weight or with light weight to just get a little posterior chain stimulus. Where I feel back extensions really shine is when loaded heavier with a barbell for hypertrophy purposes. The one issue with using a barbell is the range of motion if very short with a traditional deadlift grip so a snatch grip is preferred. Straps are recommended for snatch grip because of grip constraints and grip will likely give out before the intended targeted muscles without straps.
To perform back extensions position pad just under the hip bones and drive hips into the pad bringing your torso up. Squeeze glutes at the top.
Dumbbell RDLs
The Dumbbell RDL is very similar to the barbell RDL but tends to be just a more load limited variation. It does have some unilateral benefits if performed with two dumbbells instead of one.
Conclusion
While not every lifter needs to do eccentrics on their primary deadlifts it may be helpful.
Every lifter however can benefit from some eccentric loading of some kind in an hinge pattern whether it be on their primary pulls, secondary variation pulls, or on an accessory.
