The Mostly True Exploits and Tales of Bodybuilding, Powerlifting, and Other Strength Sports Across the South, from Texas to Alabama
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Chapter Two:
Pulling Big
A.K.A. The One in Texas with Deadliftin’, Tire-Flippin’ and Tobacco-Spittin’
Setting: East Texas, 2004
“Texas ain’t so bad,” Bubba said, about the time that we pulled up to the gate of my Uncle Kirk’s ranch in East Texas. For Bubba, this was tantamount to a revelation. Since we had left Mississippi, he hadn’t said a whole lot of good stuff about my home state.
“You changin’ your tune?” I asked, as we both got out of my truck. I walked over to the gate to swing it open. Bubba walked to the back of the truck, and the cooler full of ice-cold beer.
“Nah, Texas is too flat,” Bubba replied, as he cracked open a Budweiser. “I’m just sayin’ that it ain’t so bad—it’s got some good-lookin’ gals, for instance. But it needs hills. And trees. The only trees I seen so far are around ponds and lakes.”
I was ready to change the subject. No self-respecting Texan (such as myself) wants to hear about how Mississippi—of all places—is better than the Lone Star State. I decided to change tactics. “You do realize we’re about to lift with my uncle. You sure you don’t want to save the beer for post-workout?”
Bubba looked at his Budweiser as if I had just asked him whether the sky is really blue or the grass is truly green. “I happen to be of the opinion,” Bubba stated, as if he was beginning a Shakespearean soliloquy, “that beer is a right proper pre-workout drink as long as you ain’t squattin’.” Bubba took a long drink, then added, “and we ain’t squattin’ today. We’re deadlifting. And whatever-the-hell-else Kirk’s got in mind.”
I shrugged as we got back in the truck. There was no reason to argue with that kind of logic. And truth be told, I had seen Bubba do quite a bit of lifting while simultaneously drinking beer. But that was while bench pressing, not performing puke-inducing tire flips. And if I knew anything about my Uncle Kirk, I knew that puke-inducing tire-flipping was most likely on the menu of any “pull” workout.
I drove the half-mile down the dirt road until we reached my uncle’s ranch house. The house was relatively small, but next to it was a large open barn replete with a bench, a squat rack, a bunch of olympic-style plates, a slew of assorted dumbbells, and a hodgepodge of odd implements to carry, drag, or flip, such as tractor tires, anvils, and rusty chains that looked as if they were meant to hold down King Kong—or at the very least, Mighty Joe Young. (Young people, you may have to “google” that one.)
My uncle’s horse, Blue Duck, was tied to a post at the side of the barn. And there was a truck pulled up in front. I wasn’t sure who the truck belonged to, but I pulled my Silverado next to it and parked.
Bubba chugged the remainder of his beer, threw the can in the back of my truck, and proceeded to put a wad of Copenhagen between his lip and his gums as we walked up to the barn. I quickly realized that the truck belonged to one of my cousins, either Ryan or Tanner, who were both standing in the barn and staring at my Uncle Kirk as he demonstrated proper deadlifting form. Ryan and Tanner were local high-school football stars. They were good, athletic football players, but I didn’t think they cared much for lifting. I chalked it up to their age.
“‘Bout time y’all boys got here,” Uncle Kirk said, setting down the deadlift bar, then walking over to give both of us Texas-sized bear hugs.
“Well, we got sidetracked in Louisiana,” Bubba said.
“Sidetracked might be an under-statement,” I chimed in. “Bubba didn’t realize there were so many casinos in Louisiana now, and I never thought we were going to actually leave Shreveport.”
“What can I say,” Bubba added. “I like gamblin’ ‘bout as much as I like liftin’ and beer drinkin’.” He seemed contemplative for a moment, then said, “but not as much as I like the ladies.” And then, as if he noticed my cousins for the first time, he said, “Who are y’all punks?”
I grinned as I noticed the obvious confusion, and slight discomfort, of my younger relatives. They had probably heard about Bubba from my uncle, for sure, but it’s one thing to hear about the man and quite another to meet the living, breathing grizzly bear of a Mississippian with a razor-sharp tongue named Bubba Dustry.
I tried to save them some discomfort. “These are my cousins Ryan and Tanner, and, yes, Bubba, they’re twins,” I said. “I didn’t know y’all had started lifting with Uncle Kirk,” I added, looking at both of them.
“Our football coach wants us to start lifting with the powerlifting team, and going to some powerlifting meets, so we came over to see Uncle Kirk,” Tanner said.
“And I told them to come over today so they can talk to you,” Uncle Kirk said. “They got good squats, and pretty good bench presses, but their deadlifts pretty much suck.”
Ryan seemed surprised by the criticism. “Dang, Uncle Kirk, our deadlifts ain’t that bad,” he said.
Uncle Kirk wasn’t deterred. “Y’all both deadlift around 150 pounds less than you squat, so, yes, your deadlifts suck.” He then looked at me and added, “I thought they could go through a pull workout with us, and get plenty of pointers from you on form, and some different workouts that would be effective for ‘em.”
“Fine with me,” I said.
I grabbed my gym bag from the back of my truck. It had my lifting belt, some chalk, and a few odds and ends I thought we might need for the lifting session. Bubba pulled the cooler from the rear of the truck bed, got out bottled water for each one of us, and a beer for himself, and then sat down on the cooler. He set it to the side of the deadlift bar. “This way, I can watch y’all’s form,” he said
“What kind of training are you and Bubba doing today?” Uncle Kirk asked, as he rolled the deadlift bar onto the lifting platform.
“We’re gonna work up to some heavy triples,” I said.
“Yeah, we did 5s last week, so it’s triples this week, then singles next,” Bubba said.
“And what sort of training have y’all been doing?” I asked my cousins. They proceeded to tell me how they had been training with our uncle every three or four days, doing mainly squats, bench presses, barbell curls, and power cleans, followed by, usually, some tire flips. My uncle does like tire flips.
“They don’t think they’re doing enough,” Uncle Kirk said. “But I told them that, with all of the football workouts—and Tanner plays baseball, too—they don’t need to workout no more than once every four or five days.”
“It just don’t seem like much,” Ryan said. “Most of our friends go to the gym in town four or five days a week.”
“Are they stronger than y’all are?” I asked.
Tanner seemed as if he was deep in thought for a moment, and the boy wasn’t exactly known for his intelligence. “Naw, I don’t think so, now that I think about it,” he answered.
“But we’re in the offseason now,” Ryan interjected. “I think we need to start doing more.”
“You do,” Uncle Kirk said. “Which is the reason you’re going to listen to your cousin’s training advice.”
“You’re correct, Ryan,” I said. “Before, with football and baseball workouts, you needed less. In fact, doing less than your teammates probably helped your strength. But now you should start training 3-days-per-week.”
“How many different workouts should we do?” Tanner asked. “Uncle Kirk had us do like, basically, the same thing every time we trained.”
“I would do two different workouts, but no more than that. My advice would be to do one workout where the focus is on the squat and the bench press. The second workout would focus on the deadlift, and other pull movements. You can alternate between the two workouts each time that you train.”
We all began our deadlift workout by doing sets of 5, then, as the weights got heavier, we switched to triples.
“How come we’re doing such low reps?” Tanner asked. “On squats, bench presses, and curls, I get best results when Uncle Kirk has us doing 5 to 6 reps.”
“Deadliftin’ is different from most other lifts. You really don’t need to try and utilize too many reps, “ I said. “But it’s similar to the quick lifts. I bet Uncle Kirk didn’t let you do sets of 5 or 6 reps on the power cleans.”
Tanner had that “thinking” look again. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he conceded. “We never did more than 5 reps on the power cleans. But I didn’t like power cleans, so that was fine with me. I think I’ll like deadlifts a lot more.”
“Well, whether you like ‘em or not, Tanner, I wouldn’t do more than 5 reps on your deadlifts. In fact, I think 5 reps is kinda high.”
“What’s a good set/rep range, then, for deadlifts?” Ryan asked.
“I like what might best be called a multiple sets of low reps approach,” I replied. “Pick a rep range that you want to use for multiple sets using the same weight. The correct answers here would be sets of either one rep, two reps, or, at the most, three reps—and occasionally you can do 4s or 5s. Let’s say you decided to use singles for a workout. Then pick a weight where you think you can do, maybe, three singles. At the first workout, maybe you surprise yourself and you get 4 singles, but you fail on the 5th single. Just stick with that weight at each workout until you can get 8 singles. Once you get 8 singles, increase the weight, and start all over again at the next workout.”
“That kinda sounds easy,” Tanner said.
“I don’t know about easy,” I said. “But it is simple. Simple, hard, but highly effective. In fact, Tanner, keep in mind that a good workout should be hard, true, but it should also be simple. The more complex a workout program, then typically the less effective.”
“But we can try other rep ranges using that same approach?” Ryan asked.
“Sure,” I said. “That’s what Bubba and I are gonna do right now. We’re gonna see how many sets of 3 reps we can get with the same weight.”
Bubba and Uncle Kirk loaded the deadlift bar with another plate, so that at this point we had 495 pounds on the bar. Ryan and Tanner watched as my description of a workout played out right in front of their eyes. I managed 3 triples, but could only get a double on the 4th set, so I stopped right there, and logged in 3 triples and a double with 495 in my training log. “At the next workout for triples, I will attempt at least four triples with 495,” I explained. “I keep a workout log—and I would advise y’all to do the same—because it may be a few weeks before we do triples again, and I need to keep track of my weights, sets, reps, and exercise selection.”
“What’re y’all doing at your next deadlift workout?” Ryan asked.
“Singles,” Bubba said. He spat out his Copenhagen, and cracked open another beer. “Oh, and drink some more beer,” he added.
“But you and Tanner shouldn’t do that,” I said. “If you decide to do triples, then stick with that for three or four deadlift sessions in a row before changing to another rep range. You won’t need the variety that Bubba and I use until you reach our level.”
“Makes sense,” Tanner said. “We ain’t that strong yet.”
“What’re y’all gonna do now?” Ryan asked.
“We’re gonna strip the weight down to about 60% of our one-rep max, and do 10 sets of doubles for speed. But we don’t always do that. We’ll do speed work, typically, at every other session. At the other session, we do one or two different exercises to help our deadlifts, such as rack pulls, deficit deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, and occasionally some power cleans.”
“How much variety should we use?” Ryan asked.
“Not much,” Uncle Kirk said. Like Bubba, he could be a little cryptic.
“Uncle Kirk’s right,” I said. “Let’s say that you alternate between workouts where you do bench presses and squats on one workout, and then deadlifts at the next workout. Don’t do much other than the deadlifts at that session. You can add in a couple of sets of barbell curls or chins, and some tire flips would be good at the end.”
“Uncle Kirk likes them tire flips,” Tanner interjected.
“Well, they’re damn good for you,” Kirk said brusquely.
“I agree with Uncle Kirk,” I said, as much to placate my uncle as anything, though I do think tire flips are a great exercise along with other loaded carries and dragging movements. “So let’s say you do squats and bench presses on Monday and Friday, and deadlifts—maybe tire flips, too—on Wednesdays. Then the next week, you would do deadlifts, and whatever else, on Monday and Friday, and squats and bench presses on Wednesday. This, of course, is just an example but it is exactly the kind of program you need to be doing. Anyway, if you follow this template, stick with the same reps on your deadlifts for at least three workouts in a row—which would be two weeks, in this instance. At that time, switch over to a different rep range, and do that rep range for a couple of weeks. After another couple of weeks, switch to another rep range.”
“When should we change exercises?” Tanner asked. He was paying closer attention than I thought.
“Good question,” I said. Tanner grinned. “And I was just about to get around to that. After about six weeks—eight weeks, at the most—change to another exercise. But pick another exercise that’s similar to the deadlift, which is typically just another deadlift variation. Change over to deficit deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, or even deficit sumo deadlifts. Train that exercise for 6 to 8 weeks, and then go back to the “regular” deadlifts, and see how your strength is progressing.” I looked at my cousins’ faces, trying to get a sense if they had taken all of this in. “And that’s pretty much it. You really don’t need many exercises, or any ‘fancy,’ complicated program to get good results. You just need hard work and consistency.”
“And you really think that’s enough to build our deadlift?” Ryan asked.
“Of course,” I replied. “At least, for now. Get your deadlift up to around 500 pounds, then we’ll talk about some other programs, and additional techniques such as speed work, chains, bands, and all that other stuff that is popular these days.”
“In the meantime,” Uncle Kirk said, grinning as he cracked open one of Bubba’s beers for his personal consumption, “why don’t y’all flip that tire down to the house and back.”
“I knew it,” Tanner said. “We flip that thing every time we come over.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Bubba and I will join ya.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have drank beer after all,” Bubba said.
Love the format! Just mentally went thru a whole workout….
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