Just a quickie that I want to throw out there regarding MY personal opinion on coaching the powerlifts.  Something I see a lot of is people who are relative beginners resorting to what I believe to be useless assistance work to either "make" themselves stronger or break through a plateau that doesn't actually exist yet.  The main thing I try to get lifters to do is master the actual lifts. Not just learn the lifts, MASTER the lifts according to the mechanics of their body. That, I believe, will always garner the greatest results. If you are bench pressing and every rep is hitting your chest in a different spot benching with kettlebells hanging off of rubber bands on a bamboo bar is only going to make that shit worse.  Same thing with deficit deads and things like that. Changing things like that throws off the timing and angles of the lift that will fuck up most people's technique. I say the biggest bang for your buck will come from hammering the actual lifts a lot more, work your high percentage volume up so that more tonnage is being performed over time and then work your ass off at mastering the lifts themselves.