Deficit dead lifts are a great way of working the "starting" position of the dead lift if THAT is the weakness of the lift.
Most of my group has plenty of top end strength, but rare is the person that can get it moving off the floor.
The risers will take a lot of weight off the max. So the beating my folks took today mentally was fun too.
Torque the bar around your shins. Especially since we are doing deficits. By the verbal cue of bending the bar around the shins the elbows will be drawn back and the scapula retract innervating the lats.
The lats stabilize the thoracic spine. This gives a greater sense of stability as you are driving the floor down with your feet.
The kicker is this...you don't stay in the retracted state. That would increase the distance that you have to pull. We just want to add some height the man or depth of the floor.
Today's Training:
6 RM four inch deficit Dead Lift
Reverse Hyper: 4x15
Ab Wheel: 4x15
Shrugs: 4x15
Slow and controlled Pull ups: 3 reps
Slow and controlled Chin ups: 3 reps
Slow and controlled Push Ups: 12 reps
Crunch: 100 reps
Bike Commute: 16 minutes (the wind was at my back)
Sand Pit Sprints: 15