Deadlifting is the ultimate exercise that shows pure strength and brute force. You are literally ripping something off the ground all the way up until you lock out. So of course with it being a great way to increase overall strength you would like to get the most out of it by performing multiple times a week. We also asked actual weightlifters about their insight into deadlifting multiple times a week the opinions were quite surprising.
Can I deadlift Three Times A Week?
Three times a week is perfectly fine to deadlift just pay attention to your body and fatigue. Start out with your deadlift sets and don't go over five sets total while keeping proper form entire time. Slowly increase the intensity of your deadlifts so you don't reach extreme fatigue. Pay attention to this and if it feels like too much back off to 1-2 times a week or take a break.
A lot of people do full body workouts 3 times a week and get great results. The main core compound lifts are bench, squat, and deadlift so those doing the full body workouts want to get these lifts in. Make sure you mix it up especially when hitting a plateau from light, medium to heavy weights. With deadlift keep your sets lower and weight as well when first starting out.
Deadlifting Multiple Times A Week (Pro Opinions)
So we didn't want you to only take our word for it on deadlifting multiple times a week so we went out and gathered opinions and information from the pros. We curated this information from facebook groups, weightlifting sub reddits, and bodybuilding forums. We gathered and calculated results below are some of the top answers we collected. Nothing has been changed except any spelling or grammar where needed.
How Many Times A Week Can You Do Deadlifts?
1. Sinoslave “Once A Week” –
Your week should look something like this in RPT:
Workout Day 1 Squat + Leg accessory (Lifter's choice) + pull ups
Workout Day 2 Bench + Chest accessory (lifter's choice) + pull ups
Workout Day 3 Deadlift + Pulling accessory (lifter's choice) + pull ups
2. Alycks “3 Times For Beginners” – I neglected the Squat and Deadlift for years, not realizing their fantastic all over body training effects. I wish someone had told me years ago. Though more advanced lifters will do these ‘big 3′ in a split-routine, for beginners or those relatively new to these exercises, you’ll make faster progress training all three in the same workout, 3 days a week.
3. Topper123 “Once A Week” – Drop deadlift to 1x per week since it's so stressful on your CNS. You can replace it with back extensions on the other days to help keep progress going.
4. IamBeowulff “Once A Week” – Doing it 3x is way too much. I did it once three times a week and I became extremely fatigued after two weeks. My numbers grew very fast though.
5. Rdavisii “One Day A week” – Here is my routine:
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Monday – Dead-lifts, weighted chin-ups.
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Wednesday- Bench, weighted chin-ups. (and dips if I'm feeling up to it.)
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Friday – Squats, Over-head Press.
That's my week.
6. Bengeesuh “3x okay with less intensity” – If you wanted to do deadlifts 3x/week, you'd have to lessen your intensity on each one of them. Like what everyone is saying, it truly is hard on your nervous system. Most likely when one is training around 90-100% 1RM and hitting failure. Things would be different if you decided to do less intensity (75-85% 1RM) while not going to failure. But if you do less intensity that wouldn't be strength training and that wouldn't be Lean Gains.
7. Patttty “Once A week” – At least in my case I tried deadlifting 3x week and I found it wrecked me where as now I just go balls to the wall once a week and my dead has never been stronger.
8. Explorer16570 “Once depending on volume” – Volume would be dictated by the number of reps and sets of each session. You could easily deadlift five times a week and have very low volume. I'd direct you to a recent interview by Ian McCarthy in which he discussed MRV(maximum recoverable volume) with Mike Israetel
9. Urethrasecks “3 times okay” – I did 2 sun's 6 day 531 variation which had me deadlifting 3x a week. It had me fine tune my deadlifting technique because I kept doing it so often. It bumped my deadlift from 385lbs to a clean 465lbs without noticeable form loss or grinding.
Personally I love deadlifting and it gave me an excuse to deadlift more. Paired it with squatting everyday which was hell for the first week but after that it got much easier.
10. Npad “3-4 times okay” – I deadlift 3 to 4 times a week. The volume undulates, so I'll have a heavy day, weakness day, speed day, and volume/variation day. Total volume isn't much, about 5500kg a week, a bit less than my squat volume. It took my conventional deadlift 1RM of 153kg and turned it into an easy 3RM after about 7 weeks.
11. OnceTwice12 “3 Times A Week” – I recently started doing deadlifts 3x a week. Was stalling only doing it once, so now 3x a week and I deload by 10lbs every session and add more volume.
12. Bartlaus “As many times as you want” – You can deadlift every day if you like, the trick is staying within the limits of what you can recover from.
13. WannadoNada17 “6-7 times a week” – I deadlifted 6-7x per week this spring and brought my max up from 525 to 585 in only 3 months without any recovery issues.
14. SuchDownVotes “2 times a week” – I follow a certain nsuns program which I deadlift tuesday and saturday, and sumo as an accessory on squat day. It's quite alot of volume but I've made serious gains with it
15. Cyc10Nex “3 times a week” – I do it 3 times a week because it is my favourite exercise, but I don't go ham every day. I have a 5×3 day, 5×5 day, and 5×10 day, which gives me the opportunity to give it my all on heavy days and really dial in the form on light days. Works well for me so far.
16. Az9393 “2 Times Okay” –
2 times is ok, 3 time is conceivable but you’d be really pushing it.
Some things to keep in mind:
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deadlift is the most taxing exercise
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total volume and intensity needs to be checked (you don’t want to go all out with 1rm efforts on every of those days) most likely 1 heavy day, other one much lighter with maybe a variation of the lift. No 1rm efforts.
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squats will have to step back if you are increasing your dl volume. They work similar muscles and are also very taxing on the cns, you need to recover. If you choose 3 times a week you probably shouldn’t do any squats.
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probably best to do on a surplus
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1 time a week is enough for most people, usually athletes do it more often if it’s lagging in preparation for a meet or with submaximal weights (like weightlifters)
17. IJGN “3-4 times a week” – I do squats and deadlifts 3-4 times a week. High intensity but just “one good set” a session.
18. Glenwiley “2 times a week” – I find that 2 days a week is about all I can recover from. In fact I typically have 1 heavy day (Saturday) and 1 light day (Tuesday). I simply can't move as much weight without a light day in between.
19. ShadowOUtOfTime “2 times a week” – I have one heavy deadlift day and one lighter / high volume deadlift day (as is the case with all my main lifts). Works fine for me
20. OneToGo17 “2 times a week” – 2x a week is good. I like one heavy day and one lighter day with higher reps. I squat on my deadlift days too.
Results
Deadlift One Time A Week – 40%
Deadlift Two Times A Week – 25%
Deadlift Three Times A Week – 20%
Deadlift 4+ Times A Week – 15%
So as you can see the more times a week the less people agree with. The overall consensus was do what you feel comfortable with as long as you are getting enough calories and don't have major fatigue you should be fine. There are people who do total body workouts 5 days a week the way they get away with it is they keep them muscles from fatiguing and balanced macros.
Related Questions
Can You Deadlift 4 Times A Week?
You can deadlift 4 times a week although as you increase your weight this may become suboptimal. The best way to do this would be to cycle between heavy and light sets throughout the week coming shy of failure. Make sure you watch your fatigue and calorie intake.
What Happens If You Do Deadlifts Everyday?
Although you can deadlift everyday this can lead to massive muscle fatigue and set back your strength gains if you are not careful. Your muscles grow and excel when they get around a 48 hour break between them being pushed to failure during workouts. Once you have your form worked out and start to plateau mixing it up a bit and going everyday could be a great idea.
Should I Deadlift Heavy Every Week?
In the beginning and until you plateau deadlifting heavy every week is fine. Once you reach a plateau you should start switching it up to medium and light weights with more reps. You can also take a week break so you can see your progress continue forward as well.
Squat, Bench, Deadlift 3X A Week?
Most powerlifting full body workouts will call for the big 3 lifts including squat, bench, deadlift. Each week you should increase your weights to 5-10lb increments not each workout. You should continue doing this until you hit a plateau at which time you will need to mix it up. You have several options which is to simply take a week break then come back stronger or mix up the volume and weight to see increased progress.
Is 5 Sets OF Deadlifts Too Much?
5 sets of deadlift is definitely too much in the beginning. As your body gets stronger increase to 3-5 sets of 5 each then see how you feel especially when it comes to fatigue. The biggest thing about deadlift is knowing your lifting and trying not to push through that wall. Mixing it up is also a good thing so when it comes to reps you can take it up to 8, but shouldn't go to 10 unless doing some lightweight straight leg deadlifts.
Why Do They Call It Deadlift?
They call it deadlift since you are literally lifting a non moving object in this case weight plates off the ground. There are many different kinds of deadlifts with different grips including sumo, hex, trap, snatch, Romanian among others.
