Deadlifts and Lightheadedness

Lothaar

I've recently started doing deadlifts. I'm using a low weight and focusing on form. I have found that I get lightheaded after a few reps, even though my muscles are not being taxed. I'm pretty certain my form is correct. Does anybody know 1) if this is normal and 2) how to avoid it?

Dragan

Might sound like a weird question but how if your breathing during the excercise?

Lothaar

Well, I'm aiming to breathe in slowly on the way down, and breathe out on the way up.
I end up getting lightheaded, then I stop cos I'm a bit out of breath (even though it's not particularly exterting). Once I catch my breath I continue.

Dragan

I have found that dead lifting and squatting for reps are all about the deep breaths. They are two huge excercises that utilise a major amount of muscle.

Breath deep and you should be fine.

I hope!

Lothaar

Funny you should say that, as I got the impression that it was the deep breaths that were causing the lightheadedness. I remember as a kid we used to take a load of deep breaths quickly so that we'd feel lightheaded.

I get it with squats too, just not as bad.

because_I_can

deadlifts are probably the most taxing exercise you can do apart from sprinting.
Not only will they tax your muscle's (and almost every muscle group especially your "PC" Posterior chain) but also your CNS - central nervous system.

Recovery from CNS workouts can take 2x as long as a simple muscle taxing workout. i typically take 2.5 days off after a hard CNS session.

Im not sure about the lightheadness exactly but it has to do with the fact that you've never had to use so much muscle before and in such a taxing way. More specifically its because the bar is at a "dead" stop. you have to impart the initial kinetic energy to shift the bar where as a squat or bench gravity does the initial acceleration for you.

a traditional deadlift is an exercise i avoid mainly because of this CNS drain. The benefits are not enough to justify 3-4 days off to recover. SLDL, RDL, hypers, bulgarians, and the olympic pulls give much better bang for your buck in my opinion.

Obviously others think differently and id like to hear g'em's thoughts on this considering she's the authority on dead's here?

amazingemmet

What are olympic pulls?

g'em

because_I_can wrote:

Obviously others think differently and id like to hear g'em's thoughts on this considering she's the authority on dead's here?

cheeky!!! and i'm going to presume its good-natured cheekiness at that.. :rolleyes:

i'm no authority, i just love doing them. they are one of the best overall strength building exercise that anyone at any level can do. they are especially taxing, but mostly because of the nature and complexity of such a compound lift. when done right, they are extremely safe. The tiredness of my back after a good solid deadlift workout is just something I know to expect, and it's not like I go for 1RM every time. different people enjoy doing different variations of what is basically the same movement, you prefer doing straight-leg deadlifts and romanian deadlifts (not everyone knows the lingo y'know!!!), I prefer conventional lifts- purely because I think they are most relevant to me in real life. The action I use when deadlifting in the gym is most similar to the movement I would execute when lifting something heavy at home or otherwise. I'm sure at some stage I will go back to soem of the variations which I've played around with in the past, but for now, it works for me, and it works well.

t-ha

Are you well fed when you're working out? Are you trying to lose weight at the moment maybe?

Dragan

because_I_can wrote:

a traditional deadlift is an exercise i avoid mainly because of this CNS drain. The benefits are not enough to justify 3-4 days off to recover. SLDL, RDL, hypers, bulgarians, and the olympic pulls give much better bang for your buck in my opinion.

Good point. However, the CNS drain, as G'em said is really something you need only worry about on 1RM days and even then i think we all know there is a difference between doing a 1RM and then doing the build up, the 1RM and 3 or 4 FTL's afterwards to build into the next weight range!

All in all deads are a great move for the average gym goer and something i love doing. However, i love doing the other stuff two! The join of having no current training goal is that i can pretty much walk into the gym and do whatever! I love it!

D-Generate

Oh sorry to hijack the OP's thread but i have another deadlift question.
I haev only been doing them two months or so now but i already have good overall strength and my form is close to perfect i think.
The problem is I don't find it taxing enough bbut its hard to explain.

I do 5 sets of 5 reps at 120 kg's. While doing it i find it tough but an hour after the workout i don't feel sore or stiffness that i associate with doing weights.
However once a week I do 5 sets of 20 reps at 60kgs. This really makes me sweat and it takes about 2 days to fully recover to being able to walk up stairs without any slight burn.
Basically which method is better? The heavy weight with no burn or the light one with long recovery.

I can lift 150kgs but i find my grip giving in after a rep and not my legs and back if thats any help. Should i work on my grip so that i can reach heavy weights that do leave me with a burn?

Lothaar

T-Ha - I'm not well-fed when working out, and I am indeed trying to lose weight at the moment.
I workout at lunchtime (1pm). By that stage I will have had a bowl of porridge at 8am and two pieces of fruit at 11am.

What effect does this have?

Dragan

Lothaar wrote:

I workout at lunchtime (1pm). By that stage I will have had a bowl of porridge at 8am and two pieces of fruit at 11am.

What effect does this have?

Oh dear.... you gotta fuel yourself dude. I'll leave it up to smarter people to explain why

g'em

plenty of carbs 1-2 hours before a workout. you're body needs fuel to allow yourself to work hard. so workout at around 10am or eat some starchy carbs at 11 before you work out at 1

eating too little carbs results in low muscel glycogen levels, low energy, reduced training intensity and fatigue. the carbs will stimulate the release of insulin to encourage muscle building

t-ha

Dragan wrote:

Oh dear.... you gotta fuel yourself dude. I'll leave it up to smarter people to explain why

*waves hand around in the air wildly

"I'm smart! I'm smart!"

Well basically, while reducing carbs is a good way for alot of people these days to lose weight (since they eat too much of them for their activity level), unfortunately glucose is one of your brain's favouritist foods. Without it, you can suffer dizzyness and lightheadedness. Whilst your not carb depleted after having had porridge and fruit, you're pretty close. It's been 5 hours since your main feed, and I don't know what kind of fruit you had but it's unlikely you've gleaned more than 40/50g carbs from them. Especially once you start working out you're gonna find yourself real short of glucose real soon. You may be able to work individual muscle groups without falling over because their energy demand is smaller, but big lifts like squats and deads have alot of muscles firing at the same time, which directly & indirectly requires alot of glucose. This drain leaves none for your brain which starts to shut down operations.

Basically, the take home message is, even when trying to lose weight, the one time you really don't want to be short on nutrients is during and after a heavy workout. Starve yourself some other time.

I've found that a great compromise between leaning out and keeping performance in the gym is to use your slimming diet (whatever that may be) on a rest day, but an hour before gym time have a good meal of protein & carbs. Put a few teaspoons of glucose into your gym-water, and also put a few in your whey for your post-workout shake (a banana/most berries are good here too). Then have your post-workout meal, and then continue to eat big until you've been eating big for 24 hrs (so if your first big meal before the gym was at twelve, then you eat big until twelve the next day.). Then you return to your slimming down diet until it's time to hit the gym again. That way, if you work out 3 times a week, you eat big for 72hrs of that week, and small for the remaining 96hrs. It also has the advantage that most of the heavy eating comes after your workout, so if your workout was especially good you can eat extra .

Edit: ah dammit, g'em is smart & fast too...

g'em

t-ha wrote:

Edit: ah dammit, g'em is smart & fast too...

you forgot concise

because_I_can

g'em wrote:

cheeky!!! and i'm going to presume its good-natured cheekiness at that.. :rolleyes:

it was good natured. your 100 triple would be like me hitting 200plus for 3 so i respect that. you obviously know what you're talking about

because_I_can

D-Generate wrote:

Oh sorry to hijack the OP's thread but i have another deadlift question.
I haev only been doing them two months or so now but i already have good overall strength and my form is close to perfect i think.
The problem is I don't find it taxing enough bbut its hard to explain.

I do 5 sets of 5 reps at 120 kg's. While doing it i find it tough but an hour after the workout i don't feel sore or stiffness that i associate with doing weights.
However once a week I do 5 sets of 20 reps at 60kgs. This really makes me sweat and it takes about 2 days to fully recover to being able to walk up stairs without any slight burn.
Basically which method is better? The heavy weight with no burn or the light one with long recovery.

I can lift 150kgs but i find my grip giving in after a rep and not my legs and back if thats any help. Should i work on my grip so that i can reach heavy weights that do leave me with a burn?

how long is a piece of string?

it depends on your goals man!!
in general tho its best to mix it up. still id consider >10 reps per set to be a huge amount

Lothaar

Thanks for the replies. I'm in the gym 5 days a week, for 40 mins a pop, so I'll need to stick to my slimming diet. However, I'm eating 6 meals a day... today it was going to be:
8am: Porridge
11am: A banana and an apple
2pm (post-workout): Breast of chicken with wholemeal pasta, chickpeas and pesto.
4.30pm: Breast of chicken with wholemeal pasta, chickpeas and pesto. Kiwi and a pear.
6.30pm: Dinner.
8.30pm: Protein shake.

But it seems that from what you're saying, I should eat the chicken and pasta at 11am and at 2pm, and just have fruit at 4.30. Right?


I workout between 1 and 2.

g'em

ideally yeah, three's still a long gap between your starchy carb brekkie and your workout. just divide you lunch portion into two, eat one portion at 11am so that when you go to do weights you'll have plenty of energy to do them!!

Doing cardio on an empty stomach (if its low intensity) is fine, as the decreased insulin levels will allow for good fat burning, but for anaerobic activity like weight lifting, you need to have eat some decent carbs within the 2-3 hour period beforehand.

t-ha

I'ld also move the protein shake to post-workout with a few tsp of glucose like I mentioned before, and then have the second chicken & pasta meal afterwards. Is your protein shake a whey based shake? If it is you'll want something in your evening shake to slow down the rate of absorbtion (I use ground linseed/flaxseed).