High-rep deadlifts are deadlifts performed at 8 reps or more. Most people wouldn’t aim for more than 15 reps. Loads for high-rep deadlifts are usually 50-70% of your 1 rep max.
High reps stimulate muscle growth because you can perform more training volume than moderate or low-rep training.
However, doing more reps increases your chance of injury as form tends to break down after 3 to 5 reps.
That’s why you’ll want to read on before proceeding. I’ll share how I help clients safely add high-rep deadlifts to their workouts and reap all the benefits.
Pros & Cons of High Rep Deadlifts
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Builds muscle mass | Higher risk of back injury |
| Improve energy systems | Requires discipline and technique |
| Build work capacity for strength or intensity blocks | Requires no major weak points |
| Help break plateaus in sticking points | |
| Increase deadlift strength |
Table of Contents
Pros of High Rep Deadlifts
- It can build muscle mass in your leg, hip, and back
- It can improve your energy systems
- It can build work capacity for strength/intensity blocks
- It can help you break plateaus in your sticking points
- It can increase your deadlift strength
1. It Can Build Muscle Mass in Your Legs, Hips, and Back
Deadlifts have the highest demand on your glutes, quadriceps, and hamstrings and also work your hip adductors, calves, abdominals, and lower and upper back muscles.
Training deadlifts to high reps can be a time-efficient way to build muscle hypertrophy in these muscles as it is one exercise that hits multiple groups simultaneously. Also, it is time-efficient because you perform a lot of repetitions in each set.
High repetitions will mean that you have to use lower loads for the exercise (50-70% of your 1RM), however research has shown that low load training is effective at gaining muscle strength and size.
Related Article: Should Powerlifters Do Hypertrophy?
2. It Can Improve Your Energy Systems
Training deadlifts to high reps means performing bouts of high-intensity activity that can last between 30 seconds to 2 minutes. This means that there is a high demand for anaerobic energy systems, which are energy systems that do not depend on oxygen.
This benefits sports, which are in high demand for these energy systems. Sports that may benefit from this include intermittent bouts of activity, such as football, soccer, and basketball, as well as rowing and middle-distance runners.
High-rep deadlifts will improve your energy systems for these sports and increase lower body strength at the same time.
3. It Can Build Work Capacity for Strength/Intensity Training Blocks
High rep deadlifts can help you with your ability to perform more repetitions at higher intensities.
This is useful for strength athletes who want to improve the number of total repetitions they can perform at higher intensities. If you find that you fatigue very quickly at higher intensities, i.e., 80% or more, or your legs burn very quickly, then high-rep deadlifts can help.
By doing high-rep deadlifts, you improve your work capacity to perform more total reps at high intensities in subsequent strength or higher-intensity training blocks. You will likely make better gains if you can perform more reps at higher intensities and recover from them.
4. It Can Help You Break Plateaus in Your Sticking Points
Most people have a sticking point in their deadlifts where they slow down somewhere halfway up the range of motion. This sticking point can stop you from lifting heavier or more reps at certain intensities.
If you use higher weights, you may find that higher-intensity work is the sticking point that holds you back from performing many reps.
What high-rep deadlifts offer is a way of training through that weak range with more reps of lower intensity weights to provide more of a training stimulus through the sticking points.
Love to deadlift, but do you wonder Can You Deadlift Every Day?
5. It Can Increase Your Deadlift Strength
Novice to intermediate-level athletes can increase their deadlift strength with high-rep deadlifts to an extent.
Doing high rep deadlift provides two things:
- You will practice many repetitions.
- High levels of work can strengthen the muscles responsible for the exercise.
Novice and intermediate athletes will benefit plenty from building muscle and having more practice to dial down technique.
If you’re trying to build your deadlift strength, you need to check out How to Increase Deadlift Strength by 100 Pounds
Cons of High Rep Deadlifts
- It can injure your back
- It requires good discipline and technique
- It requires no major weak points
1. It Can Injure Your Back
High repetitions are fatiguing, and if you lose concentration and allow your form to break, you can risk injuring your back.
If your legs and hip muscles fatigue as you perform a set, you might end up rounding your back to compensate, which is when you put excess stress across your lower back.
Your form must be perfect and something you remember every rep.
Low back feeling tight after deadlift sessions? Learn more about why this isn’t ideal in my post: Are You Deadlifting Too Much?
2. It Requires Good Discipline and Technique
High-rep deadlifts require good technique and discipline to execute all the reps well, especially the last few reps in the set.
High repetitions in the deadlift can be extremely demanding, and it is easy to want to get the set over and done with. However, high levels of discipline are needed to ensure that you set up well repeatedly and execute the lift with good attention to technique, not rushing it.
3. It Requires No Major Weak Points
Weak points in your deadlift will appear during high reps even if you are disciplined enough to perform reps with good technique.
If you have any obvious weak points, you should not perform high rep deadlifts but instead, focus on training your weak points away.
If you really enjoy doing high-rep deadlifts, you may have to reduce the intensity to the point that you can perform all the reps with good technique. Alternatively, you can perform high reps of the deadlift and stop before your technique breaks down.
For more information, check out these articles on deadlift weak points at the knee and deadlift weak points off the floor.
When To Do High Rep Deadlifts
Here are 3 things to consider you need to think about if you want to implement high rep deadlifts into your routine:
- How Is My Technique?
- Have I Hit a Strength Plateau?
- Previous Injury History
Do You Need To Improve Your Technique?
If you need to improve your technique, you should not do high-rep deadlifts. However, if your technique is good but you need to build work capacity and strength, you should include high-rep deadlifts in your training.
When you include high-rep deadlifts in your training, it is important that you do not push the sets to failure and that you give yourself plenty of time to recover before performing other lower-body movements.
When you do high rep deadlifts, it makes you ingrain your movement pattern i.e. technique. So, if you have poor technique, it will be harder to untrain the poor technique.
Have You Hit a Strength Plateau?
If you are hitting a strength plateau where higher intensity work is not increasing your strength, then high-rep deadlifts can be useful.
If you have spent a considerable amount of time focusing on high-intensity loads, your body adapts to the stimulus, leading you to plateau. You reach a point where you cannot progress much more with higher-intensity reps.
Performing a high rep deadlift can increase your muscle endurance in the relevant muscles, which can have a roll-on benefit for building up your ability to perform more reps at higher intensity loads.
Are You Injury-Free?
If you have any injury related to the deadlift muscles or get exacerbated by the deadlift movement, you should avoid high-rep deadlifts. Otherwise, you can consider high-rep deadlifts.
One important thing you need to understand with high rep deadlifts is there is a high opportunity for you to lose focus on a rep within the set which can lead to reinjuring yourself. There is a saying that goes, “One rep will not make you, but one rep can break you.”
It is important that before you consider high-rep deadlifts, you rehab and recondition the injured muscles so that they are on par with the rest of your body.
For more information, check out how to avoid powerlifting injuries.
How to Add High Rep Deadlifts To Your Workouts
If you’re including high-repetition deadlifts in your workout routine, they need to be the primary focus for that day's workout and the only exercise that stresses the lower back.
Here is an example of a traditional high rep deadlift pyramid-style block that is strength-focused:
- Set 1: 12 reps
- Set 2: 10 reps
- Set 3: 8 reps
While this is still high rep, you focus more on strength because you increase the weight each round.
To recover from high-rep deadlifts, you must give yourself enough time. Between sets, you should rest for 3 to 5 minutes. You should rest for at least 48 hours before performing other lower body training.
To give another example, if you want to use high-rep deadlifts to improve your work capacity, you could pick a consistent weight and do 3-5 sets of 12 reps. There’s no standard deadlift rep range for hypertrophy, but that should suffice. Some people even do 20-rep deadlifts.
How many sets you do depends on your experience level. If you’re a novice to deadlifting, 2-3 challenging sets should be appropriate. More conditioned lifters can push it to 4-6 sets per workout.
To learn more about which exercises I think work best with deadlifts, check out What Else Should I Do On Deadlift Day?
Frequently Asked Questions: High Rep Deadlifts
Do High Rep Deadlifts Count As Aerobic or Cardiovascular Training?
High rep deadlifts do not count as aerobic or cardiovascular training. High rep deadlifts are still a form of strength training. However, if you are new to exercise, you may find some improvements in aerobic fitness as a side effect.
How Many Sets Should I Do for High Rep Deadlifts?
You should do 2 to 3 sets of high-rep deadlifts per session and do this twice a week. If you are more experienced, you should do 3 to 4 sets per session, which will mean between 6 to 8 sets per week.
Should I Use Straps for High Rep Deadlifts?
If grip strength is something that you lack, then you should not use straps. If you have no issue with grip strength but you want to focus more on posture during execution, then you should try using straps.
Are High Rep Deadlifts Good for Fat Loss?
Yes, high-rep deadlifts can be good for fat loss. This is because they can target many different muscle groups simultaneously. Building muscle mass is important for improving body composition and increasing metabolism.
What Is a Good Alternative to High Rep Deadlifts?
The trap bar deadlift is my favorite alternative to high rep conventional deadlifts.
Other High Rep Training Guides
- Do Powerlifters Do High Reps? (Yes, Here’s Why)
- High Rep Overhead Press: Should You Do It?
- Benefits of High Rep Bench Press
- Benefits of High Rep Squats
- Best Rep Ranges For Squats (Science-Backed)
- How Many Reps For Powerlifting? (Definitive Guide)
- Deadlift Pyramid: What Is It? How To Do It? Common Mistakes
To learn more about the specific programming, check out Powerlifting Deadlift Program.
References
- Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Van Every DW, Plotkin DL. Loading Recommendations for Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Local Endurance: A Re-Examination of the Repetition Continuum. Sports [Internet]. 2021 Feb 22;9(2):32. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927075/
- Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW. Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research [Internet]. 2017 Dec;31(12):3508–23. Available from: https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Fulltext/2017/12000/Strength_and_Hypertrophy_Adaptations_Between_Low_.31.aspx
About The Author: Norman Cheung ASCC, British Powerlifting Team Coach
Norman Cheung is a powerlifting and accredited strength and conditioning coach under the UKSCA. He has been coaching powerlifting since 2012 and has been an IPF Team GB coach since 2016. He has experience coaching various lifters, from novices to international medallists and international university teams. Alongside coaching, he takes an interest in helping powerlifters take their first step into coaching. He currently runs his coaching services atstrongambitionscoaching.com.
