when do you do your DLs?

[oregonchick76]

I am currently bulking and doing a 5 day split - chest, back, shoulders, quad dominant/squat day, ham dominant DL day.

My DL day is my shortest. My repertoire of glute/ham exercises is not much beyond standard DL, RDL, and glute-ham raises. I use the leg curl machine at the end more for hypertrophy/isolation work, but I don't feel like that's very well-rounded.

I tried good mornings, but for the life of me I don't think I'm doing them right. I do feel it in my hams, but I start to feel it in my low back (in a bad way) way before my hamstrings are fatigued.

So, do I lump my DL's into my squat day and just do one leg day?

Do I round out my DL day with some other stuff? And like what?

Or do I do DL's on back day?

[illiniStrive]

Granted, I'm in a different position since my days aren't set up with hypertrophy for bb'ing purposes as the primary goal, but my deadlift days are relatively short - though no less taxing - in comparison to other days. If you're hitting DLs, RDLs, and GHRs hard that seems like a good bulk of a workout. Do you have any ab work? You could consider adding that in.

[thehobbes]

I do them on their own day, DLs are exhausting. I've done squat + DL a couple times just because I needed to get it done, I wouldn't recommend doing that all the time though. If you're going to buddy them up with anything I'd say core stuff, not squat, not even rows.

[dawnmsaunders]

I'm doing the PHUL program, and it has me doing leg presses, DLs, and squats all in the same day. I've had to cut out the squats and focus on doing more with DLs and leg presses. I'll do squats a different day. Doing both of those is way too tiring for me... deadlifts wear me out usually just by themselves. If you do both squats and DLs on one day, maybe one day you can start with squats, and the other start with deadlifts so you can get the best of both each week.

[Echo814]

I'm following Baby Got Back right now and they have their own day with a quad dominant exercise thrown in after the RDL and good mornings. Another option for a hammy exercise is the pull through, weighted glute bridges (main focus is glutes but I felt them in the hammies pretty good) and you could try out seated good mornings to see if that takes the lower back issue out of the movement.

[fihe]

I do deadlifts on leg day, which is twice a week. I generally do 4-6 reps, but I tried increasing the weight this past week and could only do 2! I feel like deadlifts aren't an exercise that are meant to be done with a bunch of reps, so if I can do more than 6, I increase the weight.

I almost always start my workout with squats, and although I'll usually do deadlifts towards the middle of my workout, so that I have some time after squatting to regain energy, I have been doing them right after squats for the past two weeks or so. I just like getting my two hardest exercises out of the way.

Is it bad that I squat, deadlift, and sometimes leg press all in the same day?

[birdiefu]

Well, my training is quite different as I have much higher frequency for the main lifts and train mostly for strength even though mass comes along during a bulk usually through higher rep ranges of accessories. In fact, I technically DL 2x/wk, but only one is primary (comp) DL day. On that day I DL, then do a secondary squat (front squats, pause squats, etc - but only one variation). A posterior chain accessory that is not very close to DLs (ex: I don't do RDLs or SLDLs on primary DL day) like 45 degree back extension, GHR, GMs, BB hip thrust, etc., and I also do Pendlay rows (I have some sort of pull 4x/wk even if just high rep facepulls one day - other heavier ones would be T-bars, chest-supported, DB rows). And weighted abs.

So a typical DL day for me would be 5 movements:

DLs
Squat variation (higher rep usually, unless pause squat), or leg press on deload.
Posterior chain accessory not too close to full DL movement pattern
Higher rep row/pull
Weighted Abs

[kimm4]

How about some heavy goblet squats? I use a sumo stance for these and they really hit the hamm/glute area nicely.

I don't do conventional deads, so I throw in occasional RDL's on leg day.