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After following Foundation for about 8 months on and off, Handstand for about 3, running competitively for 3 years and not deadlifting for about 4 years (only did 65 lbs, making sure of good form, dropped off), I decided to test my deadlift out. Started out at 135 lbs (61 kg) for 3 reps. Easy. 185 single. Stopped at a pretty easy 205 (93kg). Probably could have gone for 225 had I warmed up thoroughly, but I didn't want to push it too much. This is 1.5x my bodyweight.

A couple of days ago I joined my brother in a traditional gym to do some deadlifts. And I can only conclude that this is one of the best exercises I have ever tried. I have trained calisthenics and gymnastics for about 1.5 year now, and so far I have had the attitude that anything you can train with weights, we can do equally good or better with bodyweight…. However do we really have anything to match deadlifts? It seems to activate so many muscles in the posterior chain, and more specific it really hits the lower back brutally, something that seems to lack in my bodyweight training. I have not followed the Foundation programme, so it might be my specific training, but compared to my friends that train weights, my lower back does not seem very strong. From my training, the exercises that targets the lower back the most I think is arch holds, arch raises, headstand leg lifts and the back lever. If you have any other execises that hits the lower back hard, let me know!