Deadlift Pause Length

Deadlifts are named that way, “dead,” because they are meant to be done from a dead stop.

With other exercises you can bounce the weight off your shoulders, chest, or whatever it is, which is fine to a small degree because you still are holding the weight in the air the whole time. Bouncing a lift off the floor, however, is just cheating. That’s why the dead stop is required.

Alan Thrall explains the right amount of time to pause between reps, and how it affects your performance.

Is Rust on Your Weights Poisonous?

There has been some talk on whether it’s important to clean up your rusty weight plates, barbells or dumbbells.

An only slightly rusty bar

Rust particles are naturally occurring iron oxide and are not very toxic. The risk of tetanus from rusty nails has entirely to do with the fact that bacteria can accumulate in an area where the nail got wet enough to get rusty, and if the nail pokes you and injects the bacteria into you it’s bad. Nothing to do with the rust itself.

Even so, you don’t want to have bits of rust fall into your eyes in the middle of a set of overhead presses and be flinching in anticipation every set after.

Plus, you don’t want to mess up your clothes.

See my article on gym equipment maintenance, which includes info on cleaning rust and other gunk off various types of equipment, and it splits off into articles about cleaning up olympic bars and weight plates.

Rep Fitness Launches New Commercial Division

Rep is known for making Rogue-quality equipment; Kyle’s gym we featured is mostly Rep Fitness stuff.

They launched their commercial equipment line under Victory Fitness. Basically “big box gym” style weight machines and cardio machines. They just resell the Concept 2 rowers, and no fan bike, so personally the Victory stuff doesn’t interest me. Worth a mention anyway!