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Another thing that we have recently begun to understand about this is the
necessity for most people—and especially bigger guys—to point the toes out to
activate the hip and make room for the gut between the femurs in order to
express the correct back angle. The correct back angle is, of course, where the
scapulas are directly over the bar. Generally, the thinner you are, the less
important it is. But the heavier you are, the more important the toes-out
position is.

What we find is that if you take your vertical jump stance right under the
bar (relatively narrow stance), place the middle of the foot under the bar, and
then point your toes out maybe 15–20 degrees, you make it much easier to express
the correct back angle when you’re in thoracic and lumbar extension. It also
enables you to place a little bit of tension on the adductors with that external
rotation. To a certain extent, you can call them into hip extension because the
adductors are hip extensors. They’re part of the posterior chain. When you point
your toes out and point your knees out a little bit, you actually tighten them
up and get a little bit of help out of those muscles. If you look at old videos
of Vince Anello, he figured this out
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQD9mHTLFCA).

Box squats (high or low)

Muscles developed: hamstrings, gluteals

Problem areas in the lift: poor starting strength

Glute ham raises

Muscles developed: hamstrings

Problem areas in the lift: hips too high at start of lift

Here are a few max effort variations that work well for the deadlift:




• 
  Mini-band resisted deadlifts
• Deadlifts with
  bands
• Snatch grip deadlifts
• Sumo or conventional deadlifts (the opposite of what you would
  use in competition)
• Rack pulls
• Deadlifts standing on plates or boards
• If you’re feeling good, belt up and go for a heavy single.
• If you’re not feeling good, go ahead and belt up but work more
  in the 90–95% range. Two to three singles should be fine here.





In the third and fourth weeks, you’ll switch it up and use a
different movement. I generally cycle 3–4 different max effort movements
over the course of a training cycle. I then start over from the
beginning. The obvious goal here is to hit a new PR each time you go
back to a specific exercise.