Lifting blocks

A Reduced range of motion deadlift.

A few years ago, I was training a younger, but very tall athlete and wanted to shorten the range of motion of their deadlift to work on form in a little easier position. The best way to manage this is to place the plate up on lifting blocks. This makes it easier for the lifter to get into potion if they are tight, and can also make the position a little easier to learn.

The top of the blocks are 18mm plywood, 500mm x 500mm. These are screwed to 75mm square posts I had left over from an old fence. Since I don’t plan on using these for very heavy pulls I’m not worried about damaging the plywood. However if you want to build something like this for heavy pulls the only change I would suggest is covering the top plywood in some rubber gym mats.

Top and side view

These are also quite handy for single leg work like step ups and for exercises like the Jefferson curl. I’m glad I built them, even if it seems like they might have limited use, I end up using one every week.

Example of with and without blocks

And that's it, if you have some scrap plywood and timber laying around consider building some blocks if you don’t already have something similar.