During a short gymless period when all I had was a 300lb weight set I deadlifted about 2x weekly.
Nothing special…right?
Wrong.
I decided arbitrarily (likely after reading a Ken Leistner article and wishing I had a gym membership) that I’d train 30 rep per set deadlifts.
I started light, and after ~2 sessions weekly for a 6 week period recall fairly easily hitting 275 or 285 for about 35 reps.
I recall pulling only double overhand, and I think my choice of footwear was work boots (I’m hazy on that detail, though I vaguely recall doing that as an experiment to see how much work shifted from my posterior to my quads.)
It was a fun time, and it ended when I joined the local commercial gym during a no join fee promotion. (At the time I really thought I needed more gym than my yard would provide.)
Looking back over the years it seems my deadlift needs high reps. I can show the strength I’ve developed without that volume, but without primarily pulling AMRAPs in 5rm-10rm range or work sets of 15+ it’s generally a struggle for maintainence or even regression.
(Isometrics & “game day” EMOM the only exceptions to the high rep necessity that I can come up with.)
If I truly want my deadlift to go up I’ll be pulling 15s or better.
And now it’s a 500lb weight set.
Sky’s the limit.
*As Ken Leistner points out ; if you don’t mentally view the rep range as “tough” it won’t be. During that time it was simply how I trained, no mental block, so it progressed quickly.