1. At the time I was trepidatious about doing all the pulling on one day. I had a lot of lower back problems and since then I've done a lot of rehab. I was also questioning whether I really NEEDED that...and I started finding out that I didn't since I was making a lot of successful changes in my programming since then.
Of course, the proof is in the pudding so I can't say what would and would not work! But I really don't get things like "deadlift programs" or "bench programs" that basically list one day in a routine. Everything you do effects everthing else...it's just too multi-faceted to list a day and call it a "routine". How in the world are the consumers of this supposed to know how the entire thing is programmed?
I would like to know everything that was done not just the pulling day. Certainly an important question and I can see you agree.
3. What you are describing that you've done in the past is more intensity cycling than what I am reffering to as "percentage-based". For instance on a 5x5 you might start with your max to get and estimate or your 5RM or something and then cycle back a certain percentage to build up from over a certain number of weeks. Some people prescribe percentage formulas (as certain percentage increase each time) but really all it is is loading the bar with simple linear progressing. And the back tracking is just to get your ready, used to the volume, etc...it's sort of a deload sometimes as well. Hell, you don't always have to do that very formally and I could say I have grown a little trepidatios over whether most of us need to be cycling intensity instead of volume but that's another discussion.
It's hard to explain how I look at this so hopefully this won't get too disjointed. I'm thinking maybe I should approach it from a standpoint of WHY each thing would be done in a program like that.
Generally thinking your should be able to break every single component of a program into a specific purpose. So it helps if you look for the purpose of each one and ask yourself what would happen if you isolated that component. So to keep it simple...I see no clear cut purpose in the actual deadlift percentage based thing. Not much of an overall training effect from jsut that..and it's not maintenance becasue it's light most of the time. So my question is why is it there and can I replace it with something more useful using a similar concept OR do I just want to maintain deads (which is pretty simple) while I do the speed deads an other accessories?
Just working up your speed deadlifts like that is very useful it's also of a fairly intense nature. I am doing my speed deads like that right now. Usually when I am doing my speed training like that I do things like snatch grips or rack pulls as accessories because I can go heavier with them and I can put in more volume as well if I wish. I find that gives me qutie the training effect. Whereas if I were to take my max dead and drop it down to such a lightweight just to spend weeks building up to circa-maximal loads...I would consider that a waste of time because, hell, I could be rocking heavy singles, doubles...whatever and get more out of it. Just to say what I do...not to say what's possible and not possible.
So that's why
