Linda
Also known as Three Bars of Death. A descending ladder of three barbell movements at heavy loads.
- Format
- Ladder
- Time cap
- 30 mins
- Level
- advanced
Ladder
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Linda is a ladder workout by Fiz, built from 3 movements, with a 30 mins cap. It is set at advanced level.
About Linda
Linda is a descending ladder from ten down to one of deadlifts, bench presses and cleans, often called Three Bars of Death, because the traditional setup has all three barbells loaded and waiting, and you move between them for every rung. It is the heaviest sustained benchmark in the catalogue and it takes most athletes well over twenty minutes.
Fifty-five reps of everything, all of it heavy
Each movement is performed fifty-five times across the ladder, at loads that are genuinely challenging rather than metcon-light. That combination (high absolute load and high total volume) is rare, and it is why Linda punishes athletes who are strong but untrained at volume just as hard as it punishes athletes who are fit but not strong. The deadlift is the most fatiguing of the three because it loads the same posterior chain the cleans need, and it is scheduled first on every rung.
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The early rungs decide the late ones
The rungs of ten, nine and eight take a disproportionate share of the workout, and going too fast through them is what turns the round of three into a series of singles with long rests. Break the big rungs deliberately (the round of ten as five and five, not as an unbroken hero set) and keep the transitions between bars brisk, because that is where the free time lives. The bench press is usually the movement athletes underestimate: it comes after the deadlift with an already-taxed midline, and a failed rep under a loaded bar is the one genuinely dangerous moment in this workout. Use a spotter or safeties.
What's a good Linda time
Under twenty minutes is a strong Linda and elite athletes go closer to fifteen. Twenty to twenty-five is a good competitive result and most consistent athletes finish somewhere between twenty-five and the thirty-minute cap. Scale the loads to keep the round of ten unbroken-capable, if rep one of the ladder is already a grind, this becomes an hour of heavy singles and stops measuring what it was built to measure.