Stiff legged deadlifts will target your glutes more than straight leg deadlifts but you can use more weight. The straight leg results in more stretching of the hamstrings. I think you will get more benefit from the stiff leg. The difference iin the two is that the stiff legged deadlift has a slight bend in the knee. The normal deadlift is lifting the bar from the floor and of course involves bending the knee. I assume this is what you mean by "bent knee" deadlift. This method allows the greatest weight to be moved and also has the longest range of motion of all the deadlift variations. Although the load is distributed over a greater area, it should work the hamstrings harder than any other exercise.
I don't know why you would want to stop when you reach a particular weight. Once you no longer experience overloading you will no longer get an adaptation and you will not get stronger of bigger. You can continue to maintain conditioning and preventing atrophy without increasing the weight. You should work in the 5 to 15 rep range. Art DeVaney recommends a workout of 15, 10 and 5 reps as being the ultimate rep scheme for maintenance. The 15 rep set would be about 60-65%, the 10 rep set around 75% and the 5 rep set around 87% of 1RM.
Stu
|