The art of deadlifting (badly)

The deadlift is considered “The King” of all excercises, because of just how many muscle groups it targets. It targets the Erector Spinae (muscles along your spine), Gluteus Maximus (primary buttocks muscle), Hamstrings (back of your thighs), Quadriceps (front of your thighs), Adductor Magnus (inner thighs), Soleus (part of your calves), Gastrocnemius (another major muscle in your calves), Trapezius (upper back), Rhomboids (upper back), Forearm Flexors (forearm muscles responsible for grip), Abdominal Muscles (core) and the Obliques (sides of your core).

The problem is, the deadlift is a REALLY HARD EXCERCISE. Whilst there are plenty of tutorial videos online on how to deadlift. It is actually really hard to get it right, especially once you make it heavy. Here is an example of me battling with 200kg in competition. See how it looks much harder and uglier than the squat (197.5kg). The back rounds, I'm shaking everywhere, etc..

> >

So why is the deadlift so hard? Why do so many of us (even with a lot of practice such as myself) suck at deadlifting? My personal conjecture and working hypothesis, is that for the majority of us sedentary folk (we spend most of our time sitting down at an office job or driving etc.. instead of running around and playing sports or doing manual standing labour), we end up with what is known as lower crossed syndrome. So essentially from sitting down, our hamstrings and upper back are stretched and loose, whereas our hip flexors, quads and lower back are shortened and tight. We also spend our whole time sitting down, so when are we using our hips or our glutes? Never

Rounded Back Deadlifts

So what happens when we try and pick something up? especially something heavy? Somewhat unsurprisingly we use the muscles that we are accustomed to already having in a shortened and tightened position. The lower back and quadriceps. This is why you see that hip shooting up back rounding attemp at pulling deadlifts, like this guy?

Or alternatively I could bring forth some examples of myself during various stages of my lifitng career deadlifting with atrocious form. Here you see that all to familiar, curving of the lower back, loading the spine before actually pulling the weight. This curved spinal position means that a component of the mechanical force doesn't transmit along the spinal collumn, but instead perpendicular to it. This works to push out the cushions between your spinal vertebrae and increases your risk of getting a herniated disc.

Does this matter? Put pretty simply yes. Whilst there is research showing that elite athletes can lift heavy weights with a rounded spine and not get injured, the thing is this is not really relevant to the typical person. Firstly elite athletes typically round their upper and not lower back, something which is very hard for non pros to do (I have been trying for years and still can't do it). Secondly, just because there exists someone that can do something that doesn't hurt them, doesn't mean you doing it isn't increasing the risk of you hurting yourself. The simple truth is that you don't want to be abusing those discs. The goal of the deadlift is to strengthen the muscles of your glutes, quadriceps, back, hamstrings, upper traps, forearms and not to test your resistance to injury.

So how do we deadlift better? Part of the problem is just awareness. After reading this post, you should already know that you want to be keeping your back completely straight during your deadlifts. You can think to lift up your chest and to push the floor away engaging your core and hips. The problem is of course that its easy to think that was o.k and it actually not be that great. Especially if you have already started bad habits or aren't that physically aware.

Solving bad deadlifts with DeepBarbell

That is why I created the DeepBarbell App. It is an iOS app that basically replaces the role of an experienced gym buddy. You just upload a (more or less) side on video of yourself lifting and it gives you a form check. here is an example of the app AI feedback running on a deadlift and on a squat. The app is free for the first two weeks and then costs 10GBP per month. If you sign up to our mailing list, the price is further reduced to only 5GBP per month. For those of you who have an Android phone and want some feedback on your deadlifts, use the form below and we will get in touch.