How to Deadlift Properly
One of my favorite strength moves is the deadlift. I’ve been training with mark Frantz from The Foundation Fitness since June and deadlifts is a core part of our training program. Often times, I see people at the gym performing this move incorrectly, even myself. I’m still perfecting my form and there are always minor adjustments that I know need to be made. Mark has helped me improve my form immensely and we have increased my deadlift weight from 115 lbs to 175 lbs!
Here are some tips and cues from Mark on proper deadlift execution.
Before performing deadlifts, go through a few activations to engage the muscles that you want to move the weight and stabilize.
Lat activations - any movement pattern that fully shortens the lat (ex. low cable row).
Glute activations - same concept as lat activations (ex. frog pumps, hip extensions).
The deadlift’s prime mover is the glutes. Learn to engage and use your glutes in hip extension first. Here are some basic cues to your set up and execution:
Bar over mid foot, close to the shins with feet hip width apart.
Set shoulder blades down and back, squeezing them together while filling your diaphragm with air and bracing.
Don’t lift up - the bar doesn’t matter. Focus on what your hips are doing and drive them to the bar while keeping a stable spine. Your chin always stays tucked.
At first, don’t just slam the bar down. Load your hips on the way down as you shift your weight back into them and feel the tension displace back there.
Focus on form over weight for awhile. Once your form is great, go as heavy and brutally hard as you can safely.
Mark noticed that once the load became heavy for me, I had a tendency to tilt my head back when I pulled up. It’s important to keep your head in line with neutral spine, but there are so many internal cues that you need to be aware of that you may forget one. To force my head to remain neutral, Mark places an object on the floor (ex. barbell clip) approximately one foot in front of me so that I can use it as a “spot”. Little tips and tricks like this help, so if you’re experiencing the same issue, give this a try!
There you have it! Happy deadlifting!