Is it the name that puts people off deadlifting?
I’m sure once or twice a day you will pick an object off the floor – let me give you the tip: you are ‘deadlifting’ i.e.: lifting a ‘dead’ weight.
Training deadlifts makes real life situations easier.
If you have the required ROM to perform them and they are trained/coached correctly, deadlifts will:
- Give you a whole body workout – including the shoulders, biceps, triceps, back, traps, glutes, abdominals, hamstrings etc..
- Improved your posterior chain strength and hence posture improves and daily tasks become easier.
- Decrease lower back pain by improving core activation, backside and back muscle condition.
- Increase HGH and testosterone production thereby improving muscle mass, bone density and resting metabolic rate.
- and like all resistance training that is undertaken properly, reduce body fat.
Deadlifts can be performed using dumbbells, barbells, or kettlebells with one hand or two hands & with one leg or two legs..and variations are only limited by your imagination.
A step by step guide of how to is outlined well by Jim Smith:
- Step 1: Approach the bar and set your feet
- Step 2: Stand up tall
- Step 3: Hip hinge driving your hips backward while keeping your torso straight
- Step 4: As your hips go back, reach for the bar
- Step 5: Grab your bar with a double overhand grip and squeeze as hard as you can
- Step 6: Take a deep breath and brace your core outward in all directions
- Step 7: Pull up on the bar to ‘take the slack out’, engage your lats, and pull your hips down to lock into position
- Step 8: Drive your knees outward into your forearms creating torque at the hips
- Step 9: With your torso locked into position, while maintaining intense full body tension, drive the floor away with a powerful leg press
- Step 10: After the bar passes your knees, drive the hips forward with a powerful glute contraction, locking your body into a straight position
- Step 11: Reverse the movement by re-engaging a hip hinge and driving the hips back until the bar reaches your knees
- Step 12: After the bar passes the knees, squat the bar back to the floor under control
- Step 13: Reset and repeat
