Mastering the Deadlift: Part II
by Eric Cressey


Tech note: This article contains videos delivered in Flash. You will
need the latest version of the Flash Player (at least version 7) to
view them. If you cannot see the videos, please CLICK HERE to download and install the latest player now. It is free, quick, and easy.

Note: In case you missed it, here's Part I. You'd
be hard-pressed to find a single weight-training movement that's more
"complete" than the deadlift. It's not just an upper or lower back
exercise, or a grip exercise, or a posterior chain exercise, or a core
exercise; it's an everything exercise. To that end, it's a must-have in
any lifter, athlete, or weekend warrior's training arsenal. Unfortunately,
as with any compound lift, the deadlift can get pretty technical. If
you're going to be using big weights in hopes of getting big results,
you need to make sure that you're lifting with proper technique. With
that in mind, I'm first going to show the entire (conventional-style)
movement in still frames, and then I'll show it to you in video form at
regular speed. Finally, I'll come back and list the common errors that
people make when deadlifting.

Step 1 Step up to the barbell so that your shins actually touch it.

Step 2 Keep
your chest high while pushing your hips back. Imagine someone has a
rope tied around your waist and is pulling you backward.

Step 3 As
your hips continue back, you'll need to bend your knees a bit to get
you down to the barbell. Grasp the barbell with a grip that puts your
forearms right up against the sides of your thighs; the further out
they are, the harder it'll be for you to maintain neutral spine — and
the further the bar will have to travel. Keep the chest up and
drop the hips down a bit. How far will depend on the build of the
lifter, as I noted in Part I. You should not look like you're trying to
squat the weight up. The elbows should be completely taut,
with your eyes up and weight on your heels. Puff the chest up and
tighten your triceps a bit to ensure that you're in the "locked"
position.

Step 4 Take
a big gasp of air into your stomach to help stabilize your spine, drive
the heels into the floor, and push your hips forward as your knees
extend. The hips and knees should extend simultaneously, and the
shoulders and hips should rise together. Note: Some lifters prefer to get their gasp of air before they descend to the bar.

Step 5 As
you reach lockout, imagine pinching something between your buttcheeks
at the top to lock the weight out. This glute activation helps to
prevent you from leaning back to finish the movement (lumbar
hyperextension) and stopping short (can lead to hamstring dominance and
a host of problems). At lockout, your scapulae are back and down (not
shrugged up) and you're standing tall. Here's a bad lockout (stopping short): Here's another bad lockout (leaning back/hyperextension): Now, a good lockout (glutes tight and shoulders back; standing tall, but not shrugged up):

Step 6 Initiate
the eccentric (lowering) portion of the lift by pushing the butt back
to unlock the hips without losing neutral spine. Just imagine putting a
stretch on your hamstrings without rounding the back. Step 7 As
the bar is lowered, don't worry about bending the knees until the bar
has passed them. Once the bar has passed them, you can bend the knees
to get the rest of the way to the floor. Many
individuals will lack the flexibility to pull from the floor initially,
so don't force this exercise if you can't pull it without looking like
a scared cat! For these individuals, substitute the rack pull (partial
deadlift). The bar can be elevated on pins in a power rack, or aerobic
steps, or plates on the floor. Gradually move the bar down to the floor
as your mobility improves.
Rack Pull (Partial Deadlift)

The Videos! I'm going to put this in big, bold, capital letters:
THESE VIDEOS ARE INTENTIONALLY BAD! I
have nightmares of people skimming through this article and reposting
them all over the internet. So, again, I certainly don't let my
athletes and clients lift like this! Okay, let's get to the troubleshooting.

The Shin Scraper This
is the guy who sets up too low and far away from the bar on his pull.
He has too much dorsiflexion going on, so the knees are actually in
front of the bar as he initiates the pull. As the bar comes up, it
catches on the shins and makes for a bloody deadlift and some good
battle scars. These individuals also have a tendency to pull
with flexed elbows (from dropping too low and creating slack) and a
rounded lower back (need to find range of motion wherever they can in
order to get the bar around the knees). Conveniently, as I was writing this article, a new athlete showed up and displayed this form, so I scored a video:
The solution is to get the feet up closer to the bar and bring the hips up a bit higher without losing neutral spine.

Flexed Elbows Deadlifts
should be too heavy to curl, yet you'll still see people who allow
their elbows to go on slack when they initiate a deadlift. This is a
great way to rupture a biceps tendon and guarantee that you aren't
pulling as heavy as you ought to be. It's the weight-training
equivalent of punching someone with a limp wrist. You can't effectively
transfer force from your lower body and core to the bar if your elbows
are flexed. Here's a great video for a few reasons. One, it
shows you that even tall guys can pull (Pieter Smeets, at 6' 5", pulled
from the floor on his first visit to the facility). Two, he
demonstrates the elbows-flexed deadlift on his first few reps, but
cleans it up when I cue him to do so. The last few reps are much better.
By pulling the elbows taut at the beginning of the movement, the chest pops up and it's smooth sailing.

The Scared Cat I
seriously tried to get a video of this, and I've actually trained
myself to the point that I can't make my lumbar spine round enough to
do this article justice. Fortunately, there's someone you might
recognize who's done a great job of demonstrating this flaw over the
past year or so on the internet. Check out the YouTube video. On the bright side, he's enthusiastic, so he'll probably get the back surgeons to get him in sooner. Our
lumbar discs actually handle compressive forces really well, just not
when that compression is combined with flexion. If you're going to have
any kind of flexion, it should only occur on max attempts in
powerlifting populations, and only at the thoracic spine. Those with a tendency toward the scared cat style need to improve hip mobility, lower body strength, and core stability.

Stopping Short This
problem is most common in females, as they tend to be very quad
dominant and often tight in the hip flexors. The more quad recruitment
and the greater the anterior pelvic tilt, the more likely an individual
is to stop short on the deadlift.
The
solution is very simple: hump the bar! Activating the glutes
posteriorly tilts the pelvis to complete hip extension. Combined with
scapular retraction, this yields an upright posture. You'll
commonly see diffuse lower back pain that's worse when standing with
these individuals, and they'll sometimes present with anterior hip pain
(femoral anterior glide syndrome).

Hyperextended Lockout Closely
related to the stopping short flaw is that of lumbar hyperextension at
lockout. In these individuals, rather than stopping short, they just
hyperextend the lumbar spine to compensate for the glutes not firing to
complete hip extension. In the process, the knees may bend a bit and
the end result is a backward lean.
Again, the secret is to hump the bar and stand completely upright.

Shrugging While a shrug might be desirable in teaching Olympic lifting progressions, it's not what we want with a regular deadlift.
The
shoulders should be pulled back and held down at lockout. This ensures
optimal stability of the shoulder girdle. Just think about the last
time you watched the farmer's walk or car deadlift at the World's
Strongest Man contest. Did these guys carry the weight with their
shoulders shrugged up, or were they in that "locked down" position? The answer is "B"

Stiff-Legging Some
people are built such that they need to initiate the pull with their
hips higher. On the other hand, there are those who just turn
everything into stiff-leg deadlifts. Basically, what you see is that
the hips shoot up faster than the shoulders and the bar gets too far
out in front.
This
can happen for many reasons — a history of knee problems, posterior
chain weakness, not pushing through the heels — but it's something
that's relatively easily remedied by just checking the ego at the door.
Drop the weight a bit and focus on the hips and knees extending
simultaneously with the shoulders and hips rising at the same rate.

Knee Break Lowering Believe
it or not, a lot of people have more problems with the lowering
component of the deadlift than the lifting portion. The most common
flaw we see is those who break the knees too early and try to stay
completely upright for too long.
When
the knees break, the bar gets further away from the ideal axis of
rotation (hips). In order to create the range of motion needed to get
the bar around the knees, the lifter has to round the lumbar spine
and/or markedly protract the shoulder blades. In both cases, the knees
can get shredded up pretty good. The solution is simple: push
the hips back and keep the spine neutral. Don't break the knees until
the bar has passed them. Then you can half squat, half deadlift the bar
to the floor.

Lazy Upper Back Lowering Sometimes
we encounter people who have stiffness in their hips that doesn't allow
them to get the range of motion necessary to take the bar all the way
down to the floor. Or, they're simply too lazy to care about lowering
the bar under control. Either way, they just round over to set the bar
down — and usually pretty loudly.
Mobilize the hips, strengthen the upper back, and simply be patient, and this problem will resolve pretty quickly.

The Good Deadlift Yes, it actually exists!


Conclusion That
wraps up our analysis of the conventional deadlift. Fortunately (or
unfortunately, depending on how many of these flaws you found in your
own pulling technique), we've got literally hundreds of variations of
deadlifts we can apply in our programming. In Part III, we'll cover
several of them!

About the Author
Eric
Cressey is a sought-after Boston-based strength and conditioning coach
who has worked with athletes of all levels, from youth sports to the
professional and Olympic levels. Feel to contact him and sign up for
his free newsletter at www.EricCressey.com, and check out his daily updates at www.EricCressey.Blogspot.com.
Along with Mike Robertson, Eric co-produced Magnificent Mobility and the Building the Efficient Athlete 8-DVD set. He is also the author of The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual. All three are available through the T-Nation store.

Troubleshooting the Deadlift: Part III
by Eric Cressey

Tech note: This article contains videos delivered in Flash. You will
need the latest version of the Flash Player (at least version 7) to
view them. If you cannot see the videos, please CLICK HERE to download and install the latest player now. It is free, quick, and easy.
Here it is, the grand finale. In Part I
of this series, I introduced you to a collection of deadlifting
prerequisites needed to qualify my recommendations to you — and enable
you to determine if deadlifting is right for you in the first place. In Part II, I covered the good, the bad, and the ugly of the conventional deadlift, the cornerstone of the deadlifting world. With
the prerequisites and the general technique issues resolved, it's time
to diversify and look at several deadlifting variations you can use to
give your training plenty of variety without losing out on the
tremendous benefits of heavy pullin'!

Sumo Deadlifts
Why use them? 1.
Many powerlifters choose them because they actually decrease range of
motion by 14%, so it clearly has some benefits for those who are built
for it. 2. Generally speaking, a wider stance will carry over
better to a squat than a conventional stance — especially if you squat
with a wide stance. 3. Sumo pulls are aided more by deadlift
and squat suits, which provide more "pop" in the bottom position —
where most sumo pullers tend to miss. 4. Many heavier lifters
opt to pull sumo because their bellies get in the way of pulling from
the ground conventionally. This "shift" generally takes place during
the jump from the 242 to 275-pound weight classes, at least in my
experience. 5. Sumo pulls tend to be better in the short-term
for those with flexibility limitations and in the long-term for those
with longer femurs. 6. The wider stance increases recruitment
of the adductors and more medial hamstrings, so they offer variety in a
bodybuilding context.

Notes: 1.
Sumo deadlifting can really beat up on your hips; anterior hip pain is
very common in sumo-style pullers. Make sure you're finishing with your
glutes on each rep (prevents anterior glide of the femoral head, which
can irritate the joint capsule), and be sure to never go longer than
four straight weeks pulling sumo-style without a break from it. Many
powerlifters will wear squat briefs when pulling sumo just to protect
their hips. 2. Stance-width is a very individual thing. In the
video above, my stance is out wider. Tony Gentilcore, on the other
hand, tends to pull with a narrower stance:
Experiment and find what works best for you.

Speed Deadlifts
Why use them? 1.
With every heavy deadlift, there's going to be that miserable, awkward
moment when you're pulling like crazy and the bar isn't moving — yet it
does eventually break the floor. Speed pulls help to shorten the
duration of this agony by improving rate of force development (RFD). 2.
My experience has been that many athletes with an Olympic lifting
background — especially those who only clean and snatch from the hang
position — struggle with being fast from the bottom position. From an
athletic development standpoint, you want to have great RFD from all
joint angles. 3. The faster you develop force, the more likely you are to make the lift. 4.
They're a great way to practice technique with submaximal loads, yet
you can make up the reduced tension by accelerating the bar fast.
This video is of a triple at roughly 68% of my 1RM.
Notes: 1.
Stick with sets of 3 and below. Most powerlifters go with sets of 1-rep
only, whereas I'll use more doubles and triples with my athletes. 2. Regardless, these SHOULD feel fast; anything over 65-70% isn't really speed work. 3. Don't overthink this. It's a deadlift done REALLY FAST with a controlled eccentric.

Rack Pulls
Why use them? 1.
Rack pulls are a good option for those with flexibility deficits, and
therefore serve as an excellent teaching tool as part of an overall
deadlift progression. 2. They're also a great way to use a lot of weight and overload the muscles of the posterior chain, grip, and upper back


Notes: 1. As I noted in Deadlift Diagnosis,
I don't think rack pulls are a particularly great way to train the
lockout portion of the deadlift, but they're sure to make people pack
on muscle fast, and it's always fun to make a bar bend. As a little
frame of reference for what you can probably do, this was 705 for a set
of 5 at the kneecaps back when my best deadlift was about 617. 2. Play around with different starting positions: mid-shin, just below the kneecap, and just above the kneecap.

Snatch Grip Deadlifts
Why use them? 1.
Strict postural control is needed to do them perfectly, so performing
them is both a good test and corrective exercise modality for those
with crappy upper back posture. 2. Like rack pulls, they're a
fantastic upper back movement involving the lats, upper traps, and
mid-back musculature extensively. 3. Bringing your hands out
wider increases the distance the bar must travel, which makes the
snatch grip deadlift a great hypertrophy exercise (work = force times
distance).

Notes: 1.
Watch out for the family jewels; bringing your hands out wider will
typically bring the bar up a bit higher than normal... 2. My experience has been that one's best snatch grip deadlift is roughly 85-90% of his 1RM conventional deadlift. 3. Feel free to use straps. 4. The index finger should be on the rings.

Snatch Grip Rack Pulls
Why use them? 1.
You get the best of both worlds with rack pulls and the snatch grip.
These will wallop loads of meat on your upper back. 2. I often
use them in Month 2 or 3 with a beginner as a progression from rack
pulls if that individual still isn't quite ready to deadlift from the
floor.

Notes:

1. Feel free to use straps.

2. The index finger should be on the rings.







Deadlifts Against Bands


Why use them?

1. Pulling against bands is a fantastic way to overload the lockout without changing the starting position of the lift.

2.
Bands tend to develop supportive grip strength better than regular ol'
bar weight, as evidenced by the fact that I always tear up my calluses
doing these.








Notes:

1. Jump stretch platforms are great for these. We, however, use band pegs in an EliteFTS rack and stand on a small step:






Notes:

1. You can use these for heavier pulling, but speed work is generally a more appropriate way to implement them.

2. Rigging this up might take some creativity if you don't have the right equipment. Don't lose any sleep over it.



Trap Bar Deadlifts


Why use them?

1. Trap bar deadlifts are a pretty good teaching tool with beginners.

2.
They're a bit more quad dominant, so from a bodybuilding standpoint,
they give you some variety. You also get the variety of pulling with a
neutral grip instead of a double overhand or alternate grip.

3.
Speaking anecdotally, they take a lot less out of me than straight-bar
pulling. I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing; it's
just a "thing."

• Generally, they're a "safer" means of testing with athletes.

• Like sumo deadlifts, they're a good choice for those with long femurs.








Notes:

1. This is not a squat, people. If I see one more guy do a trap bar deadlift like this, I'm going to puke in my mouth.







The
object is NOT to stay as upright as you can; it's still a pull, so you
need a bit of forward lean — which actually helps to keep the spine
neutral instead of a position of flexion.

2. Some trap bars
have two handles, enabling you to pull from a slightly elevated
position if you lack the flexibility to pull from the floor.

3.
Some trap bars have great knurling and destroy your hands, while others
have no knurling and are a pain in the butt to grip. Be prepared for
both by bringing your chalk, and potentially even a pair of straps.

4.
Trap bars can be a pain in the ass once you're a good deadlifter. If
you don't have 100-pound plates, you're going to have a hell of a time
trying to get anything more than 585 on there — and even 495 is tight
on most models.



Pulls from a Deficit


Why use them?

1. Pulling from a deficit improves strength off the floor, a common deficit in sumo pullers, in particular.








Notes:

1. Only elevate as much as you can without losing neutral spine. More than 4-6 inches isn't going to happen.

2. Try this with a snatch grip and chains draped over the bar and you'll likely be bedridden with soreness for a few days.



Pulls from Blocks


Why use them?

1. Deadlifting from blocks is a happy medium between rack pulls and pulls from the floor.

2. These also serve as a good substitute for rack pulls for those who don't have an actual power rack.








Notes:

1.
Depending on the starting position, these can actually be more
difficult than pulling from the floor. Mid-shin is REALLY tough,
especially if you toss in accommodating resistance in the form of
bands, chains, or weight-releasers.



Pulling it All Together

Terrible pun, I know, but I couldn't resist.

If
I had to leave you with one closing thought, it would be that there is
an inherent risk to any sort of physical activity, be it whiffle ball,
yoga, or deadlifting.

One of my aims in this series was to
show you that deadlifting isn't necessarily for everyone. If you'd
like, call it different strokes (techniques, variations, and loading
parameters) for different folks (powerlifters vs. athletes vs. weekend
warriors, healthy vs. injured individuals).

Regardless, always err on the side of caution and be honest in your assessment of your own situation.



About the Author


Eric
Cressey is a highly sought-after Boston-based strength and conditioning
coach who has worked with athletes of all levels, from youth sports to
the professional and Olympic levels. Feel to contact him and sign up
for his free newsletter at www.EricCressey.com, and check out his daily updates at www.EricCressey.Blogspot.com.


Along with Mike Robertson, Eric co-produced Magnificent Mobilityand the Building the Efficient Athlete 8-DVD set. He is also the author of The Ultimate Off-Season Training Manual. All three are available through the T-Nation store.







http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1607555