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Deadlifts are a fabulous exercise to include in your routine if you're focusing on improving your overall body strength or developing strength.
This is a compound weightlifting exercise that works many muscle groups (glutes, traps, hamstrings, lower back muscles) simultaneously. When done correctly, it can significantly benefit posture and help avoid injuries.
Deadlifts involve raising dead weight from the ground, which is pretty well implied by its name.
This is a typical practice seen in strength training regimens, but you also perform it frequently in daily life. This motion is what you do when you stoop to pick up a child from the floor or a case of water from behind your shopping cart.
Deadlift Basics
The most typical way to perform a deadlift is with a barbell. However, if you've never done one before, you should practice your form with little to no weight initially to ensure that you understand the exercise properly.
Once you have mastered the proper deadlift technique, you can try the exercise with resistance bands, dumbbells, kettlebells, or even barbells.
The barbell must be lifted in a straight vertical line from the floor to the lockout position, and the lifter must maintain a rigorous extension of the spinal column.
For both the beginning and finishing positions, the lifter must start with flexed hips, knees, and shoulders and finish with a full extension of each of those joints. The lifting motion involves every joint in the body, from the fingers to the feet. It follows that each muscle crosses each joint in that area and has a purpose.
Deadlift Technique
Now that you are aware of the basics, you can prepare yourself to perform this exercise.
Make sure to follow these steps carefully:
- With your feet shoulder-width apart, stand facing the barbell.
- With your hips bowed, grab the bar with a mixed grip (one hand overhand, with the other hand underhand). Hold the bar just outside your legs.
- Your shins should be in contact with the bar while you gently bend your knees forward.
- Lower your rear downward into a half-squat position, with your thighs over your knees, and raise your chest up till your back is firm and flat.
- Inhale deeply as you contract your lower back and abdominal muscles.
- Start the motion by firmly pushing through your legs, as though you were attempting to leg press the floor aside from you.
- As soon as the bar rises off the floor, drive forward with your hips, and keep pressing your legs while maintaining a tight core.
- Holding the weight in this position for one to two seconds, slowly lower it to the floor, being careful not to curve your lower back. Exhale.
- Take a few seconds in between reps to check that the bar is in the proper place.
- Aim to complete as many reps as you can without getting exhausted.
Deadlift Mistakes
If you have poor form, any activity can harm your back. Pulling with a bent lower back is a dangerous error in deadlifts. It causes the spinal discs to experience uneven pressure, which can lead them to bulge; pinched nerves, and other back ailments are other side effets. Keep your lower back straight when deadlifting weights.
Here are some of the most common deadlift mistakes that should be avoided:
1) Incorrect foot position
One of the most frequent errors and a major contributor to deadlift injuries is this one.
Perhaps you were unaware of this fact, but a well executed deadlift depends much on the location of the feet. As a result, the feet should be placed so that the front half of each foot is beneath the bar. You should stand with your feet hip-width apart.
2) Bending your hips too much or too little
You can make this error by either raising or lowering your hips, depending on your posture. So how should your hips be positioned to properly execute the deadlift?
Your knees need to be slightly bent as you start the exercise, and your legs should never be entirely straight. Next, position yourself correctly, and push with your legs. However, as you aren't performing squats, you should also avoid lowering your hips excessively.
3) Slouching your back
You run a very high risk of injuring yourself if you deadlift in this manner. You may have to take a week or more off from the gym with a piercing ache in your lower back if you perform the deadlift while rounding your lower back.
When deadlifting, you should maintain a flat, firm back throughout the entire motion.
4) Bending your arms
From the beginning to the end of the movement, your arms should remain straight. Never at any moment should you even consider attempting to curl some of the weight.
If you do so, you could tear your bicep, which will be extremely painful and crippling and is something you don't want to go through.
Deadlift Issues
Everyone has seen videos of people attempting a big deadlift, approaching lockout, passing out, and falling backward. So why do deadlifts cause individuals to faint?
This phenomenon can be explained by these factors:
- Breathing incorrectly
- Lifting while having low blood sugar, which can also lead to low systolic pressure
Rest assured that it's not typical, and once you understand the causes of passing out, you can avoid that from happening.
