Hello, I’m new here. I’m around 5’2, 340 pounds. With that out of the way, I am trying to teach myself the deadlift today and this is my third attempt at it. I wanted to know if anyone could point in the right direction as to what I should to correct my form.
I feel that I am more like squatting it but that could be because my legs are so short that I have to be that low? I hope I explained that well. Should I instead do sumo rather than conventional?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Just realized I didn’t put video. These are links. Since I’m new I can’t upload so I hope these work Third Attempt Fourth Attempt 5-step method
If you don’t intend to powerlift competitively, I believe you would find the trap-bar better suited to pull more weight. You can keep the bar pass in line with your center of gravity. The bar will never be restricted from staying in line with your center of gravity.
( I should note that your body’s center of gravity should be closer to your heels than the ball of your foot. So when you initiate the pull from the floor, as much of your body weight that is closer to the ball of your foot is weight that is pulling you forward. You would like the bar path to be almost over the heel of your foot. This is difficult with the bar and very easy with a trap-bar.)
Your form looked reasonable with the exception that the bar path is too far in front of your center of gravity. Once the bar passes your knees it should look like it is sliding up your thighs. Do you feel the weight more on the balls of your feet than your heel, especially when the weight gets heavy?
I want to powerlift but at the moment, for my health, it is better for me to loose weight. At my age of 31, my stats are not good so I am just wanting to deadlift as much as I can. I was feeling in the weight more in my heels when I deadlifted this morning though yesterday I left it in the balls of my feet. Though I have to say, I don’t deadlift heavy, no more than 55 lbs since I’m not sure of my form yet.
Edited: I managed to get the heel this morning by using mr. Thralls method and getting the bar like 1-2 inches close to my shin then bringing my shin in, engage lats then pull. But I still only feel the front of my legs getting sore and not the back or my glutes so I could still be doing them wrong. I have a trap bar, I’ll use it.
I want to powerlift but at the moment, for my health, it is better for me to loose weight. At my age of 31, my stats are not good so I am just wanting to deadlift as much as I can. I was feeling in the weight more in my heels when I deadlifted this morning though yesterday I left it in the balls of my feet. Though I have to say, I don’t deadlift heavy, no more than 55 lbs since I’m not sure of my form yet.
Edited: I managed to get the heel this morning by using mr. Thralls method and getting the bar like 1-2 inches close to my shin then bringing my shin in, engage lats then pull. But I still only feel the front of my legs getting sore and not the back or my glutes so I could still be doing them wrong. I have a trap bar, I’ll use it.
I agree with your strategy to keep the weight light until you conquer the form. From my experience. I found that higher reps are best for form (up to 10 reps). Also, until you “own” the form, you should not reset for every rep. I found that my bar decent was the most efficient bar path. I only did touch-and-go, because it made it more likely that I would stay in the same bar path on the positive that the negative took.
As you get heavier (down the line quite a bit), doing touch-and-go, whenever you find that your second rep isn’t easier than the first rep (doing heavy, low rep deadlifts), then you are using the most efficient bar path and pull.
You did. I just got busy.
I agree with @RT_Nomad .
Other than the bar getting too far foward it’s just not awful.
How long have you been lifting?
What is your goal?
Okay, Thank you and I hope you don’t mind but i have some more questions. Will the weird feeling I get in my form go away? I feel that really tight in my upper back and feel like I am too far over the bar. Then there is the fact that sometimes i will feel the weight in my heels and sometimes in the balls of my feet. I know I just need to work on it more but the tightness i feel in my back makes it hard.
Do I just to lift more and get used to it? And how can I correctly engage my lats to lift?
I have been lifting on and off(more off than on) for a little less than 2 years but only squatting really then I stopped. I have only started deadlifting as of yesterday and this morning. I have been watching videos on it for months though.
Simple current goal is a 90lb deadlift. Complex current goal is to maintain muscle and lose as much weight as possible as I get ready for a bariatric surgery.
I had wanted to do powerlifting but with the amount of weight that I have on me, it would be hard.
If you are long waisted and short legged, a lot of power is needed in your back, because it is a long moment arm in the lift. You will always find the deadlift challenging. Converting to sumo will help compensate for your long torso, but IMO, the traditional deadlift builds better back muscles.
With more training time the tightness in your upper back should cease. Especially, when you put more muscle there.
Whenever you feel more weight on the balls of your feet, the bar is too far out in front of you. Try to fix that.
The deadlift is very taxing on the CNS (central nervous system) when trained heavy.
I would only train deadlifting once a week, when the weight is fairly heavy for you. You can do more frequently if training only form (less than 40% of your 1 rep max.)
I feel more sore in the front of my legs rather than the back of my legs or my glues, is that normal?
My real want with learning the barbel deadlift instead of just using my trapbar is that I heard that is it good for building glutes and the back. My glutes are really small and I have constant back pain due to weight so I want to strengthen my glutes and everything else in the rear portion of my body but instead after doing 4-5 reps, my quads start burning.
I feel my glutes contracting in the movement and it is hard to feel a stretch in my hamstrings but that has always been a problem for me. No matter the exercise, I can’t seem to get a stretch in my hams.
I have no doubt you can pull 90lbs!
You just started and the deadlift can be very individual. What works for me may not work for you. Keep playing with your set up till you find your groove.
Let’s tag @FlatsFarmer he helped me.
Good luck with your journey. It will be great to see you get there.
They are more similar than they are different, both work very similar muscles. The conventional will work the posterior a bit more than the trap bar but we are talking minimal percentages here that get less relevant when you factor in you’ll likely be able to lift more weight with the trap bar. The little bit less involvement is actually seen as a benefit for many coaches - the main benefit being it’s easier to learn and do safely, I can see why it was @RT_Nomad’s first suggestion.
See if this trend continues after deadlifting for 4 to 6 weeks. New movements tend to challenge muscles not commonly used for any specific movement.
Activating hamstrings in the deadlift is increased when your legs are closer to straight (that is a reason stiff legged deadlifts are done.) I don’t recommend doing stiff legged deadlifts until you master the conventional deadlift. Full range of motion squats and leg presses activate hamstrings at the bottom of their movements. Plus you can do leg curls. But be patient. Weak points are stubborn and slow to improve.
One advantage for your glutes with the trap-bar is that you can squeeze your glutes when pushing your hips forward as you approach the top of the lift. This might take a little while to master the technique, but start light to feel the slow squeeze.
And to add to @cdep89 comment: Almost anyone can master the trap-bar, while mastering the deadlift is much more difficult.
Okay, thank you so much! I’ll just use the trapbar for my working sets and work with the barbell to fix form then or something of that nature, I’ll figure it out.
Okay, thank you for your advice. Since its a small difference, I’ll probably use the trapbar mostly and then use barbell for some variety or something of the like.
Don’t get frustrated, especially if you’ve only been at it for 24 hours! It may take a few sessions to get the hang of things.
I agree with Nomad, instead of resetting and pulling one rep at at time, do some Sets of continuous reps, one after another. You really can learn great bar path and how to keep the bar close by lowering and raising the bar while you’re still under tension. Just make sure it’s touch and go, not bounce the weight off the floor and go.
If you struggle to feel your hamstrings, you can probably get good activation with really easy but focused movements. Just put your hands on the wall or a counter top and do a Single Leg Hamstring Curl by pulling one heel up towards your butt. If your hams are really weak, you should almost get cramps after 8-12 reps.
If you like, you can even do a set of ham curls for each leg immediately before each set of deadlifts to try to “Pre Activate” your hamstrings. Like giving them a special pep talk right before the big game.
