Deadlift Form Check Please

what’s up, been only deadlifting for 3 months now and my DL is pretty lame…

program is “candito powerlifting program”

171cm tall and 71kg body weight

1 rep maxes are:
bench press 137.5 kg
squat 142.5 kg
deadlift 180 kg

A good cue for you would be, “get behind the bar.” Your deadlift is all back. Your hips shoot up, and then your legs are completely out of the lift and your back finishes.

Focus on getting behind the bar more, driving your heels into the floor and pulling back instead of up. When done properly, your hips and knees will lock out almost simultaneously.

Use those legs. Drive feet into floor. It’s one motion, not two.

Watch your back rounding and take a long look at how you set up before you even drop to grip the bar. I would strongly suggest working on the following:

  1. Learn how to get really tight, so brace your whole trunk to prevent any of the back (especially lower back) rounding that seems to be creeping up. For me it hinges on breathing with my diaphragm and getting a bellyful of air. If your shoulders or chest move at all when you breath in, you aren’t breathing quite right. A good way to practice is breathing against somethig below your rib cage, trying to push it away with your gut as you inhale (even placing your hand there will work). At the same time get your upper back tight by trying to crush an orange or something in your armpits. If you get it right you should feel the pressure from your butt all the way up to pushing into the base of your skull. You’ll probably still get a bit of upper back rounding on max effort pulls, but the rigidity you’ll get from that tightness will keep you stable and safe.

  2. Start with your hips a bit higher. They shoot up almost immediately anyway, and that suggests to me that may be where your body wants them for maximal pulling efficiency. My personal favourite cue/approach for that is dropping to the bar by sticking your butt out behind you rather than bending down to grip the bar (think hinge). That keeps my shins as close to vertical as I can manage and puts me in my best pulling position. It should also help with stopping your knees locking out too early which is what looks like happens to you, so you end up almost straight legging your pull once you get the bar off the ground.

  3. Start with your shoulders over the bar (I might cop some flak for this one, but I find it works great for me). Again, they drift over the bar almost immediately so I figure that is quite possibly where your body wants them anyway.

  4. Play around with your foot and grip width. First step try going much narrower on both (feet under hip sockets, hands as close in as possible) and see how that feels.

Definitely agree that it is one movement. I’ll offer that for me I start by standing up with my chest up and weight on my heels. Just keep standing up and don’t think of driving with your legs. As you near the top, focus on driving your hips through the bar.

Given your current max/bodyweight combination (which is far from bad, by the way) I’d say if you nail your technique you’ll see another 20 kg on the bar from that alone. Try working on your squat too, as your dead lift will feed off that and it’ll help develop back strength as well as ham/glute/hip strength. Pull ups will help your upper back, and so will rows while also enforcing a good hinge position.

[quote]MarkKO wrote:
Watch your back rounding and take a long look at how you set up before you even drop to grip the bar. I would strongly suggest working on the following:

  1. Learn how to get really tight, so brace your whole trunk to prevent any of the back (especially lower back) rounding that seems to be creeping up. For me it hinges on breathing with my diaphragm and getting a bellyful of air. If your shoulders or chest move at all when you breath in, you aren’t breathing quite right. A good way to practice is breathing against somethig below your rib cage, trying to push it away with your gut as you inhale (even placing your hand there will work). At the same time get your upper back tight by trying to crush an orange or something in your armpits. If you get it right you should feel the pressure from your butt all the way up to pushing into the base of your skull. You’ll probably still get a bit of upper back rounding on max effort pulls, but the rigidity you’ll get from that tightness will keep you stable and safe.

  2. Start with your hips a bit higher. They shoot up almost immediately anyway, and that suggests to me that may be where your body wants them for maximal pulling efficiency. My personal favourite cue/approach for that is dropping to the bar by sticking your butt out behind you rather than bending down to grip the bar (think hinge). That keeps my shins as close to vertical as I can manage and puts me in my best pulling position. It should also help with stopping your knees locking out too early which is what looks like happens to you, so you end up almost straight legging your pull once you get the bar off the ground.

  3. Start with your shoulders over the bar (I might cop some flak for this one, but I find it works great for me). Again, they drift over the bar almost immediately so I figure that is quite possibly where your body wants them anyway.

  4. Play around with your foot and grip width. First step try going much narrower on both (feet under hip sockets, hands as close in as possible) and see how that feels.

Definitely agree that it is one movement. I’ll offer that for me I start by standing up with my chest up and weight on my heels. Just keep standing up and don’t think of driving with your legs. As you near the top, focus on driving your hips through the bar.

Given your current max/bodyweight combination (which is far from bad, by the way) I’d say if you nail your technique you’ll see another 20 kg on the bar from that alone. Try working on your squat too, as your dead lift will feed off that and it’ll help develop back strength as well as ham/glute/hip strength. Pull ups will help your upper back, and so will rows while also enforcing a good hinge position.[/quote]

'Nuff said.

Like MarkKO said, you have to learn to keep a rigid torso. I would recommend to stop deadlifting from the floor for a few months because there are too many things you have to think about to get the lift right and it would take much longer if you continue to pull with the current weights you’re using now.

If I had to teach myself how to deadlift back when I first started or others now, I would start off with mat pulls with the bar just below the knees. I would recommend wrist straps because the most important thing to learn first is creating a rigid torso. During the start of each pull, once the straps are in place with the arms straight down below your shoulders, begin to pull the bar a bit to create a little tension. Most of the weight should be on your heels and you’ll feel tension in your hamstrings. While pulling the bar, you need to brace your abs, squeeze your lats as hard as possible and raise your chest until your shoulders are directly above the bar (but do not hyper-extend your back). Keep a neutral neck position. Raising your chest up will help you pull slack out of the bar while keeping everything else tight. Once you feel tension in your entire body, you’re ready to pull. Follow a linear progression and do not worry about the weight on the bar. If your shoulders go forward then the reps don’t count. This training cycle is entirely devoted to bringing up your torso strength and creating muscle memory. Again, do not worry about the weight on the bar or what you have done in the past. Record every rep in every training session and make sure to be strict with form or you will have to keep coming back to fix the problem.

Start off light and add weight each week. More volume is preferred over higher intensity since it’ll provide a better stimulus for building strength at this point. When you stall, lower the mat pull height and reset the weight. Ignore the amount of weight you did at the higher mat pull height because it doesn’t matter. Pretend that the lower height is a new lift and all you’re focused on is keeping your torso tight and keeping your shoulders over the bar. Your quads and mid/upper back will soon catch up to your hamstrings and lower back. Once you get to pulling from the floor, lose the straps when you can continue to keep a rigid torso without grip strength interfering with your focus.

Your hip and knee position should fall into place if you pull with a rigid torso and shoulders over the bar. There could still be other small imbalances but they’ll be much easier to fix. You’ll have to put your ego aside for awhile because your hamstrings and lower back will be capable of doing a lot more than what the weaker muscles can do.

815 for reps very good…theres been alot of good suggestions already posted so I will just say, actually setup like you are trying to lift. Take the extra 5 seconds it takes to put yourself in a good starting position and focus on that

Just saw the video is titled “12 Year old 815 lb DL” lololol