All great tips, and I’ll quickly add one small addition:
Keep your weight behind the bar at all times. This often means shoulders behind the bar, and that’s fine. If you need to drag the bar into yourself to do this and it feels like you’re pulling backwards, that’s fine too. You might want long socks and some kind of shin guard though, because you’ll take skin off.
Ditto. I knew I needed something when I went from grazes healing with scabs to holes healing with granulation tissue.
Ditto on the dragging too.
So, leaning back seems to be the key for you guys. However, I often read / hear that the shoulders should be in front of the bar in order to shorten leverage. Does this go together?
I don’t think so. My understanding is that the ‘shoulders in front of the bar’ cue relates more to weightlifting. For powerlifting I think it works better to have the shoulders behind the bar as this facilitates getting all your weight behind the bar and leaning/pulling back. Leaving the shoulders over the bar doesn’t make that easy, and all it really does is keep the shins vertical the whole time. That’s all well and good, but I’ve found its better to have a slight forward tilt of the shins at the start and drag the bar up them while pulling back because almost as soon as the bar begins to come up the shins go vertical. Forcing them to remain vertical from setup onwards makes it easier for the bar to drift away from you.
Thanks, that’s very interesting. All the time I was thinking the shoulders needed to be in front of the bar for better leverage.
Here is a video form today’s technique training (100kg to have a not-too-light resistance to pull against).
Back stays straight, although not arched, but I guess that’s partly a mobility issue too.
I couldn’t implement all of your advices at once, but I tried to hinge back with my hips, pull myself to the bar, keep shins vertical, and lean my body back. I although tried to get the bar up explosively. Does this look a little better now?
I mean, it looks a little better.
However, all the tension you build on the descent, you’re losing as you reset yourself. Just lower yourself into the position you need to be in, then lift up from there.
During the descent, your back stays straight until you’re about 80% of the way down, then your hips stop moving and all the bending is at the back, right around your belt. Your back should look just as flat when your hands reach the bar as when you’re standing.
Here’s what I mean:
Shoulders over the bar for oly lifters.
I think this is really a matter of personal preference. I used to do the shoulders behind the bar and it was a total bitch for me and nearly always resulted in a lower back injury after enough time.
Shoulder blades over bar is a lot more comfortable for me and whilst I’ve had back tightness it’s never led to injury.
Thanks for this breakdown. It’s true that I still reset at the bottom, which is a habit of mine. So you hold your breath all the way down until you grab the bar? It takes me too long to get a good grip of the bar, making it difficult to maintain the tension all the way down. Don’t many lifters reset at the bottom?
Just be aware of that rounding…
I made ONE mistake deadlifting and now I have a herniated disc and I’m forced to take some time out of the weight room.
And the mistake wasn’t even off the floor.
I was at the top of the movement and as I began the descent to the floor, I allowed for too much anterior pelvic tilt, a stupid mistake. That movement was literally for around a quarter of an inch. That’s when I herniated my disc.
That’s not to say that I believe deadlifting to be dangerous. But it is to say that you need to be mindful of your form at all times. Rounding your back now might work, but as you begin to age (I’m 31… When I was 17 I had no such issues… and I have no idea how old you are!) your body doesn’t work the same (not necessarily better or worse, just different).
Work out the form issues now and be safe long term.
Best of luck.
I worked on my setup a little bit. This is my form check video from two days ago:
I’m raising my arms at the beginning because it is mentioned by many as a cue to activate the lats, which I indeed did feel. I focused on loading the hamstrings, keeping my core tight when setting up, keeping my shins vertical and pulling the bar against them. I felt very stable, but I noticed a few things:
Next time I’ll try to lean back even more and see how that affects the lift. I’m happy about how the lower back looks now, and I’ll try if it works the same way when the weight gets a little heavier.
That looks a lot better from here.
Your back is staying solid – your low back is being used to keep your back straight, but not to lift the weight – and you’re hinging at your hips so the load’s focused on your glutes and hamstrings. I don’t see a problem with your shoulders being in front of the bar since the rest looks right, and the bar path is vertical.
How did it feel?
Thanks for your comment. It felt much better than when I took the previous videos, which were using the same weight (100kg for form checking purposes). Later this week I’ll take another video using heavier weight.
I just thought whether I might be in a more advantageous position if my torso was a little bit more upright, which could be achieved by lowering the hips more. (On the other hand, Rippetoe for example seems to be coaching a pretty high hip starting position.)
Okay, today’s workout was frustrating and I could really use some more help…
I ramped up to 160 kg, which has never really been a problem and which I used to be able to pull even after AMRAP sets before.
One year ago I tested at 175 kg (all time max), last summer I easily pulled 160 as a Joker Set (video above), but it seems to be getting heavier, and today I failed.
130kg x 3 was still ok:
Then 145 x 3, little bit of rounding in the back:
But then, this!
Damn, that’s depressing. I understand you have bad days from time to time but I didn’t feel bad today and 160 never used to be a problem…
Can anybody think of a reason why this happened today? Was my setup bad?
And now I really feel like improving my deadlift and setting a new PR ASAP to regain my lost confidence. What programs can you guys recommend? (Been on 5/3/1 most of the last two years, with a few months doing CT’s Powerlook Program (which did not improve my lifts and fried my CNS due to the overload exercises)… Considering Madcow right now…)…
Any advice appreciated… Thanks.