DL Form?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. My main 2 questions are, is my spin in a good position (specifically) lower back? And is my back too parallel to the ground? The videos are slowed down to 1/2 speed and unfortunately shot from the floor and its a near max pull if that helps to judge form at all.

no video showed up bud

Shit my bad, changed video format

[quote]gingerf_ck0351 wrote:
Any advice is greatly appreciated. My main 2 questions are, is my spin in a good position (specifically) lower back? And is my back too parallel to the ground? The videos are slowed down to 1/2 speed and unfortunately shot from the floor and its a near max pull if that helps to judge form at all. [/quote]

There is a lot of shit going on that I don’t think can all be attributed to the weight. Watch your hips and lower back when you first start to pull. A lot of stuff is moving (loosening) before the bar comes off the floor. Too much slack.

(Ignore the fact that this video says crossfit)

[quote]gingerf_ck0351 wrote:
Any advice is greatly appreciated. My main 2 questions are, is my spin in a good position (specifically) lower back? And is my back too parallel to the ground? The videos are slowed down to 1/2 speed and unfortunately shot from the floor and its a near max pull if that helps to judge form at all. [/quote]

Unfortunately, no, your spine isn’t in a good position. It should be neutral or slightly arched.

Back parallel to the floor isn’t a good idea at all. You want to lower your hips enough to keep a neutral spine and get good leg drive off the floor. For me, the best way to get that is to position the bar over my mid-foot, take my air and get tight then drop the grip the bar pushing my hips back and down. I let my knees drift over the bar until the bar touches my shins. Then I point the bottom of my ribcage at the floor and push off the floor keeping that position and then push my hips through. I’ve got a video on my training log that might show it better.

BIG caveat is that this is what works for me, it might not for you; but its a start.

There are a bunch of good DL articles on this site. Check them out, they’ll help.

Thanks for advice guys, I tore my deadlift down and rebuild it using the cues of:
sit back
fire glutes
knees out/screw the feet into the ground
arch up
chest up
brace(big air)
flex the lats down

This helped a lot for a good starting position but once the weight started to get heavier, as with most flaws, my hips shot up first and my body moved forward to where the front delts were in front of the bar. I do start with my front delts over/in front of the bar a little, it just moved even more. Any advice on not shooting my hips up first or moving my body forward. I’ve tried flexing the lats and pulling back more instead of up.

[quote]gingerf_ck0351 wrote:
Thanks for advice guys, I tore my deadlift down and rebuild it using the cues of:
sit back
fire glutes
knees out/screw the feet into the ground
arch up
chest up
brace(big air)
flex the lats down

This helped a lot for a good starting position but once the weight started to get heavier, as with most flaws, my hips shot up first and my body moved forward to where the front delts were in front of the bar. I do start with my front delts over/in front of the bar a little, it just moved even more. Any advice on not shooting my hips up first or moving my body forward. I’ve tried flexing the lats and pulling back more instead of up.[/quote]

Definitely focus on pulling back more: keep the bar literally dragging up your legs at least until your hit your knees. I’ve found a good way to do this is not just to pull the bar into myself but to lean back into the pull. That also helps with keeping your hips lower at the start and stops them shooting up so much.

Think in terms of between the floor and knee height you must lock your shoulders in position behind the bar. At the start this entails keeping your hips lower and not letting them shoot up so you rely on leg drive to come off the floor; this will also promote a good arch. Once the bar is off the floor it means holding that arch while your drive your hips forward and stand up.

Personally, one of the best way to learn this pattern for me was pulling sumo. You learn to lock yourself in a good starting position with low hips and shoulders behind the bar and to be patient off the floor keeping yourself in position by using your bodyweight and position to lever the bar up. The start of a conventional pull isn’t quite as slow but it does feel a bit similar using leg drive and keeping your hips down.

I would also suggest slightly abridging your list of cues (which is good) to:

Big air
Knees out
Hips low with shoulders behind the bar (your sit back)
Point your ribcage at the ground (your arch up and chest up)
Push off the floor fast keeping tight position’

Flexing the lats is fine, but I’ve found it isn’t really that key compared to the others, especially if you’re working on getting behind the bar. If you keep a tight, arched/neutral lower back and stay in position what you do with your lats becomes less important. I’m not saying just flop your upper back or anything, but focus more on the lower back and your overall positioning. Get that right and everything else tends to fall into place.

To get everything right, drop your load to around 60-75% and do lots and lots of pulls just to get the feel for it.