Fixing My Friends DL Form

Im currently training my friend. SHE is a semi pro golfer over here in Scotland, but shes from Germany. She has asked me to show her the squat/DL basics as she wants to increase her power.

Her squat form was exceptional from the start, very deep, good back position etc.

I only had to change her hand position and get her to focus on keeping her knees out and she was doing great squats. Worked up to 50kg/110lbs for 3 and 55kg/120lbs for 1. She has plenty left in the tank imo - around the 75kg/165lbs i reckon but that will come with confidence. This was basically her first time squating ever so I was very impressed. She weighs 60kg/130lbs so imo thats great for a first squat attempt for a man let alone a girl.

The deads were another matter thou.

She has long levers. Think shes 6ft1, but most of it is leg.

On conventional she was rounding in the mid back a bit and shooting her hips well ahead of her shoulders. I made her focus on keeping her chest up and keeping the bar running along her legs/thighs as she was throwing it out in front a bit. She also needed some work on her lock out. We got this down with an empty bar and then added weight. Everything was great until about 40kg/88lbs when she started rounding and shooting her hips again. I tried a few things but nothing seemed to work. She was pulling the weight up ridiculously easy but I didnt let her go any higher with the rounding. We had a look at her back strength by doing some lat pull downs and DB row. She was pulling down half the stack for easy 5s and DB rowing 25kg/55lbs for easy 5s aswell so I dont really think its a strength imbalance in her back.

Any help here would be great. I should have got videos but I forgot my camera.

I then thought to try out sumo deads to see if this helped.

She preferred these a lot and once she remembered to get her ass low and to “hump” the bar she was doing well. We worked up to 80kg/175lbs for 3’s but her back began to round in the same place again.

Could this just be due to fatigue or is there something I should try to find her weakness. or is it just practice makes perfect as this was her first time DLing aswell?

Ive proposed that we work on these lifts for another 2-3 sessions and then we will shoot for a true max and then write up a routine based of them. Good idea/bad idea?

Any other good exercises to perform to try and find the reason for her back rounding would be appreciated too.

Cheers
Scott

I’ve noticed people with long arms are usually really good at rowing movements. Doesn’t mean their back isn’t weak.