Personally I think they are essential for taller lifters that have narrow clavicles. I never used to do them but ever since I started I have put tons of beef on my back.
[quote]irishpowerhouse wrote:
Heres the muscles it works in no particular oder;
lats
Traps
legs
Hamstrings
forearms
biceps
Now tell me another movement that works all those areas at the one time. Not to mention the overall mass it adds to your back and legs. It also make you stronger in exercises like rows, shrugs, pull ups, and squats.
it is also great for strengthening the core muscles which prevents injury and allows you to perform better in other lifts.
above all else its damn hard exercise which seperates the men from the boys and sends the Testosterone levels through the roof, and lets face it, it makes you feel strong.
[/quote]
I agree with all your post, with emphasys on the last sentence, maybe it does not increase my T-levels, but make me feel like so.
If you can get up to pulling 600 from the floor, I have a hard time imagining that your back and traps will NOT be huge.
Heavy deadlifting produces a certain thickness and myogenic tone that is extremely hard to replicate by those that do not deadlift. You show me someone that pulls 500 lbs or more and I you will see a thick, strong looking dude. Deadlifting builds the muscular foundation from which you can then sculpt with your isolation exercises if you want to.
There is nothing more beautiful than every muscle in your body contracting in harmony to rip the 500+lbs of dead weight from the floor.
Personally, deadlifts (and their variations) as a mainstay in my lifting for the past year have made me thicker and “harder” all over. I’m not a huge dude by any stretch, but what I’ve got is solid. I attribute that to deadlifting.
I’m just repeating what others have said, but I’m doing it for emphases.
Some people, (i have not met many) can grow without doing them. But if you aren’t big and you wonder why no matter how much you destroy your back with various rows and such, pull downs, and EVEN pull ups, but dont do deadlifts, there is your answer.
If you’ve ever seen a huge dude who doesn’t deadlift, the reason 95% of the time is that he built his physique using them, then stopped when the weight became too dangerous.
If you can rep 8 total plates (405) on the deadlift its impossible to not have a decent physique.
You’d need to be in the gym twice as long to do as much work to your back as 4 sets of heavy deadlifts, and even then i can asure you the non-deadlifter won’t have as nice a physique.
Deadlifts built a thickness to your overall body that you simply cannot get while avoiding them.
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
One more:
If you aren’t growing from doing deadlifts, you probably just aren’t pushing the weight up weekly, which is pretty much the “secret” to getting bigger, if you even want to call it a secret. Keep striving to lift heavier weight.
Ok one more LOL.
The deadlift is the most natural movement the human body can make. From the dawn of man, lifting up heavy things off of the ground has been proven to make you bigger and stronger. And you can’t get bigger without being stronger, and you can’t get stronger without getting bigger. The two are directly related.
Add to the building list of good reason - they are fun.
Okay, not fun like sex but fun like having had sex with a new women - there’s an unreal sense of accomplishment that just screams “HELL YEAH!!!”
I did deadlifts for 5 years, but have resorted to other exercises the past year due to back/neck issues (caused in part by doing deadlifts for 5 years).
One criticism of complex movements is that while they do stimulate a larger number of muscle groups, you are always limited by the weakest link in the chain. Isolated exercises done in rapid succession can achieve close to the same overall stimulation, while allowing you to push more weight for each muscle group.
Given that, I’m not convinced deadlifts are necessary. Still, if it weren’t for health issues I would keep doing them.
I’m not the biggest guy (working on it though - bulking till I hit at least 220) 5’10", ~185lbs (smaller framed tho) with a max deadlift of 405. I have been deadlifting pretty much since I started lifting and I attribute my upper back thickness to deadlifts almost entirely.
My upper back gets comments from people ALL the time, friends or just randoms in the gym. I’ve had people come up to me while I was doing something completely un-related (ie bicep curls) and ask me how I built my back. I answer the same way every time, “Do heavy deadlifts”.
[quote]josh86 wrote:
I’m not the biggest guy, 5’10", ~185lbs (small framed tho) with a max deadlift of 405. I have been deadlifting pretty much since I started lifting and I attribute my upper back thickness to deadlifts almost entirely.
My upper back gets comments from people ALL the time, friends or just randoms in the gym. I’ve had people come up to me while I was doing something completely un-related (ie bicep curls) and ask me how I built my back. I answer the same way every time, “Do heavy deadlifts”.[/quote]
ugh - this is creepy because I could have almost written exactly the same quote.
but I am 5-9
[quote]RWElder0 wrote:
josh86 wrote:
I’m not the biggest guy, 5’10", ~185lbs (small framed tho) with a max deadlift of 405. I have been deadlifting pretty much since I started lifting and I attribute my upper back thickness to deadlifts almost entirely.
My upper back gets comments from people ALL the time, friends or just randoms in the gym. I’ve had people come up to me while I was doing something completely un-related (ie bicep curls) and ask me how I built my back. I answer the same way every time, “Do heavy deadlifts”.
ugh - this is creepy because I could have almost written exactly the same quote.
but I am 5-9[/quote]
Lol, that’s funny…and weird. haha
you can cheat on deadlifts, at the gym the people who do them are usually hitching it up with horrible form. The deadlift gets a bad rep along with squats because people use poor form doing it which cause injuries. You could have super long arms and deadlift big #'s but not have a big back also.
If your finding a way to develop your back well without deadlifts and you see no need to do them then don’t do them. Personally I think the deadlift saves time since you can load up a lot of weight and hit the entire back in one go.
Also remember some of the biggest backs in bodybuilding where built with heavy deadlifts.
The sad truth is alot of people can’t do them properly because either they never learnt the proper form to do them without injurying their back, which leads to injury as the weights increase, or they have let themselves go with an unealthy, inactive lifestyle for so long that they simply cannot put that much stress on their body.
Deadlifts are hard ass physical work.
I started deadlifting for the first time last week and I’m still not sure if my form is correct. I just looked at some YouTube videos and did it like that.
Everybody keeps talking about proper form, but nobody says what exactly it is. Can anybody post a link of a video of discription with pictures of proper deadlift form, please?
I’d really appreciate it,
thanks
Ok, I think I’m convinced enough to keep up with the deadlifts lol.
Just wondered how people know that it’s definitely the deadlifts that gave them good overall size and not mainly due to other exercises - you know, people say that the deadlift “helps” a lot, but unless you did only the deadlift you couldn’t tell for sure (I�??m guessing).
[quote]forlife wrote:
I did deadlifts for 5 years, but have resorted to other exercises the past year due to back/neck issues (caused in part by doing deadlifts for 5 years).[/quote]
How did you injure your neck deadlifting?
[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Ok, I think I’m convinced enough to keep up with the deadlifts lol.
Just wondered how people know that it’s definitely the deadlifts that gave them good overall size and not mainly due to other exercises - you know, people say that the deadlift “helps” a lot, but unless you did only the deadlift you couldn’t tell for sure (I�??m guessing).
[/quote]
I’ve been lifting for a decade (not very well for the most part) and squats and deads have done more for my body than anything else. I injured my lower back a few years ago deadlifting without a belt for reps. I know better now (belt and less reps) and have been moving more weight. Keep on doing deads, man.
[quote]forlife wrote:
I did deadlifts for 5 years, but have resorted to other exercises the past year due to back/neck issues (caused in part by doing deadlifts for 5 years).
One criticism of complex movements is that while they do stimulate a larger number of muscle groups, you are always limited by the weakest link in the chain. Isolated exercises done in rapid succession can achieve close to the same overall stimulation, while allowing you to push more weight for each muscle group.
Given that, I’m not convinced deadlifts are necessary. Still, if it weren’t for health issues I would keep doing them. [/quote]
LOL im sitting here looking at ur display picture…its pretty obvious you dont Deadlift.