If you ever watch videos of people deadlifting with absolutely horrendous form, what is the number one thing about their form that stands out? For me, it is the ridiculous amount of rounding that takes place when they perform a deadlift. I’m not talking about a little thoracic spine rounding. I’m talking about that fishing rod rounding when you are pulling in something that would win you first place in the Bassmaster tournament. This deadlift form is frequently seen in amaetur and inexperienced lifters because they don’t have any idea about getting tension into their body. They try to yank the barbell or grip it and rip it off the floor and it gets them nowhere except a possible disc or two being mercilessly ejected from their spines and a video on Gym F***ery.
So, what needs to be done for these poor souls to deadlift properly without an emptying of their spinal contents onto the gym floor? The main cue is to take the slack out of the bar before lifting the weight. This involves getting tension from the barbell and putting it into your body. Before the weight is even lifted from the floor, you should be pulling so hard on the bar that with a bit of force, the bar comes right up. I cue my clients to use the bar to pull their chests up and get their tension that way. It is hard to do with lighter weight, but once some decent weight gets on the bar it makes it much easier. This deadlift setup will create maximal tension throughout the hips, shoulders, back, etc. that will create ideal body mechanics for a successful lift.
On a personal level, I recently found this deadlift miscue to not be as sharp as I wanted it with my own technique. I always thought I efficiently used the barbell to pull my chest up and set my hips in position by taking the slack out, but I kept having trouble with my lockout. I thought it might be a weakness associated with the lockout itself, but the more I evaluated the issue, I realized my hips would be out of position early in the lift and that would set me up for failure at the end. I recognized that I wasn’t getting maximal tension in my body from the start and that was ultimately causing me to miss lifts at the top because of my back rounding and hips rising too soon. As a result, I have strived to fix this issue and it seems to be making a big difference in my ability to grind through and lock out big weights with the deadlift.
Overall, if you want to see someone who does a good job of taking the slack out of the bar and lifting significant weight, I would recommend looking at Yury Belkin in this video clip. You can see his deadlift attempts starting at the 1:40 mark.
Again, thanks for reading and please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Take care and as always…SETTLE DOWN, SLACKERS!!!