Avoid This Deadlift Mistake (NO TORN BICEPS!)

One of the most gruesome mistakes you can make when doing the deadlift results in a torn biceps tendon. In this video, I’m going to show you exactly what is causing the bicep tendon tears when deadlifting and more importantly how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

What’s up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX. com. The deadlift and bicep tears. They seem to go hand in hand, but do they have to?

Is it really a scary exercise? If you look at any of these videos here – you’ve seen them, the bicep tear compilation videos, the deadlift. It doesn’t look nice. It’s pretty ugly. Are you susceptible to the same thing?

Because you should be deadlifting. We know the exercise is critical. But are you susceptible each time you lift that bar off the ground? Is it going to happen to you? I want to break that down for you, show you why it’s happening, and then learn how we can make sure it doesn’t happen to you.

The most important thing is, guys will say “Yeah, it is a dangerous exercise”, the people that think that. They’ll say, “Look at all the tension that’s on your arms. ” Let’s say you have a heavy load here and your arms are straight, it’s pulling down on your biceps; of course, it’s going to tear something. Guys, if that was the case I wouldn’t be tearing down here. If all the tension was on the bar, I’d be tearing up here in the shoulder – approximately the longhead of the bicep tendon – versus down here at the elbow; the distal attachment.

That’s not really what’s going on. Maybe people say, “It’s all that stretch in the bicep. ” Well, if that was the case, let’s take a look. If that was the case, I’d tear the pronated side at the top. Not this side.

Why is that? Because if I wanted to maximally stretch the bicep we have three things we have to do. Number one: we have to straighten the elbow. Number two: we have to pronate the hand, because the bicep is a supinator. And number three: we’d have to get our arm into extension, behind our body.

Well, that’s exactly what’s happening with the offhand here, the pronated hand. That’s the one that would be tearing if it’s all about stretch. As opposed to what we’re really seeing, which is all of them happening on this side. So, the two commonalities are that it’s because we’re using a mixed grip – we’ve got one hand under and one hand over – and the one that’s under is the one that tears. The second thing is, these always happen about 95% of the time in that last 10% to 20% of the range of motion as we approach lockout.

Why is that? Well, it does come down to tension, but it’s tension that you’re inadvertently putting into the bar with your biceps that’s causing that problem. So, you are causing this problem. If you did the exercise correctly you wouldn’t be at the risk of doing this to your arm. How is that?

Well, if we look at the bar here when I setup, there’s a factor of stretch happening. Again, combined with tension. When I go to setup the bar I grab under, I grab over, and I stand up, and when I come to the top my arm is going from a position relatively in front of my body. If I were to stand up here – obviously, the bar is coming straight up my body. But just look at the position of the arm here.

I’m going to stand up and leave it right where it is. You see, it’s away from my body. My shoulder is in a bit of flexion. This would be neutral here. It’s in a flexed position.

So, going back to what we just talked about from a bicep stretch, it’s taking a little bit of stretch off the bicep there. The fact that my arm is supinated here is also taking some of the stretch off the bicep. The only thing that’s stretching the bicep at this point is the straight elbow. But when I get to the top of the lift and I’m up here, now the arm is going from a position in front of my body as the bar rides up my body, to one that’s more on the side of my body here. Now, from a flexed position of the shoulder to a more neutral, toward extension, and that is the position that could put additional stretch on the bicep.

But even that wouldn’t matter unless you were doing something wrong. That is applying force into the bar at that moment. That’s the problem. See, when I get here, and I know the bar has to continue to ride up those last couple of inches, the lockout is tough. The lockout is the part where people struggle.

You see guys all the time basically humping the bar to get it up, but they can’t get that last couple of inches. Well, they think in their head that the bar has to come up. So, what they do is try to cheat with a little bit of bicep tension. “I’ll curl the bar up if I have to. ” Trying to pull it up from underneath with my stronger hand.

Then I can catch the bar and get it the rest of the way. It’s like a self-spot. That’s the problem. You apply that tension to the bar at the moment you just went from a somewhat shortened bicep to an even longer bicep. You get it here, that’s the moment that bicep has had too much.

And if you don’t believe me guys, it’s the same concept here. When muscles tear, it applies in other ways, too. If you look at a fly – which, you know I don’t like the unsupported bench fly – it’s not necessarily just a stretch. If I were to rotate my arm and put my arm all the way back here, that’s an enormous stretch in my pec right now. More than any of us would ever have during a fly.

Basically, with my hand on the floor at this point. There’s no risk of tearing my pec here. You could do the same thing. You know there’s no risk. You don’t feel anything other than a decent stretch.

What we need to do though, is realize that once we apply tension that stretch doesn’t even have to be this great. That stretch could be out here, but when you apply the tension it’s enough to cause a potential tear of that tendon and overload a quick snap. Same thing at the bottom of a bench-press. It’s the tension with a moderate amount of stretch that can cause that to pop. The same thing with hamstring injuries.

I’m a big hamstring rehabber because I understand the mechanics. It’s usually never the leg that comes out in front. If it was the lengthening and stretch of the muscle it would be the one that comes out in front because with my knee straight, my hamstrings are stretched. My hip in flexion, my hamstrings are stretched maximally. But it’s not that.

What happens is, the leg that hits the ground, and as it straightens we apply stretch to the hamstring because the knee is straightening, but we have tension because of the active hip extension. And it’s right there, it goes ‘pop’ and you see the guy hop. When it comes to any muscle tearing, in this case the biceps, it’s a factor of stretch and tension, but the stretch can be greatly minimized. It’s not about the full stretch. We already demonstrated that.

The stretch can become greatly minimized when the tension becomes higher. So, if you’re going to do this exercise and you want to do it right, load up the bar and do as much as you can. But do one thing for me. Make sure when you setup, you actively engage the triceps. It’s so simple.

But actively engage the triceps. It’s going to do two things for you. Number one: when I grab the bar and I’m going to use a mixed grip, if I engage the tricep here – actively engage the tricep – as I come up I’ve reciprocally inhibited the action of the biceps. We can’t shorten the joint in this direction if I’ve got active contraction in the opposite direction. So, I’ve reciprocally taken the bicep contraction out at its most vulnerable point.

By doing so, we’ve also added to the fact that I’ve got stability of the scapula because of the longhead of the triceps’ attachment to it. That’s a great thing because we know in order to pull we want to have maximum stability of your upper torso being tight. We can do that by having our shoulder blade down, and back, and having active contraction – tightening – of the triceps that will add to that stability from below. If we