How To Fix Your Deadlift (5 RED FLAGS!)

If your deadlift form just doesn’t look the way it should, you need to watch this important video. There are 5 red flags that can undermine every deadlift and prevent it from being one of your strongest lifts, that are going to be covered. In general, those that struggle with deadlifts usually do so

What s up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx. com. Jesse Lacio, athleanx. com. You could stay down here, I’m a little bit more  comfortable down here with you down here.

Oh, the shorts? Yeah. So today we’re going to talk about the deadlift and maybe your deadlift doesn’t look  this bad, but when you do it, you’ve recognized the fact that there’s something wrong here, right? Either it doesn’t look the way it’s supposed to, or you’re getting stuck at some point in the lift. So what I’ve done for you today as I put together five red flags that are going to define for you  the muscle weakness that is causing the problem that you’re having right now.

You see, only two  things cause problems in the deadlift either you learn the wrong form and simply ingrained that  over time by adding more and more weight to the bar on a foundation that was weak in the first  place. Or you just don’t have the muscle strength to do the deadlift right. So for that, guys, we  need to start where we always do, and that is With a Jesse intro. Run it. No, no, no, no.

In a world where people pick things up and put  them down. There’s one man who picks things up and puts them down better than the  rest and still has an eight pack. Listen, two things, number one,  you’re insufferable. And number two, I got to give you props, that was  actually a really good lift. Thank you, I appreciate it.

I  owe a lot to your coaching. Well, thank you. Can we get  back to the video now? I guess. So, we have to start with guys the ability to actually hold on to the bar and  that means what is your grip strength like?

A good grip is imperative to having a good  deadlift because if you don’t have a good control of the bar, well, things like that  are going to happen. So we need to fix that. In order to strengthen our grip there are a  few exercises that I really rely on the most. The first is the Weighted Pullup and not only  is this a great back strengthening exercise, but it does require that you have grip strength  to be able to hold on to that bar when you have additional weight strapped around your waist. But  if you don’t have, let’s say, the back strength to perform the exercise but still want to see  the benefits of the extra added grip strength, you can simply do a Weighted Hang.

Here, you’re  not having to pull up, but you do have to have good shoulder stability, which is another benefit  that’s going to carry over into the deadlift. The last exercise you could do is certainly the  Carry, which is one of my favorite exercises for a lot of different purposes. But you can easily  mix it in to either the strength training portion of your workout or into the conditioning  aspect of any workout program you’re on. So let’s say the grip is good, but now you  struggle because you can’t break these plates off the ground, and to do that, you’re going  to want to have strong quads. That’s right, when you do the deadlift, pulling from the ground  really means you need to have strong quads to get it off the ground to break the bar off the ground.

I talk about it all the time, the deadlift is a leg exercise to start, at least to the level of  the knee. Think of it as a Standing Leg Press and to do that, what we need to do is be able to  strengthen those quads. So the best way to do that is to make sure you’re doing the right exercises  and your other parts of your workout. And for that, we’re talking about a Front Squat. We know the Front Squat gives us that preferential ability to hit the quads a little bit more so than  the glutes in the traditional squat.

We also have a Bulgarian Split Squat, which does not only a  great job of giving you a chance to target the quads better, but to do so in a unilateral way  to expose any imbalances that might exist right or left. And we also have a Reverse Lunge, which  can be done with either dumbbells or a barbell, as seen here. Being able to maintain that  upright torso shifts that load once again, just like in the Front Squat to have that  strength to be better able to pull that bar off the ground. But it doesn’t stop there  because in order to break the bar off the ground, you have to be stable in the first place. And that all comes from up here.

And that is by having strong lats and a strong core. Because  you need to create the tightness through the body, through the body to be able to perform the  lift efficiently. So the first thing is these lats over here, can you pin your arms down to  your side? While we have an exercise for that, the Straight Arm Push Down and the best way to do  this is either as a traditional sternum push down, we were really trying to get your elbows tight  to your sides and down as far as you can. Or you can mimic more the requirements of the  deadlift and perform asymmetrically like this, which becomes more challenging as you  stand up.

That bar wants to drift away, and you have to have that isometric strength in  place. But whatever you do, make sure you’re doing some version of the Straight Arm Push Down. The second thing is the abs the core, and that also needs to be tight and what  we do. There is some version of a Carry, preferentially a Unilateral Carry. When you  hold that one heavy dumbbell on your side, you’re challenging your pillar strength and your  torso to be able to maintain an upright posture.

And though you’re doing a bilateral balanced  movement here on the deadlift, you still want to have the ability to keep a rigid, tight  torso throughout the entire lift. If you want, you can do it overhead variation as well. With the arms up overhead, you’re introducing a bigger challenge because of the momentum arm  increase. Either way, incorporating them is going to help you to build more of that strength  that’s necessary for your core to help and assist you to maintain the tightness, to get that  bar going off the ground in the first place. So let’s say you can get the bar off the  floor, but then you struggle at that point when I’m talking about is from here to here  to and through the knee, not lockout out, but just in that area from here to here.

Well, that  brings up red flag number three because again, we have to look at the weaknesses that are putting  you in this position in the first place. And the muscles that are responsible for this are going  to be the hamstrings here and more importantly, the low back. But we have to choose the right  exercises to do this because we don’t want to necessarily train the hamstrings from a  flexed knee position, but more so from a flexed hip straight knee position. Allowing the  hamstrings to focus on that secondary role of hip extension. So we’re looking at exercises like the  RDL, and not only does it share deadlift in its name with the deadlift itself, but also shares a  lot of the same muscle responsibilities in terms of the hamstring activation.

We could also take  the deadlift again and perform it with lighter weights and a deficit deadlift fashion, increasing  the range of motion of the exercise, which is going to increase the activation of the hamstrings  in their participation in the movement. And of course, we have to dynamically work the  low back here too, and my choice exercise is the Weighted Hyperextension. And what this is doing  is allowing you to put a weight across your chest and allow the hamstrings to operate again out  of this elongated state. We’re focused on the hamstrings as hip extensors because that is what  their role is during the deadlift. And of course, the deadlift is a compound exercise,  so it’s not just to muscle groups, the hamstrings and lower back contributing in this  part of the lift.

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