The Conventional Deadlift: How To Deadlift With Optimal Form To Maximize Strength & Lower Injury Risk

Of all the powerlifts, the deadlift is usually the heaviest for most people and it’s performed last in competition. Because of the absolute load and relative fatigue of the deadlift, it’s important to optimize your mechanics to lift the most amount of weight possible while reducing your injury risk.

However, like many of the other barbell lifts, there is a lack of consensus on the best way to perform the deadlift.

In this episode of the Progressive Rehab & Strength Podcast we review the most important key factors for optimizing your position and execution of the conventional deadlift to lift heavy weight safely to get as strong as possible.

We cover how:

To position the bar relative to your body to get in the most optimal position
You should stance to generate the most power
To grip the bar without affecting the bar position
Your bar position and anthropometry dictates what your individual start position is
Set your back
Generate tension against the bar to pull out the slack

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:00:10] We're back with a Ten-Minute Tip Tuesday. In this Ten-Minute Tip episode, we will discuss how to conventional deadlift. So as an athlete, you can listen to this to learn how to deadlift, fix your deadlift, and maybe kind of problem solve what's going on. If you aren't doing these things, maybe it'll help you. And if you're a coach, this will give you a systematic way to approach teaching someone how to deadlift or improve or help them improve their deadlift. And as a clinician, if you have a systematic way of understanding how to execute the deadlift, this can help you in your rehab coaching or rehabilitation scenarios. So how these Ten-Minute Tip Tuesdays work: I set a timer for 10 minutes, we talk about a topic, and then when the timer goes off, if we haven't finished, we usually keep going, but hopefully, we finished by the ten-minute timer. So just a quick reminder with these "how to's" or "how to do a main lift" or any type of lift, we're giving you a framework and starting point to teach someone the movement.

Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:01:35] So this is a concise way to approach teaching someone. It makes it simple to carry the coaching from one person to the next. You don't have to do a specific way for someone just because they're this way. You start with your starting point and then build their individual technique from that starting point. If you don't have a starting point, it makes it much harder to help someone learn how to lift. If you don't have a starting point, it is much harder for an athlete to learn how to lift. If someone said, "Go deadlift," and you didn't look up a way to deadlift, you would make up a deadlift in your head and be confused. But suppose you have a systematic way to approach learning the deadlift and teaching the deadlift to yourself or your clients. In that case, it makes it much easier and faster to learn and master and build your technical execution and individualize it for that person. So I'm going to start my 10-minutes, and the first thing we'll talk about is how to figure out that deadlift stance. So you can set the stance up just by palpating the bony hip bones in the front of your hips. They're called the ASIS, and you want to look straight down, and your heel should be right in line with your ASIS, or those bony prominences on the front of your hip.

Download the Full Transcript

Join our Facebook Community for free form checks, live Q&As & more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PRS.Barbell.Mastery

Got questions or guests you'd like to hear on the show? Submit them here: https://forms.gle/7Vu2HmgHoeQY9xM59

Get in touch with the show!

Web: https://www.progressiverehabandstrength.com

Email: podcast@progressiverehabandstrength.com

Rori IG: @rorimegan_prs

Alyssa IG: @alyssahope_prs