How to Deadlift: The Set Up

In previous posts, I’ve discussed foot placement and hand placement/grips when setting up to deadlift. In this post, I’ll go over how to set up for the deadlift before you start to pull the bar off the floor. 

First, you want to place your feet and hands correctly on the bar. These placements should serve as reference points for the rest of your set up.  After getting your foot and hand placement right, you want to optimally position your body in order to pull the bar off the ground, with the best mechanical efficiency possible. To do this, you want your shins to be relatively vertical, your hips to move back, and your torso to lean slightly forward (figure1).  The deadlift is referred to as a “hip hinge” movement pattern.  This is not a squat, which is a knee-dominant movement pattern. A hip-dominant pattern like the deadlift requires you to use your glutes and hamstrings (a.k.a. your posterior chain) more than you would during a squat, which is more of an anterior chain movement, utilizing the quadriceps muscles to a greater extent. 

Figure 1: Deadlift setup

Relatively speaking, your hips will be higher at the start of a deadlift than the lowest point that your hips reach in a squat (figure 2). When deadlifting, your hips only need to get as low as necessary to get your hands on the bar.  Once you are in this position you will need to gather tension throughout your body before you start to pull the bar. This will allow you to better hold your position when you're lifting the weight, preventing you from rounding your back, tipping forward onto your toes, or compromising your deadlift position in some other way, shape, or form. 

Figure 2: Deadlift compared to a squat.

In order to gather tension in your body, you need to first set your lats. When setting your lats you need to imagine pulling the bar into your body/towards your shins. Doing this will help activate your lats and keep the bar close to your body later on when pulling the bar from the floor. 

 The next step to gather tension in your body is bracing your core. This is sometimes referred to as a Valsalva maneuver. A note on the Valsalva maneuver: if you are a healthy normal person and do not have high blood pressure, performing at Valsalva maneuver is not incorrect. In fact, it is the body's natural way of achieving spine stability as a protective mechanism so we don't injure ourselves. You can brace your core by breathing into your stomach and contracting your abdominals in order to create spinal stability and tension through your torso.

The next step is to slowly start to pull on the bar. This should not be an aggressive or violent motion that pulls you out of your position.  Doing this should allow you to start to turn on musculature that you have not turned on yet, helping you hold a better spine position and keep you aligned to lift the weight.

By this point you may not feel the most comfortable globally throughout your body. You're attempting to pull a relatively heavy weight off the floor while keeping your spine stable and lifting a weight that will help you get stronger, grow more muscle, and improve your physical performance.

Now you're ready to start to pull, the actual act of lifting the weight. We will go over this in the next post so stay tuned. 

As always, thanks for reading!

Ryan Goodell, PT, DPT, CSCS

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Why Your Lats are Important

The latissimus dorsi, aka "the lats.” This is an incredible muscle and, in my opinion, a very important one. The lats are so large and powerful, yet often neglected because they aren’t as “showy” as other muscles like the pecs, biceps, and triceps. The main anatomical function of the lats is extension, adduction, and internal/medial rotation. The lats originate from the spinous processes of the T7-L5 vertebrae, iliac crest, thoracolumbar fascia, lower 3 or 4 ribs, and inferior angle of the scapula. From there, the insertion/attachment is in the bicipital groove of the humerus. Simply put, the lat attaches to your lower vertebra, the crest of your hips (on the back side), the last few ribs, and then inserts into your arm bone up by the shoulder. This is quite an expansive muscle that spans a large area of your body. Since the lats attach in the low back region and travel the whole expanse of the trunk, they also act as a core stabilizer. There’s a reason one of the requirements of setting up for big lifts like the squat, bench, and deadlift is to contract your lats; this provides more stability to the trunk when performing these lifts. More trunk stability, equates to better force transfer. Two of the cues that I use to help engage the lats during these lifts are to “bend the bar,” when performing the bench and deadlift, and to think about “pulling your elbows into your back pockets” when squatting. Performing these actions gives more stability to the trunk, which will aid you in bigger and stronger lifts.

The lats also act as a “humeral propeller.” Because they are a medial/internal rotator of the shoulder, they function in ballistic movements, like throwing, and in activities such as swimming, which require you to propel yourself through the water. Just another reason besides trunk stability to have strong lats.

However, the lats can cause some problems as well. One potential problem is internally rotated-or rounded-shoulders. This issue is usually due to tight lats from sitting all day in a hunched-over posture. There are other muscles that contribute to this posture, but the lats are a large component as well. I’ve talked about this issue in a previous post, Don’t Be a Seated Chair Victim. If the lats are tight, they will contribute to this poor posture and can cause shoulder dysfunction. Some good ways to keep those late from getting tight include:

-Rolling the with a lacrosse ball or foam roller

-Free Hanging (like you were going to do a pullup but just hang there) or full range of motion pullups (with a hang at the bottom)

-Prayer stretch, with the elbows placed on a bench

So now that we’ve covered how the lats work and how they can cause some problems, how can you make them stronger? 

Using different variations of horizontal and vertical pulls is a good place to start. I touched on vertical pulling in How to Increase Your Pullups. Horizontal pulls are even more important, however, when it comes to posture. Horizontal pulling will keep those shoulders from rounding forward and counteract the seated posture that oh-so-many of us are stuck in all day. Just a short list of some of my favorite back/lat exercises include:

DB Rows

Pull Ups

T-Bar Rows

Inverted Rows with varying grips

Lat Pulldowns

And yes, there are many more lat/back exercises to choose from, with all their variations. These are just a few general exercises to give you an idea for the types of exercises to be doing. From there you can change tempos, add accommodating resistance, perform them unilaterally (one arm at a time) or bilaterally (both arms at the same time), and tweak many more variables in order to add some variety to the lifts. 

The lats are a very important muscle when it comes to performance and training. Keep them healthy and strong, and you’ll definitely see some benefit carry over to other aspects of your training.

Ryan Goodell, CSCS

For consultation/personal training/coaching inquiries email: ryangoodell@weightsandstuff.com

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New posts every Sunday! 

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