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Deadlift (Barbell)

Pick the bar up off the floor and stand up with it. Simple to describe, easy to do badly.

• Hamstrings
• Barbell
• Weight and reps

What it works

Hamstrings and glutes drive the movement, with the lower back, upper back, lats and grip all working hard to hold position. It loads more muscle at once than almost anything else you can do with a barbell, which is both why it builds so much and why it costs so much to recover from.

Setup

1. Stand with the bar over the middle of your feet. From above it should look roughly like it is cutting your shoelaces in half. Feet about hip width.
2. Without moving the bar, bend at the hips and take a grip just outside your shins.
3. Bend your knees until your shins touch the bar. Do not let the bar move forward when you do this.
4. Lift your chest to set your back flat. Your hips will end up somewhere between your knees and your shoulders, and exactly where depends on your proportions rather than on a rule.
5. Pull the slack out of the bar. You should hear or feel a small click as the bar meets the plates. Now your back is loaded and set.

The movement

1. Take a breath, brace, and squeeze your armpits down to engage your lats. Think about holding the bar against your legs.
2. Push the floor away with your legs. The bar travels straight up and stays in contact with your shins and thighs the whole way.
3. Keep your hips and shoulders rising at the same rate. If your hips shoot up first, the weight is too heavy or your setup was too low.
4. Stand up fully by squeezing your glutes. Do not lean back at the top and do not shrug.
5. Put it down by pushing your hips back first and letting the bar slide down your thighs, then bending your knees once it passes them. Lower it under control rather than dropping it, and reset your position for the next rep.

Common mistakes

• Starting with the bar too far from your shins: every centimetre forward makes the lift meaningfully harder and pulls you onto your toes.
• Jerking the bar off the floor: pull the slack out first and start the lift from a tight position. Yanking a loose bar is how backs get hurt.
• Rounding the lower back: a slightly rounded upper back is common in strong lifters and is a different thing. A lower back that rounds under load means the weight is too heavy or the setup was wrong.
• Hips rising first: the bar then has to travel around your knees rather than up your shins. Usually a sign of setting up with the hips too low.
• Leaning back at the top: there is nothing to gain and it puts your lower back in a bad position. Standing upright is lockout.
• Bouncing reps off the floor: reset each rep unless the program specifically says otherwise. The reset is where the technique lives.

Variations and alternatives

The Romanian deadlift keeps the bar off the floor and puts far more of the load on the hamstrings. The hip thrust targets the glutes with much less spinal loading. A sumo deadlift, with a wide stance and hands inside the knees, suits some builds better and is not cheating.

If a movement causes pain rather than ordinary training effort, stop and speak to a qualified professional. Programming context for this lift is in how training programs are built.