0:03 This is Brent, President of B2C Fitness, and we're going to talk about one of my 0:07 favorite strength training exercises, the deadlift. Of course, if we're going to talk 0:11 about the deadlift, we need to talk about when it's best to use the deadlift, and 0:14 who the deadlift is best for. Now, the deadlift is a great strength training 0:20 exercise for our lower body. It adds variety to our strength training 0:24 progressions we talked about before being the squat, step up, and lunge. It 0:28 also has a special function of the fact that it can be used with somebody with 0:33 lower leg dysfunction, without contributing to their dysfunction by 0:37 causing more compensatory movement patterns, that is, in lower leg dysfunction, 0:42 we have a problem getting the knees to track over the feet. In a deadlift we 0:48 don't need the knees track over the feet. We can work on a hip extension, we 0:52 can work on knee extension a little bit, without having to worry about this 0:56 causing the feet to then turn out, or the knees to duck in contributing to our 1:01 compensatory movement pattern. I'm going to have my friend Joe come out and help 1:05 me demonstrate this exercise. I'll start demonstrating some of the queuing and 1:09 some of the formalities I see, and then we'll also talk about the progressions 1:14 of this exercise. So, I'm going to have Joe here grab the bar, he is no stranger to 1:18 the deadlift. One problem we have, and you can see right here, is that the 1:24 deadlift, unlike our squats, step ups, and lunges, where this torso is upright, 1:29 creates a huge lever arm, that Joe's core is going to have to stabilize for. 1:35 So we need to be really careful on how we set up the lumbo-pelvic hip complex 1:39 before he gets started on this movement pattern. Now, the first thing I'm going to have Joe do 1:43 also is, go ahead and look down, this will put him back in a neutral spine, I'm 1:48 going to have him focus on drawing-in. Now Joe, when you lift this bar, I want 1:53 you to stand up nice and tall and draw your hips forward. You ready? Hips 2:00 forward, try not to arch your back though. Good. Back down nice and slow. Now, 2:07 Jow has a nice deadlift here. He's keeping his back nice and straight, he's 2:12 coming up, locking out his knees, driving his hips forward, increasing the amount 2:17 of glute activity. I think a lot of individuals make the mistake that dead 2:25 lifts are a hamstring exercise, but the truth of the matter is, your glute complex is 2:30 still your primary hip extensor. I can assure you that if you get more glute 2:34 activation during a deadlift, the amount of weight you're able to move will 2:38 increase. So let's see that one more time, Joe. Thrust your hips forward, 2:46 making sure you stand up nice and tall, squeeze your glutes. Good. You can 2:50 see that little thrust is a great way to increase glute activity. Joe and I were 2:54 just discussing this exercise, we just started doing this about 10 minutes ago, 2:58 I think we just increased the amount of dead lift weight he can move by 20 or 30 3:03 pounds, inside of 20 or 30 seconds. Alright, Joe, so let me go ahead and have 3:08 you put this down. We'll talk about one of our progressions of the deadlift. I'm 3:12 going to have Joe come over here and grab these dumbbells. This is a very easy progression 3:16 that increases the amount of stability needed by a ton. So Joe is going to grab 3:21 these dumbbells, drop down a little bit, make sure your head's down, you're 3:31 drawn-in, and he's going to the same thing: drive his hips forward, 3:34 stand up nice and tall. Good. And you can see there, same deadlift, but how much 3:40 harder was that Joe? -A little bit harder. We did use a little bit 3:45 lighter weight, but you will be able to see that the amount of stability 3:48 required for this movement pattern, over a barbell, is going to be a big 3:52 difference, so let's see a couple more of those. Let's try it this time, I want you to 3:59 do two in a row, I don't want you to put the weights on the floor though. So, I want him to have 4:04 to eccentrically decelerate that weight, isometrically stabilize at the bottom, 4:08 and then turn that weight around concentrically without putting it on the 4:12 floor. Once he puts it on the floor he no longer has to ecentrically 4:15 decelerate, he no longer has to stabilize, and that's going to make this not as 4:20 effective for increasing his performance. Now, another easy progression for our 4:25 strength level progressions is just to take one dumbbell away from Joe. Of course, 4:31 this is only a challenge if Joe maintains his alignment in his trunk. You 4:37 will see as he bends forward, I don't want him twisting a whole lot. You 4:41 can twist a little bit, I'll let him get away with a little bit of scapular 4:44 protraction, but I don't want to see a huge amount of trunk rotation. Alright, so 4:49 let me have you just put your hand on your hip, good, and go ahead and bend down. 4:54 A little tougher? -A little bit. Alright, good, let's try ten on each side. 5:00 -Alright. I'm just kidding! So, last thing I'm going to show you, 5:04 and I usually wouldn't finish a video with something I don't want you to 5:07 do, but I think this is an important point with the deadlift that we need to 5:11 cover. Joe, I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to make this a lot worse on your 5:15 back. So, I'm going to give you this dumbbell back. I'm going to have you 5:21 turn sideways for me. I want you to go ahead and show the perfect form deadlift 5:26 that we have been doing. Try to keep your back a little straighter, head 5:31 down as you go down. Let's see one more. Head up as you go up. Good. Squeeze those 5:36 glutes, pushing forward. Now, what I want you to do this time is lock your 5:40 knees, I want you to slow it down though, lock your knees and try to do 5:44 a good form deadlift, and you can see immediately we get a lot more 5:50 lumbar flexion. As he comes up he's forced to use his lumbar extensors, and where 5:55 did you feel that? -Lower back. Lower back, and you were talking about this here, 5:59 biceps femoris. As soon as we lock the knees, we increase 6:05 the amount of recruitment on something called our deep longitudinal 6:09 subsystem. That's biceps femoris, to sacrotuberous ligament, to our erector 6:15 spinae. These are not the muscles that I want to be his prime movers. It puts a 6:20 tremendous amount of stress on his SI joint, a tremendous amount of stress on 6:24 his lumbar vertebrae. This is a dangerous way to perform your deadlift 6:29 progressions. I would much rather see that, let's go back to a good one, so bend 6:33 that leg, look down as you go down, thrust your hips forward as you come up, 6:38 glute activation, nice strong. We'll get a huge increase in performance, a lot more 6:44 muscle mass added. The other thing we have to worry about when you lock your knees 6:48 guys, is you do put a lot of stress on those knee ligaments. Your medial and 6:53 lateral, collateral ligaments, are situated posteriorly, so they will get 6:56 stretched, your pcl of course, will get stretched in that. So, once again, 7:01 just kind of going through the queues. Joe is going to look down as he goes down, 7:05 and look up as he comes up to keep his spine in alignment. He's going to draw-in, 7:10 especially on the way down. Let's do one more. He's going to draw-in because that 7:14 drawing-in is going to keep his core tight, it's going to want to pooch out as he goes down, then keep 7:19 his hips forward, get those glutes active, to get as much glute contribution as we 7:24 possibly can get. We went from a barbell, to two dumbbells, to one dumbbell. A great 7:30 progression for your strength training exercise, and of course, if Joe could do as 7:33 many reps as he's done in this video, I probably need to increase the weight. Thanks 7:37 Joe, thank you, I hope you had fun with this video.
