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