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Deadlift Progressions Cueing and Questionable Variations
Deadlift Progressions Cueing and Questionable Variations is an essential guide for any fitness professional interested in learning how to properly cue, progress, and potentially modify the deadlift. Through detailed explanation and practical application, this resource provides a comprehensive overview of the full range of motion in the deadlift, proper cueing techniques and progressions, as well as a critical look at many controversial deadlift variations - all designed to help strength and conditioning coaches and fitness professionals provide the best possible training experience
Transcript
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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
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