The deadlift: Everything you need to know about this epic exercise
Whether you’re after gains in strength, power, speed, or improvements in body composition, deadlifting is the answer. Here’s your ultimate guide.
Learn about the fundamentals of Agility and even get a practical coaching guide to help you to develop engaging sessions.
By Cody Roberts
7th September 2022 | 9 min read
“When you do other lifting exercises, like a bench press, for example, you’re not doing anything you might really do in real life. When are you ever going to have the need to lay on your back and push something in the air? Unless you’re giving your two-year-old flying lessons. The deadlift develops the muscles you need to actually carry something, like a bucket of water, those heavy grocery bags or your neighbour’s dining room table.” – Michelle Kennedy Hogan, author.
Arguably the truest test of total body strength, the deadlift is a multi-joint exercise that involves major muscle groups working in coordination to produce force and tension throughout the legs, hips, back, and torso.
With all the muscle mass involved, there’s opportunity to lift some of the heaviest loads possible, generating maximal muscular forces through the ground. Deadlifts provide an edge like no other that carries over to sprinting faster and jumping higher.
Whether you’re after gains in strength, power, speed, or improvements in body composition, deadlifting is the answer.
It’s no coincidence that the deadlift consistently shows up in training the best and strongest athletes. It is an extremely effective exercise for anyone looking to get stronger and move better.
There’s no denying the deadlift can deliver some incredible results, but many shy away from it. Why? Well, because with improper lifting technique, comes increased injury risk.
Although the deadlift appears very simple, it can be very challenging at the same time, as the discs of the lower back can be exposed to extreme compression forces with maximal efforts.
The important thing to understand is, there are no bad exercises, but rather bad technique.
When done properly, all the muscles of the posterior kinetic chain (i.e. calves, hamstrings, glutes, lumbar spine, upper back, and trapezius) are working together. With all this effort comes great responsibility, and for the deadlift to be safe and effective, it requires a blend of both control and grit.
The primary reason the deadlift can be a great exercise is that it can help develop an abundance of other exercises (e.g. cleans or snatches), movement patterns (e.g. squatting, lunging, bracing, pulling), and sport-specific skills or actions (e.g. jumping and sprinting).
The lift is unique, as there is no eccentric (lowering) muscle action before the concentric (upward) lifting motion, unlike the squat and bench press. This means there is no use of stored elastic energy provided by the stretch-shortening cycle – think of this as a spring, where muscles and tendons compress before quickly releasing, improving strength capabilities.
This is where the ‘dead’ lift earns its name — through the fact the weight is lifted from a dead stop position — and why it’s so functional for both everyday life and sport. It directly transfers to lifting large objects off the ground or explosively taking off from a stationary position.
Before anyone can experience the benefits of the deadlift, proper technique must be established and understood.
First, look to create awareness of the fundamentals related to deadlifting – these are the bedrock basics that centre around safety, simplicity, and consistency. It all begins with a proper setup:
Keep in mind that these positions are not set in stone but rather starting points, with adjustments always an option based on your individual capabilities.
With proper setup covered, we can now get into the nuts and bolts of how to move with the bar:
Another token to consider when setting up for success is learning the deadlift from the top-down.
Using the fundamentals above, we can establish a consistent setup routine for how to approach the bar and begin a deadlift.
Here’s my process:
When lifting the bar off the ground, think of pushing your legs into the floor.
Remember, that initial push is the most challenging, so stay braced and confident in your grip. As the legs extend, the knees and hips shift back slightly, head and chest rise together, and the bar path should remain vertical and tight to the shins.
When the bar clears the knee, push the hips forward and continue lifting the chest into the upright, lockout position (shoulders back, chest out, torso stacked with hips engaged).
The deadlift is an awesome exercise, but in order to lift the heaviest loads possible, patience and progression is important.
For those with little experience using free-weights, employing a progression plan can help improve movement skills and overall body awareness with a barbell before getting into the heavy stuff.
As a hybrid exercise that involves both hinging at the hips, as well as squatting through the hip, knee, and ankle, the deadlift can benefit greatly from learning how to hinge and squat separately.
The Romanian deadlift (RDL) targets the hips, hamstrings, and low back as a pure hinge exercise. It’s a great learning tool for the deadlift because the setup and barbell position are the same. It offers exposure to similar skills and demands without the complexity and stress of squatting down to the floor.
The RDL starts with the same stance and grip, standing tall and strong, shoulders back, chest up, eyes forward, and stacked with the torso and hips engaged. Maintaining a rigid spine, braced torso, tripod foot pressure, and tight-bodied bar path throughout.
For the descent of the RDL, the movement is initiated with pushing the hips back. The back stays extended, rigid, and flat throughout, and the barbell remains in contact with the body, sliding down the thighs as the hips travel back.
Where the deadlift requires a greater range of motion at the knee, the RDL simply involves a constant slight knee bend throughout the lift, keeping the legs long and hips high.
With the hamstrings, hips, and low back targeted through the RDL, the squat — arguably the king of leg development — can also be a great exercise in developing a solid deadlift.
The squat targets hip and ankle mobility, as well as strength through the quads and hips, which will help when deadlifting massive loads from the floor.
We won’t cover the ins and outs of the squat, but here’s a great source if you need some advice.
The piece that enables a safe and effective deadlift over any other factor is proper loading.
This means never sacrificing technique for load – for first timers, keep the loads extremely light, using 5-10 kg training plates to learn the basics (stance, grip, body position, and bar path).
Also, to help maintain quality reps, avoid trying to do more than six reps in a given set.
Here are some of the other most common errors made when deadlifting:
The sport of powerlifting is booming, and with the primary goal of lifting as much weight as possible in the most efficient manner came the evolution of the sumo-style deadlift.
Up until now, the deadlift referenced has been the hands-outside-the-legs, ‘conventional’ deadlift. There is an alternative deadlift known as the ‘sumo deadlift’ that has a much wider stance, where the knees and toes angle outward, and the bar is gripped between the legs.
Major differences between conventional and sumo deadlifting:
Advantages of the sumo deadlift:
Both types have their time and place, as both are effective in getting stronger throughout the lower body, hips and torso.
Ultimately, it comes down to your needs and goals (e.g. target muscles, personal preference based on size and limb length, or maximal loads). Either way, technique and safety should always reign supreme, with exercises being adapted to each individual.
The development of the hexagonal (hex) bar has given rise to another variation of the deadlift that aims to reduce injury risk by allowing a more advantageous posture and distribution of load).
Rather than a straight barbell that is held in front, the athlete stands inside of a hexagonal frame with handles positioned at the sides. This generally allows for a movement pattern that is more like a squat, since the knees are not restricted to flex and push forward (there’s no barbell there to avoid). With this setup, the hex bar allows for greater peak force, velocity, and power.
In the battle of barbell versus hex bar, it’s not a question of which is better or worse. Instead, it’s more important to figure out which bar is most effective in working towards your training goals.
If the goal is to work towards more advanced power-building weightlifting exercises, the barbell deadlift may be best.
If lifting the heaviest loads possible and reducing stress on the low back is important, the hex bar is your answer.
The greatest limitation with the hex bar is that the grip width is fixed and depends on the size of the bar. Athletes that are bigger or smaller in stature may be placed in an uncomfortable grip position that is either too wide or narrow. This is especially common with smaller females who are using hex bars built for larger individuals and have handles that are over 60cm wide.
As technique is mastered and loads increase, there are options available that maximise how much you can lift. Being challenged in new and different ways helps strength gains.
Grip strength is oftentimes a limiting factor when deadlifting.
Here are a few ways to increase grip strength:
Wearing a lifting belt is another potential strategy to help increase load and support a more stable and rigid torso.
Variations allow for a different challenge, further overall progress, and ultimately maximise the benefits of deadlifting.
Here are some of my favourite deadlift variations:
When first implementing the exercise in a structured program, aim to deadlift a safe and appropriate weight twice per week, with five sets of five repetitions. This has shown to be an effective strategy at improving strength and explosive power.
Incorporating the deadlift into a training program requires appropriate planning and navigation. If the time is taken to learn proper technique, the deadlift can be a very efficient and effective exercise for anyone aiming to get stronger.
Cody Roberts
Cody is a Strength & Conditioning Coach and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Iowa. He has an MSE in Exercise Science from the University of Kansas and also holds a CSCS from the NSCA.