CategoriesExercise Technique Strength Training

The Post Where I Slap the Wrist of a Deadlift Troll

As it happens I don’t get a ton of hate mail or “troll” activity that’s directed my way.  Part of that is because I generally – not always – steer clear of controversial topics (CrossFit, intermittent fasting, Jacob vs. Edward) that somehow always gets people’s panties all up in a bunch.

On the other side of the coin, I like to think I go out of my way to provide top-notch content with a little lightheartedness that doesn’t come across as me being an uppity know-it-all snob.  And even if I do take a strong stance on something, I’m always willing to keep an open mind and respect other’s opinions on the matter.

That said, on the off-chance that I do get someone going out of their way to be a big meanie head and write me a scathing email or comment, I’ve learned to politely say “thank you,” or ignore them altogether and move on with my life. It’s just not worth getting into a war of words with some people.

It was a hard pill to swallow when I first started writing. I took any negative feedback I received as a direct blow against my character, and I’d be lying if I sat here and said that it didn’t sometimes affect my mood.  I wouldn’t cower in the corner in the fetal position sucking my thumb or anything, but there were times back in the day where I’d be thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to turning on a Julia Roberts’ movie and crushing a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

When you think about it though, anytime you open yourself up to the masses and decide to write in an open forum, whether it be blogging, articles, or any form of media, you’re going to expose yourself to criticism.  It’s the nature of the beast, for better or worse.

Throughout the years I’ve learned to pick my battles.  Sometimes I deserved to be called out and I was always appreciative (although maybe not right at that moment) in the long-run, because part of why I’m in this industry and why I write is to learn and help people.  I’m not that much of a conceited person where I can’t say “my bad, I’m wrong” and move on.

And then you just have those people who have nothing better to do with their lives than to be a big, fat meanie-head.  Like I said, normally I ignore stuff like this and use it as a good laugh, but for some reason I felt this particular person, based off his holier than thou tone alone, deserved a little taste of his own medicine.

I think most of you reading will agree.

Here’s the email that was sent my way in its entirety – with a few words/lines highlighted on my end.

Why are you stating that an upper rounded back in a deadlift is incorrect. Please explain the shear you speak of.

So I guess Konstantin Konstantinov must be a shitty deadlifter eh? The fact is it depends on body composition and the weight being pulled.

It would be nice if you trainer, no back and no trap, types get your shit correct before you put this crap on the web.

RD

+500lb deadlifter

So, essentially, what this guy was saying was that:

1. He read ONE blog post of mine (I don’t know which one) and decided that that encompassed my entire thought process on everything deadlifting. And….

2. Because he watched a Russian deadlift once, on the internet, that that somehow makes him an authority. And….

3.  He’s a +500 lb deadlifter (allegedly), so he obviously knows what he’s talking about.

For starters, one blog post doesn’t define me and my thoughts.

Secondly, here’s a picture of some random dude juggling some chainsaws.  Man that is nifty!  I could probably do that!  In fact, I know I could do that because I saw it on the internet.

Thirdly, isn’t it funny how everyone somehow deadlifts over 500 lbs????  Uncanny.

Anyways, here was my initial response to him (with more to follow afterwards):

Riiiiigggggghhhhhhttttt.

Well, if you actually read more of my stuff, you’ll understand that I’ve also said that when someone is lifting heavier loads it isn’t always going to be pretty.

And as a coach and trainer I’m certainly not going to teach someone to deadlift with a rounded back. It’s just not worth the risk. If or when they get to the level of Konstantinov then they’ll get a little more leeway..

Thanks for setting me straight, though, I really appreciate it.

+570 lb deadlifter (ie: more than you).

I’m sorry.  I just couldn’t resist closing off my response with that last line.  Childish, I know – but sooooooooo worth it.

So lets break this down in a more conducive, less confrontational way.

His main beef with me was stressing how I’m not a fan of people deadlifting with a rounded upper back.  Specifically he asked if I could explain this whole “shear” phenomena, as if I was pulling a random word out of my ass.

Let me clarify a bit before I proceed.

For starters, as the co-owner of a gym (and as such: having the luxury of paying liability insurance), part of, if not the most crucial component of my job is to keep people from getting hurt.

Think about how much responsibility we accept when a parent drops off their 14 year old kid to train with us. How do you think it bodes for business if we have kids injuring themselves left and right because we don’t take the time to teach them how to lift correctly (but more on that in a bit)?

As someone on my Facebook page so succinctly noted, “it must be nice to Monday morning quarterback from a far. If they did have their butt on the line everytime an athlete picked up a bar, this junk would be the last thing you would be arguing about.”

More to the point, if we were to look at the biomechanics of the lumbar spine (or read anything Dr. Stuart McGill has written in the past 15+ years:  HERE and HERE would be a nice start), we’d understand that the spine can handle compressive loading fairly well (assuming it’s not loaded and someone is living flexion), but it’s shear loading that many fail to pay attention to.

What is shear loading?

When the (lumbar) spinal muscles – namely the erector spinae, longissimus, iliocostalis, etc – are doing their job when lifting heavy things off the floor, they’re mainly counteracting perpendicular forces to the axis of the spine which attempt to slide the components away from their normal axis.

As my boy Dean Somerset noted,  “McGill showed elite powerlifters could get their spines to within a few degrees of full flexion and maintain that position through the pull, whereas amateurs or intermediates would go beyond full flexion without control and wind up exposing their discs to stupid forces and injury, so teaching a rounded back to a beginner is completely different than allowing an experienced puller to creep into flexion during their max lifts.

It also doesn’t talk about how when the experienced lifters are training with less than max weight they get closer to neutral and work on maintaining and grooving that pattern while staying away from flexion.”

For the visual learners out there, it goes a little something like this:

Now, to be fair: guys like Konstantin Konstantinov have a TON more leeway because he’s trained his body to stay out of danger when the shit hits the fan. He’s the elite of the elite. Using him as an argument as to why lifting with a rounded back is advantageous is borderline the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Excuse me while I go throw myself in front of a mack truck.

Moreover, it’s important to note that as a coach I’m ALWAYS going refrain from teaching the deadlift with a rounded back because it’s just common sense.  It’s important to engrain the proper motor pattern, and CEMENT that pattern with smart, properly progressed strength training so that if or when they do start lifting heavier loads, they’ll be better prepared to not crumble like a deck of cards.

That and so their max pulls don’t end up looking like this walking ball of fail:

So that’s my more “polite” response. Agree?  Disagree?  Want to give me an internet high-five?  Please share below.

CategoriesUncategorized

5 Coaching Cues: Deadlift

It’s no secret that I love deadlifts.  They rank right up there with Star Wars, my mom, oatmeal, and old GI Joe re-runs  And while I feel the deadlift is one of the more beneficial movements out there in terms of improving performance, muscle growth, and even posture….it’s still something that a lot of trainees have a hard time perfecting.

I give people all the credit in the world for doing them………

….it’s just many don’t do them properly.

Moreover, it can be a very intricate and complex movement to master, and as much as I try, attempting to cover every nook and cranny into one 1200 word blog post is about as easy as quantum physics.

That said, below are some of the more common coaching cues I gravitate towards when attempting to teach it to others. While it’s not an all encompassing list by any means, I do feel the ones highlighted serve as a solid foundation and work wonders in terms of “cleaning up ” technique.

Maybe even yours!

Push the Hips Back

Developing a proper hip hinge pattern can be a cumbersome endeavor for a lot of trainees, as many want to “squat” everything.  The conundrum, it seems, is that there are a lot of trainees and personal trainers (sadly), that feel deadlifts are the same thing as squats.

Einhorn is Finkle and Finkle is Einhorn!!!!!!

While I could sit here and write a five-page dissertation on why this is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard, lets just agree on a few things:

1.  Squats are generally considered more “quad dominant,” while deadlifts on the other hand, are considered more “hip dominant.”  I’m not a huge fan of this distinction because you can easily make a squat more hip dominant in nature (think box squats), but for the sake of brevity, it’s a relevant talking point.

2. Squats generally start with an eccentric loading phase, while deadifts are almost purely concentric.

3.  And, most important of all, regarding trunk, hip, and knee angles, significant differences between the lifts are readily apparent.  In a nice summary titled Differences in the Squat and Deadlift in the Journal of Pure Power (V.5, Number 2, April 2010), the scientists noted that squats produced a more linear relationship between the hip and knee angles, “illustrating a more synergistic and simultaneous movement.”

The deadlift, however, showed three distinct phases defined by dominant joint action at the knees during lift off, the hips with the barbell at knee height, and both knees and hips during lockout.

So, in summary:  a deadlift IS NOT A SQUAT!!!!!!!

Capiche?  Good!

Back to the topic at hand:  the hip hinge.  This cue comes into play throughout the entire movement, from the set-up to the descent.

In terms of the set-up, I like to tell people to stand up right against the bar and to then push their hips back (as if there were a rope around their waist and someone was standing behind them pulling the rope back).  Essentially, one would be performing a romanian deadlift – feeling significant tension in the hamstrings – until their hands are able to grab the bar.

Many trainees make the mistake of breaking with their knees and “squatting” down to the bar. This is wrong.  Instead, think about pushing the hips back.

“Pull” the Chest Tall

Pulling the chest tall encourages the trainee to get into t-spine extension, which in turn demonstrates that he or she can resist shear loading of the spine.

Once someone’s hands get to the bar, I usually like to say “use the bar to pull your chest tall.”  Meaning, they’ll literally use the bar to set themselves into proper position.

Taking it a step further, if I’m standing directly in front of them and their shirt happens to have a logo of some sort – a team logo, a New Balance emblem, a picture of the Jonas Brothers (don’t worry, I won’t judge) – I want to see that logo when they set up.

The chest shouldn’t be parallel to the floor, but rather more upright.  An adjunct to this would be to think “chest tall, hips down.”  So, as one pulls their chest tall, the hips will come down simultaneously. From there, they’ll be in a solid position to pull.

“Stiffen” the Upper Back

This could arguably be the most crucial of the bunch.  As I noted above, resisting shear load is kind of important when deadlifting.

Pulling a bar off the ground with a rounded upper back is a recipe for disaster, but unfortunately, it’s par for the course whenever you walk into a commercial gym.

Using the cue “pull the chest tall” is often helpful, but sometimes trainees don’t have the kinesthetic awareness to “feel” what their back is doing.  You can tell someone to arch their back, and they’ll think they’re doing it, but it will still look similar to the picture to the right.

To “stiffen” the upper back, I may just tell them to place their shoulder blades in their back pocket and to “set” their shoulders in place.  Truth be told, this cue often works in unison with pulling the chest tall.

As a pair, those two cues should place an individual in a solid starting position to pull (see pic above in the previous section).

Tuck the Chin

Too, as much as we’re concerned with keeping the entire backside in a neutral (arched) position, we also need to be cognizant of neck position.

If you watch a vast majority of people set up to deadlift, you’ll invariably see them end up looking up or straight ahead, cranking their neck into hyper-extension, kinda like this:

Please, stop doing this.

I like to tell people to find a spot that’s roughly 10-15 feet in front of them, and to keep their eyes fixated on that point throughout the entire set.

Another cue I like to use in this instance is “your head should follow the hinge.”  In other words, during the set-up, your entire back side – from head to sacrum – should make a straight line.  Oftentimes, during the lockout, people will still think I want them to look straight down, which isn’t the case at all.

During lockout your head should be upright and your entire backside should still make a straight line (you’re looking 10-15 feet a head of you).  Then, on the descent, your head will follow the hinge.  As you push your hips back, your head/neck will still stay in line with the actual hinge.

I think that makes sense. If it doesn’t, too bad……;o)

Hump the Bar (Hips Through)

Another common mistake that many trainees make is not “finishing” the movement.  At lockout, you’ll often see one of two scenarios:

1.  No hip extension what-so-ever, and they don’t squeeze their glutes at the top.

2.  HYPER extension – because they’re not using their glutes, they substitute lumbar extension for hip extension……….and their spine cries.

It’s a double edged sword in both scenarios, because in each instance the glutes don’t come into play at all.

Luckily there’s an easy fix. As one comes to lockout, simply tell them to squeeze their glutes and “hump the bar.”

For those in the former (no hip extension), this will serve as a vital cue to use.  Squeezing the glutes at the top will provide more posterior pelvic tilt and help to finish in a more optimal position.

For those in the latter, however (hyper extension), because their glutes don’t fire properly and they’re compensating with excessive lumbar extension, you may need to take a more of hands-on approach and show them where to stop.

Either way, in both cases, squeezing the glutes (humping the bar) will bode in their favor.

And Now You’re (Hopefully) Less Sucky

There are numerous cues I like to use when teaching the deadlift, but these five tend to be the ones that stick out the most.  Sure, we can talk about taking slack out of the bar, foot placement, not destroying the back of your pants, and other more pertinent cues…..but like I noted above, the five above serve as a fantastic foundation and will set a lot trainees up for success.

Have your own cues you find useful?  Share them below in the comments section!

CategoriesUncategorized

Extreme Makeover: Deadlift Edition

Anyone familiar with popular show Extreme Home Makeover knows the premise:  a family, fallen on hard times and down on their luck, is sent on vacation for two weeks while Ty Pennington and his team of contractors, designers, carpenters, not to mention an entire town of volunteers, build them a brand spankin new house – hopefully with an indoor bowling alley attached.

If you’re like me, ten minutes into the show, you’re already half way through a box of Kleenex, and when you’re girlfriend happens to show up expectantly – like a ninja – you quickly fumble for the remote and change it to Spike TV or something.

Oh, hey babe.  How was your day?  Huh, what was that?  Why are my eyes all red?

Yeah, well, uh……I just got a little something stuck in my eye, that’s all. I’m gonna go make a sandwich – want one?

Anyways, it’s a great show, and after receiving an email from a distance coaching client of mine (for the sake of anonymity, lets calls him Matt Damon) asking me to critique is deadlift technique, it got me thinking:  Why not take the same concept and apply it towards fixing or cleaning up someone’s deadlift?

But first, a little backstory

“Matt Damon” started working with me about a month ago.  Like many guys in his situation, he had done several programs on his own, and to no avail, never really saw the progress he was hoping to attain.   Frustrated, he decided to contact me inquiring about distance coaching.

Now, before I continue, I’ll be the first to admit:  distance coaching definitely has its disadvantages (see exhibit A below), but at the same time – and not to blow sunshine up my own ass – I feel my experience and abilities as a coach trumps any program some local boxed gym, pencil necked personal trainer could come up with.

Not to get into the particulars, but in order to become a client, I have people fill out a few lengthy questionnaires detailing, among others things, stuff like training history, injury history, goals, equipment availability, and other pertinent information like their ideal training split or whether or not they have any weird eating habits (penguin anyone?).

In addition, to help me better ascertain what it is they’re looking to accomplish, I also have them send me some full-body postural pictures (interestingly, some guys will send me a picture of their rear double bicep pose.  I have no clue why), and I also ask them to send me a video of their squat and deadlift technique.  You know, just to see what’s going on.

Well, fast forward to last week when I received the following email from “Matt Damon:”

Hi Tony–

I just started Week Three, and I realized I never sent you these squat and deadlift videos from my first week.  So here they are.

The squats are from my first day when I forgot my gym shoes, so I’m in my street shoes.  I also sometimes forgot to pause at the bottom.  And the video’s from kind of a funny angle.

I thought my gym had a trap bar, but it turns out they don’t.  So I’ve been doing regular deadlifts instead of trap bar deadlifts.

Let me know what you think!

As I noted above, distance coaching has its disadvantages – the most obvious being that I’m unable to be there in person to offer coaching cues and to otherwise keep people from hurting themselves.

That being said, here’s what I wrote back:

STOP……..DOING……THAT…….NOW.

Okay, that’s not really what I wrote, but you can imagine the look on my face when I watched that video for the first time.  Truth be told, I don’t think it’s possible for someone’s jaw to drop any further than what mine did.

Nevertheless, “Matt” is a trooper and he’s agreed to allow me to exploit him for your own education.  I asked if he’d be cool with me sharing this on my blog, and he was more than willing to participate.  So without further ado, here’s the actual email I sent him once I retrieved my laptop after throwing it out the window.

  • You need to elevate the bar more.  If you load it to 135 lbs (45 lb plates on each side), the bar will be at regulation height.  That will help.  If that’s too much weight – I’d suggest placing the bar on top of steppers or plates so that you can get it to the right height.  From there, a few key points to note
  • You’re essentially squatting the bar down.  A big no no.  Deadlifting should be more of a hip hinge pattern, not squat.  So, to that end, try to SIT BACK.  Basically you want to focus on pushing your hips back until you feel a pretty significant stretch in the hammies.  When you can’t go any further, THEN you’ll bend the knees to get down to the floor.
  • The bar should slide down your thigh, but again, you need to SIT BACK!!!!  I attached a video to demonstrate what it should actually look like.  If you see how I descend, you’ll notice how I don’t have to lower the bar AROUND my knees like you do.  See what I’m talking about?

  • Moreoever, a great cue I like to use with people is to pretend there’s someone standing behind you with a rope tied around your waist.  As you descend, they’re pulling your hips back.  See if that helps at all.
  • Frankly, there’s a lot more we need to work on, but lets focus on those few things for now and see what kind of progress we can make.

A few days later, “Matt” sent me this (practice) video:

While not perfect by any means (he’s not getting his hips through at the top, his upper back is still just a teeny tiny bit kyphotic, and he NEEDS TO USE MORE WEIGHT.  If you can curl it, you certainly shouldn’t be deadliftng it.), it shows a marked improvement from the original video he sent.

if anything, what I hope this demonstrates, is that 1).  I’m awesome and 2).  More importantly, by just using a few simple cues, you can make huge strides in terms of cleaning up someone’s technique.  I think a major mistake that many personal trainers and coaches out there make is trying to OVER coach things and using waaaaaay too many cues that do nothing more than complicate things and frustrate the client.

All I told “Matt” to do was sit back, and feel a stretch in the hammies before bending the knees, and look how many other things just sorta “fell into place” as far as his technique is concerned.

And to think, I did all of this without ever having met him in person.   O’Doyle rules!!!!!