Deadlifts Don't Have to Hurt Your Back

Man, I effing love deadlifting. There is nothing like pulling a shit ton of weight off the ground to make you feel strong. You want a full body exercise that kicks your ass? Deadlift.

The only problem, I just can’t do them as much as I want to. I tried deadlifting 3x a week at one point, without having worked up to it. I was dumb, and I hurt my back doing it.

This is in part because I had no business even doing deadlifts at that time, since I was still having some hip issues. Lesson learned; now I deadlift whenever it feels okay and when my coach says it’s a good idea.

I hear this a lot as a trainer and in the gym in general,

Guy 1: “Bro, we should totally deadlift today”

Guy 2: “Dude, I don’t know how to deadlift”

Guy 1: “Bro, it’s so easy, you walk up to the bar and pull it off the ground, I’ll show you how”

Guy 2: “Cool dude, let’s do it”

Sound familiar? Yeah, my hand wants to palm my face so hard some days too.

Even Loki knows better…

Unfortunately, it’s just not that easy. Deadlifting is a simple, yet very complex movement. If you can’t perform this exercise properly, we all know how that’s gonna end… “I felt that all in my back”

Deadlifting requires tons of hip mobility, ankle dorsiflexion (raising your toe off the ground) and upper back extension; as well as a tremendous amount of glute activation, and the ability to create constant pressure in the abdomen throughout the whole movement. Not everyone is built for being awesome at the conventional deadlift. I know, it sucks to hear, but the good news is, there is still a bunch of other kinds you can try. Unless you are competing in a powerlifting competition and have to deadlift to hit your total, don’t worry too much about being the absolute best at conventional or sumo lifts.

There are tons of ways to make those legs look like tree trunks and those glutes look like balloons.

Well, that’s great, but why does deadlifting hurt my back in the first place?

I’ll list a few of the most common reasons and highlight them more in depth afterwards.

1. Lack of hip mobility and thoracic extension

2. Lacking the ability to get proper glute activation

3. Lack of core strength or not bracing

4. Technique – Picking the right type of deadlift for you

5. Too much weight/volume

When it comes to being able to pull the bar properly and then walking around like Hercules instead of walking around like you just shot a vertebrae across the room, we need to look at mobility. I say mobility, not flexibility for a reason. Flexibility is being able to just stretch from one position to another. Mobility is being able to control yourself in and out of that same movement without hurting yourself, or compromising the integrity of the structure, preferably with a load.

You want your conventional deadlift to look like this:

Photo Cred – Ericcressey.com

Notice how the back is flat and the knees are not driving out excessively over the toes.

Not this:

Oh Gawd, my everything is going to hurt tomorrow…

What happens when you deadlift like this guy?

Yeah, that looks fun…

Herniations happens when the spine cannot handle the load/force placed upon, or the load is placed in an unsafe manner. For example, deadlifting with a rounded back puts tremendous amounts of pressure on the spine versus a neutral spine loaded with the same weight.

Getting a disc herniation is more than just taking some time off the gym for a week or so, you’re likely gonna have some long term problems. Sometimes, they can be pretty severe, affected nerve irritation, shooting pain in all the fun places you don’t want to feel it, and possibly some partial numbness or total loss of sensation in certain body part (severe nerve damage).

Doesn’t that sound like a good time? Not only do you not get to hit that new PR, but you also get to enjoy possibly months of debilitating pain. Oh goodie, sign me up! So let’s take care of our bodies, trust me, as someone with fun back problems, I know all too well how fun it is being in chronic pain.

Now, when it comes to hip mobility, most are more than lacking. With the sedentary age we live in nowadays, it comes as no surprise that so many people walk into the gym with back pain; never mind after trying to deadlift. This is becoming even more prevalent in the younger generations who are less active than their predecessors; among other factors such as BMI, obesity and and size. (Sjolie 2003)

One of the easiest ways to get your hips to move better, is just to move. I mean, get out of your chair and go for a walk. Back hurting? Get up, move around, take some deep belly breaths, and doing some active stretching. I know you have to get your work done, but is that 2 minutes you taking care of yourself going to murder your productivity?

Try some of these:

Hip Flexor/Glute Stretch Combo

Shin Box w/ Progression/Regression

If you have a foam roller, awesome! Try this one then

Thoracic Extension On roller

Also, since the adductors and hamstrings play a big role in proper hip extension, I like to make sure to these are sufficiently mobile (unless they are hyper-mobile) before having someone perform any sort of hip hinging exercises.

TRX Cossack Squat

Now that we’ve opened everything up a bit more let’s talk shop. By shop, I of course mean technique; not bashing your mother’s personal life at every whim while she tries to convince you that you really not adopted. Which you are, but who’s telling?

For a beginner, I usually recommend Rack Pulls and Glute Bridges to reinforce the pattern of hip thrusting over just pulling the weight off the ground in a straight up and down pattern. These serve well to get you to learn how to push your hips back far enough then thrust them into the fully extended position like this:

Rack Pulls

Glute Bridges

(Notice that the rib cage is not flaring out, make sure the ribs stay flat by bracing the entire abdomen)

If this proves to be too much, I start them with a simple Half Kneeling Glute Activation exercise or some glute bridges off the ground with some core activation exercises like these:

Half Kneeling Glute Activation

Bodyweight Glute Bridges Off Ground

Deadbugs

Front Plank

Behind The Head KB Hip Hinge

(Video Cred – Dean Somerset)

These exercises seem to have worked well with my clients in the past, as it teaches them to keep the ribcage packed downward to create a neutral spine position and then getting proper activation though the glutes.

Once you’ve got the whole glute activation and core bracing stuff down, give the deadlift a try. Here’s a rough breakdown of how to set up a conventional deadlift:

If this technique still proves to be difficult, no worries, give a couple of these variations a try instead:

Sumo Deadlifts

Jefferson Deadlifts

An excellent demonstration/explanation by Dave Dellanave

Trap Bar Deadlifts

(Video Cred- 208 entertainment)

Block Pull Deadlifts

(Video Cred- Cressey Performance)

You can also do this with a sumo stance as well

When you’re trying these exercises, pick one or two to try every couple of days; don’t try to string them all together in one day. You probably won’t be able to walk the next day, and we all know how fun it is to look like you just got out of a full body cast. The body needs time to adapt to any exercise through repetition and sufficient rest time. If you’re going to try these, start with something that you could probably do 10 of, and do it for 2-3 sets of 5-8 reps. It’s not necessary to completely kill yourself then first time you try them.

Often you’ll see people (myself included) do something very naive, “well, this feels good, I’ll see how heavy I can go”. The one of many downsides to this, is that your body hasn’t had time to adapt to the initial weight you tried. The goal here is not to max out every time you do an exercise, it’s to get better at said exercise. This is why I use the 80% rule with my clients, we generally don’t ever go above 80% of their perceived max. So they can still walk the next day, and we know that training at max intensity all the time is horrible for your body.

Like I said before, unless you’re competing in a powerlifting competition, you don’t really NEED to do deadlifts anyways. But it is pretty fun to smash new PR’s once in a while. In any case, try them out, see what you like and tune in next time for more fun!

#deadlift #hurt #back