Simply One Of The Best Exercises Around!

Whle the Squat may be heralded as the King of Exercises, it's Queen has to be the Deadlift. It's not only an incredible movment for developing the muscularture of the back, butt, legs, and hips; it also is incredible for building strength and power, building the entire body, stimulating your hormones and your metabolism, and burning away body fat.

The deadlift is one of the most basic movements that we as humans can perform. You simply squat down with a straight back, grab something from the ground, and stand up with it. It's a movement that we all mastered as infants, yet performing it as an exercise can provide you with staggering results.

Now, a few years back I had a personal trainer that came to work with me and they wanted to show off their deadlift. They proceeded to perform a Romanian deadlift, which is an incredible exercise in and of itself, and they were suprised when I told them that they weren't deadlifting. As we can see in the following picture, the two exercises are similar, yet there are definite differences.

the Deadlift: Conventional Style:

The Deadlift: Sumo Style:

And, the Romanian Deadlift:

LIke I said above, both the Deadlift and the Romanian Deadlift are fantastic exercises, however they are also very different exercises. Let's look at the differences before we move on. The Romanian Deadlift is performed while keeping the legs relatively straight, pushing the hips back and lowering the upper body towards the floor. You then proceed to drive the hips forward and raise the upper body back to an upright position. This exercis is fantastic for building up your posterior chain of muscles (the back of your body). It'll work you hamstrings, your butt, and your lower back while also bringing into play your grip, your lowre arms, and your upper arms.

Now, the deadlift is performed by squatting down while keeping the upper body upright, grabbing a hold of the bar, and driving through your legs and hips to return to a standing position. The deadlift will work your feet, lower legs, thighs, hamstrings, butt, hips, groin, lower back, your sides, your abs, your mid-back, your upper back, your neck, your shoulders, your upper and lower arms, and your hands. Really the only musclulature not used would be your chest, and it can be argued that when you go heavy enough, your chest comes into play as well.

The key to a good deadlift is keeping your back in a neutral or arched position. You want to make sure that you keep your back safe throughout any exercise. Keep your tummy tight, you can think about bracing for a punch and pressing your stomach outward while you are in the squatted down position. Really tighten up your entire body and try to rip that bar off the gournd. As Super Strength's own Mark Bell says, "when it comes to the deadlift, Bring the Violence; It's significant."

You can work your deads from a sumo grip or ocnventional grip as seen above, I'd suggest alternating between the two. You can also practice with a wide snatch grip as well. Once you are moving some respectable weight around you can also play around with deficit deadlifts, rack pulls, and pulling against chanis and cables. Taking a page from Westide Barbell's Louis Simmons you can also work it with maximal poundages as well as performing it for speed.

Personally, I always like to keep the reps low, somewhere between 1-5, and perform multiple sets. I'll start out with 2-4 warm ups, then hit 1-5 working sets. But, I've also seen people do well with higher rep breathing sets, much like the infamous mass builder the breathing squat.

However you perform them though it doesn't matter as long as you keep good form, stay safe, and put your heart and soul into them.

Deadlifts can easily be one of the most demanding exercises on the planet, so you need to respect the weight and be ready to work hard. No whiners, whimps, or cry babies aloud with this one. But the resutls are worth every ounce of struggle and effort.

Also, don't be afraid to go heavy with this one. Andy Bolton and Benidict Magnuson have both hit over 1,000 pounds in compeition, and on the female side Jessica Scofield hits more than 530.

Study the techinque, master the movment and then work the deadlift into the ground and you'll love the end results, Talk with you later.

Yours in strength and health,
Brett Stepan