I’ve been doing stiff-legged deadlifts and want to start doing conventional ones for ABBH this week. I got some form tips from stumptuous.com ( http://www.stumptuous.com/weights.html ), but I have a kind of stupid question… How do I set-up?
The video clips I’ve looked at are a small part of the middle of a set. I workout alone and never see anyone doing these at the gym. With the sldl’s I set the bar on the arms of the squat rack, load the plates, use an over/under grip and start and finish my sets with the bar on my thighs. Do I load the bar and then put it on the floor and then start the set? At the bottom of each rep, do I pause just before touching the plates to the floor and come up again or completely rest the weight on the floor for a pause?
I hope this makes sense. Does anyone have a video clip from total beginning to total end? Any other beginner deadlift articles I should check out? Thank you!
[quote]Jillybop wrote:
Do I load the bar and then put it on the floor and then start the set?[/quote]
That’s what I do. I put the bar on the lower part of the rack and put on the 45lb plates (135lbs). Then I put that on the ground and continue to load weights for warm-ups and worksets from the ground. That’s where I begin the sets.
You can do it either way. I prefer doing a true dead lift. Once I lift it from the ground and then back down, I rest the weight completely, reset my hands and do another rep. So basically, there are a couple seconds between each rep. I like to reset my hands and feet and get my hips, legs, etc. into the correct position for each and every single rep.
I think it’s bad form to stop short of the ground, or hitting the ground, and coming right back up. Many people lose form this way and don’t come all the way down with their hips and such so that they aren’t doing a full deadlift (ends up being more of a stiff-legged deadlift). Also, if you rest the bar and reset yourself after each rep, it’ll keep good form and allow you to really use our legs/hips/posterior chain and lift more weight.
Can’t remember off hand, but Dave Tate and Ian King have written some articles on deadlifts. I think Mike Robertson did too! Check them out.
Sit the bar on the ground. Walk up to it, shins close to the bar. Squat down and grab the bar a little outside your knees…
Lift your head high, arch your back and Pull Like crazy…
If you keep your head high and back arched your form should follow just fine.
Drop the weight and start from scratch for the next rep.
one thing I use when helping women train is to start by doing rack pulls or lifting off blocks.
I’m not sure if this is necassary for you and your strength levels, but the reason I do this is most women can’t start there sets with a plate on each side so they would have to do a huge deficit deadlift (starting with a much larger range of motion) so I use the blocks/power rack to have them using a more normal range of motion with weights they can easily learn proper form with.
With the women I’ve trained I think all of them deadlifts became their favorite exercise as they were adding weight almost every workout! Good luck!
[quote]Jillybop wrote:
I’ve been doing stiff-legged deadlifts and want to start doing conventional ones for ABBH this week. I got some form tips from stumptuous.com (www.stumptuous.com/weights.html ), but I have a kind of stupid question… How do I set-up?
The video clips I’ve looked at are a small part of the middle of a set. I workout alone and never see anyone doing these at the gym. With the sldl’s I set the bar on the arms of the squat rack, load the plates, use an over/under grip and start and finish my sets with the bar on my thighs. Do I load the bar and then put it on the floor and then start the set? At the bottom of each rep, do I pause just before touching the plates to the floor and come up again or completely rest the weight on the floor for a pause?
I hope this makes sense. Does anyone have a video clip from total beginning to total end? Any other beginner deadlift articles I should check out? Thank you!
[/quote]
Hi Jill
Ok cool you are going to deadlift-my favorite! Here is how it is best done. Load the bar and place it on the floor. Stand so that when you are looking down at the bar-it is curring through your feet where your toes begin. Now pic a place in front of you to look at -neither up nor down-look out ahead as if you were staring eye to eye with an adversary. Let your arms hang down naturally at your side.
Now maintaining that foward gaze squat down until you grip that bar-do not bend over and reach down and look for it-squat to it. Now get a good grip on the bar-I will pul with both knuckles forward until my grip starts to give-then I will swtich to the reverse grip. Now when you pull-think of pulling one rep at a time-stay tight and drive your feet through the floor-trying to push your hips forward as fast as possible. Keep that bar as close to your shis as you can-buy some good thin sweatpants-like russell brand-they hold up good and the bar won’t scrape up your legs as bad-you may have to buy soccer socks like I wear-to protect my legs from getting too bloodied.
As far as rep work and cadence-I take it one rep at a time-i pause t least one second on the floor with each rep-and overall the deadlift doesn’t lend itsef to high reps at all Jill-the smaller supporting ligaments of the spine are no match for the huge prime movers of the legs and back muscles. Please jill-re-set yourself before every rep. I have a real basic workout that wokrs great-it is a 6 week cycle-you do 15 singles at 65% week 1, 15 singles at 70% week 2, 12 singles at 75% week 3, 10 singles at 80% week 4 and 8 singles at 85% week 5-then the 6th week you max. Do the singles with only 45 seconds rest between reps. This workout led me to being top 20 in the US in the deadlift on 3 occassions.
Follow up your deads with some hamstring and ab exercises and you WILL pull a PR in 6 weeks. The key to this simple program-SPEED of your reps-short rest periods and working off your real max % wise-not a projected max. I can’t wait to see a pic of you pulling a PR! Plus all the deadlift singles melt away fat and I hear I have a real nice butt from my wife and her sisters!
Awesome article by a buddy of mine - PMed you the link.
-Dan
Thank you all very much! Gee, I thought I was doing deadlifts, but now I see I really wasn’t at all. This sounds very cool, I’m looking forward to trying them on Friday.
YorbaBB, that program sounds great. I just might try that next after I get used to them during ABBH. Your description is very clear, I can understand why you’re “the man” when it comes to deadlifts!