I’m confused about the proper height of the bar when doing deadlifts. I’m just over 6 feet tall. When I have a bar loaded with 45 pound plates the bar doesn’t come very far up my shin. I feel like I’m having to bend over pretty hard which results in pulling more with my back. If I put two 25 pounds plates beneath the weights it raises the bar up to a little less than midway between my foot and knee.
I assume the height of the bar really depends on the height of the person, so does midway between foot and knee sound about right?
I assume the height of the bar really depends on the height of the person, so does midway between foot and knee sound about right?[/quote]
No, a deadlift is done with the weights touching the ground. Work on hip mobility, and make sure you keep your form correct. If there’s more pull on your back, you may be rounding your lower back to get all the way down, which is bad. Focus on bending your knees a little more and keeping your back tight.
[quote]indiladhar wrote:
bar height shouldnt be increased for deadlifts, unless you’re doing rack deads. [/quote]
That being said, if the OP is a beginner or for whatever reason can’t maintain good position with a full range deadlift, it may be prudent to pull from the rack to get started and be judicious with full deads.
I had this issue when I first started, I felt like, it was too low and it couldn’t be right. So I did Rack pulls for a little while, until I had built the proper flexibility to start from the ground. It is more an issue of flexibility I think than anything else. Plenty of Strongmen competitors are well over 6’0 tall and they do deadlifts just fine.
I’ve dealt with the same things…being over 6’ feet tall I always felt like the bar was just too low. I initially started doing deadlifts with 35lb plates under the bar, raising it up just enough to make it comfortable. Once I was comfortable with that I slowly transitioned to doing them from the ground.
You just have to get used to it and get used to proper form.
I originally liked starting lower. In hindsight it helped me drop my hips a little bit and forced me to dead lift from my hips and not my waist. When I started using plates I felt like I started too high. Turns out I was bending more at the waist and using my lower back instead of using my hips.
Did it wrong for a few weeks and knew something wasn’t right. Put less weight on the bar and had to tweak my technique. It worked. No more back pain and better training effect.