This was good stuff. I feel like my deadlift went up 20lbs just following what you guys were saying.
[quote]StormTheBeach wrote:
Personally, my back is never sore after deadlifting. My hamstrings and glutes always are. All of the muscles responsible for scapular retraction get pretty torn up as well.
EMG testing can only measure superficial muscle activity so I don’t know if that is very reliable in terms of figuring out what is working more while performing a heavy pull.
I would argue that very good deadlifters don’t actually use their erctors to pick the weight up. I was standing about 5 feet away when Bolton did his 950 something raw deadlift. His back stayed neutral during the entire lift. He rocked his hips down several times to develop tension in his hamstrings, pulled the slack out of the bar, and then violently threw his hips forward. I think this is common with most good deadlifters.
The bigger issue here might be athletes/lifters inability to activate their hamstrings and glutes. Developing tension before the actual pull is key to getting the muscles of the legs and hips maximally involved in the pull. Very rarely do I see people doing this.[/quote]
When you say rocking the hips down do you mean dipping hips into the starting point before the lift because that’s what I normally do. I used to think I was doing something wrong.
This debate is just a surplus of information. Keep it coming! Who knows?! Maybe I might have some input to share 