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Ex-professional weightlifter of about 10 years here, checking in to add a note. The whole section on physical health and deadlifting is borderline redundant. D

Ex-professional weightlifter of about 10 years here, checking in to add a note. The whole section on physical health and deadlifting is borderline redundant. Don't get me wrong... It's an alpha exercise and you feel amazing doing it. But the only physical reward you get from deadlifting is the ability to deadlift more and alongside it have a severely higher risk of injury. If you want a correlation between sitting at a desk and building strength to offset that, look at squats in all it's forms, and hamstring and quad dominant exercises. Your lower body is in much more trouble than your lower back from sitting at a computer. Hipflexer stretches with resistance bands will also do you wonders. Trust me folks. Doing deadlifts because you see the gym-bros on youtube doing them is a big mistake. Take a book out of Eddie Hall's playbook who says the exact same thing... And he's literally the strongest man in the world.

redis_mlc 6y ago
Yes, I saw some of the strongmen interviews on either deadlifts or squats. What they said was to look at the probability of injury, and avoid anything that was high-risk. Something to keep in mind when you see men and women doing squats in Silicon Valley gyms is that often they're staff, so they know what they're doing, and you may not. When you do recruit larger muscles, you get better strength gains overall - the "one weird trick" about weightlifting. Strongmen also only spend time on high-reward exercises, so some like Robert Oberst don't do shoulder shrugs, as he found it be a waste of time compared to other exercises (for the time period he was interviewed for.) Overall for an office worker, walking, stretching and gym are good ideas for a routine. Professional chess players have worked out for the past 4 decades, so that should tell you something. (They do it for overall fitness to handle crippling stress levels during tournaments.) I was thinking about doing the Thomas Inch dumbbell lift back in the day, but I probably would have pulled an abdominal muscle, so no big regret: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Inch#The_'Thomas_Inch'_dumbbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Inch#The_'Thomas_Inch'_...
coldtea 6y ago
>Trust me folks. Doing deadlifts because you see the gym-bros on youtube doing them is a big mistake. A lof of gymnast / psycisian's advice I've read says the opposite. That deadlifts are a great exercize, and should not be restrained to the weight lifting / body builder types.
- mqrs 6y ago
  > deadlifts are a great exercize, and should not be restrained to the weight lifting / body builder types Great exercise != absolutely necessary or useful towards a specific goal
- deviation 6y ago
  The other comment says it best. Deadlifts are a core concept are great- you can implement them into your rack pulls, trap bar deadlifts, and romanian deadlifts and reap enormous benefits that they offer. However... Deadlifts as the exercise it is? Almost not worth doing in the scheme of things. Want to win a deadlift competition? Sure. But for any other reason I could strongly argue that there are many, many better suited exercises for your health than a Deadlift.
  - scandinavegan 6y ago
    > Want to win a deadlift competition? Sure. Deadlifts seem to be an extremely functional form of lifting movement to practice. I can see bicep curls being mocked for not providing any general benefits, or static planks not doing much except make you better at performing the static plank. But the techniques you learn from and the muscles you strengthen doing deadlifts are the same you use when you lift a heavy box off the floor.
  - stonemetal12 6y ago
    I do calisthenics with a goal of being healthier. It seems to be great for upper body but for lower body not so much. So I have been thinking about adding deadlifts (got from recommendations by seemingly smart people on /r/bodyweightfitness). These wouldn't be bodybuilder deadlifts, they would be didn't skip leg day deadlifts. What would you recommend as a good lower body exercise, in the not looking to get big category?
- modo_mario 6y ago
  The way I see it. Do it a bit. Please don't overdo it. Please only do it if you do it well. Maybe increase weight slowly if you're really starting quite low but at some and at a perhaps rather early point compared to what you see powerlifters pulling...Stop increasing the weight. It's tempting to keep going. To chase progress but....it's probably bad in that case. You can train your muscles. You can't train your spine and you especially can't train your spine out of an injury. You should try to be helping your back with that exercise. I don't think you need it to try and looked ripped. There's other lower risk exercises for that.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
Deadlifts are great for people who have taken the time to study and implement proper form as well as work their way up from lower weights over time. However, I’m not sure how we arrived at a situation where people are recommending deadlifts as the go-to exercise for people who want to maintain fitness. Experienced weightlifters and coaches generally won’t recommend that beginners focus on deadlifts, like you said. We shouldn’t be making fitness sound so complicated or setting the bar so high. No one needs to be doing deadlifts to get into shape. Frankly, most sedentary people need to focus on small, achievable, and enjoyable fitness goals to start. Simply going for a 15-minute walk every day is a step in the right direction for beginners. Going to the gym is great if that’s your thing, but doing a handful of push-ups and stretches at home is also great for someone looking to get started. The Internet has been great for disseminating fitness information and generating enthusiasm for exercise, but this trend of recommending advanced exercises and over the top workout programs like CrossFit to beginners has probably done just as much harm as good. We shouldn’t be making fitness sound like some complicated, difficult goal.
- amelius 6y ago
  Also, it might be harmful to make people believe they can completely offset working 8 hours a day at a desk without breaks by spending 1 hour at the gym. By medical standards you still have a sedentary lifestyle.
  - jonfw 6y ago
    If you spent an hour at the gym every work day you would be in phenomenal shape- I absolutely do not agree that this is a harmful idea.
  - roel_v 6y ago
    "By medical standards you still have a sedentary lifestyle" Is it? Is 1h of strenuous exercise at a time and sittimg the rest of the day not better than getting up every hour and doing some simple stretches or just walking around? Not trying to be argumentative, I honestly don't know.
- jen729w 6y ago
Swizec 6y ago
Deadlifts are great for running. They give you more explosive power and increase speed because you get a bit more distance with each stride. Over a marathon (40,000 steps) that extra half-inch per stride adds up. They’re also great for boxing. Help you generate more power on your punche. Uppercuts especially. The trick is to not lift for hypertrophy. Lift for power and speed and neuromuscular activation. If you’re sore the next day you went too hard.
- BRedSox 6y ago
  >Deadlifts are great for running. Leg blasters are significantly better and have a lower risk of injury.
  - silly-silly 6y ago
    Anecdotally, I have noticed that leg blasters (shitter squats in local slang) end up detrimentally affecting my balance. I never had this issue with deadlifts.
- deviation 6y ago
  I can understand where you are coming from- though I think you might be blurring the lines between conventional deadlifts and other forms which benefit much more than just your back. (rack pulls, sumo deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts) Deadlifts as the exercise it purely is, is less likely to give you the strength for running you desire. Having been in the atmosphere of "Train as efficiently as possible", I can attest that deadlifts are far from a great choice for physical health. My 75 y/o coach would tear me a new one if he saw me wasting time training them. I'm not surprised deadlifts have helped you gain a strong back, but having also trained for a marathon I can tell you there is a plethora of other benefits you will miss out on by training your lower back instead of your legs and overall cardio fitness.
jambalaya 6y ago
Are you a powerlifter? I feel like I've heard powerlifters shy away from deadlifts for what I'm sure are valid reasons. I can't think of why an olympic-style weightlifter would shy away from deadlifts. I think the best advice would be to get a good PT/coach/trainer.
- deviation 6y ago
  I can't speak to powerlifting as it's never been my strong suit. I've likely only been to a handful of powerlifting meets and they only were for benchpressing. Deadlifting as an exercise is actually one of the three main lifts in powerlifting. What makes the best powerlifters is a high total weight combination of Bench/Squat/Deadlift which is generally how it's judged in most competitions these days. I think there's a small line between deadlifting and what weightlifters like us would call cleaning. A deadlift is a lower-back dominant exercise, to build power and strength there. A clean is a similar movement of getting weight off the ground and into the air, but is completely leg and upper-body dominant, with many, many other accessory movements in-between. This is why we see Crossfit athletes implement weightlifting into their training and why it is so popular today- because of the rewarding "total body" strength gains and cardiovascular fitness.
  - jashmatthews 6y ago
    I’ve never met an elite lifter who would describe cleans as being completely leg and upper body dominant. That’s a very odd statement.
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Johanx64 6y ago
I don't think this is exclusive to deadlifts either, the main physical benefit from weightlifting (strength training in particular) is that you can lift heavier things. Yay!? Any outdoorsy activity is vastly superior to it due to exposure to fresh air and sunlight. It also tends to be less boring and monotonous than lifting heavy things for some inexplicable reason.
- silly-silly 6y ago
  The strength gains directly translate into mechanical advantages in other situations. > Any outdoorsy activity is vastly superior to it due to exposure to fresh air and sunlight. Citation needed. > It also tends to be less boring and monotonous than lifting heavy things for some inexplicable reason. You're approaching this with the wrong mindset. Its the minimum viable test case for improvement. Many less variables than 'outside in fresh air and sunlight'. I also think you'll find that many people do lift outside, maybe you're stereotyping based on planet fitnessesque gyms that you've frequented.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  > the main physical benefit from weightlifting (strength training in particular) is that you can lift heavier things. Personally I got religion on weight lifting after reading a book on aging. Losing bone and muscle mass is inevitable with age but if you have a good base you’ve got more to lose. If you keep on weight lifting you lose it much slower. I never got serious about it. I’ve never broken 100kg for a squat and I’m perfectly ok with staying there forever. But I’m going to get weak slower than those who only do cardio and I aim to able to sit up unassisted for as long as possible, and to avoid breaking a hip too.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    Yes, bone loss or osteoporosis is (or should be) a big concern over 40, especially for women. Continuing weight training can reduce or even halt this loss. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/strength-training-builds-more-than-muscles https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/strength-trai...
- 6y ago
th5 6y ago
Deadlifts cured my lower back pain. I did take a class on form though.
- princeb 6y ago
  i have an l5-l6 l6-s1 hernation from deadlifting. it's a somewhat similar story across some of my friends who i deadlift with. a number of of powerlifters we follow on instagram are on regular cbd oil therapy. i'm on lyrica and a truckload of painkillers every day. we still go out and do it. grit your teeth and grind through the pain. i don't do it as much anymore after i realized that i'm killing my future quality of life for absolutely no financial gain - i'm not selling instagram views, not selling training or equipment and things. but for a long time it was all vanity. none of it is necessary for sitting properly at a desk.
  - 01100011 6y ago
    What sort of weight are we talking? I'm wondering if the stories we hear from more experienced weightlifters like you are because you were pulling, say, 400+ lbs. I don't know, but I think the danger probably goes up exponentially as you cross a threshold of average physical tissue capacity. My all time DL max was 405, and I generally pulled around 365. DLs only made my crappy back feel better.
    - ubercow13 6y ago
      Yes I suspect the same. I personally find deadlifts by far the most effective and easy exercise for preventing back pain and generally feeling healthier and more comfortable with a sitting desk job that I have found. However I have experimented a lot and I can get that benefit from lifting just 1x body weight, which is trivially easy for me and doesn't seem to pose any real risk of injury.
    - flictonic 6y ago
      Not the above comment but I find the story a bit suspect. I have many friends in the competitive powerlifting world and while many have nagging injuries, almost none of them came directly from deadlifting. That's my experience as well, I have pulled over 600 at 181 and never came close to an injury from the lift but I can't say the same for squat (knee, hip, and shoulder pain) and bench (wrist and lower back pain).
01100011 6y ago
Not sure what you think about this, but I feel like there are people who can deadlift, and people who can squat. I like low-bar squats, but I was never very strong in them(~1/2 my DL weight), they hurt my knees, and I've tweaked my back several times doing them. I freaking love DLs. They feel amazing, they actually seem to fix my back pain, and I'm just downright strong in them(compared to my maxes in nearly every other exercise). Now, I also have to say that as a 45 year old who has now gone through shoulder surgery, and gave up anything beyond farmers carries( * ) when it comes to weightlifting, that most people should just stick to cardio. I feel so much better now that I'm doing crazy hikes again and not carrying around a bunch of useless muscle. I'm better in bed, I feel less pain, I have more energy, and I'm not spending all day worrying about protein targets. To each their own. Weightlifting was fun and being big is kinda satisfying, but it's not something I will recommend anymore. * - I'll probably get a bar and some plates to resume lower weight(275 or less), higher rep DLs once I move out of the bay area and have the space.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  What it seems like is most people enthusiastic about weight lifting spend far too much time near their physical limits trying to increase that maximum target and end up with a growing list of increasingly permanent injuries. If your goal for exercising is to be good at exercising, I just don’t get it, and I have experienced far too many people who treated exercising as their lifestyle and appeared by any reasonable metric to be addicted.
  - quickthrower2 6y ago
    That’s not me. I do my 3km run couple of times a week, and a yoga and I’m happy
- raverbashing 6y ago
  > but I feel like there are people who can deadlift, and people who can squat. Well, kind of. Squats have different limitations than DLs. But even a kid can squat (and their knees do go past their toes so cut the BS about that) But low-bar squats are more similar to DLs than high-bar squats in movement requirements and activations.
koonsolo 6y ago
I was thinking the exact same thing. Robert Oberst also claims that no professional sportsman does it because the risk to injury is too high: https://youtu.be/FWizDhYjGsc https://youtu.be/FWizDhYjGsc
avenger123 6y ago
Having gone from considering weightlifting a simple set of exercises to now understanding the complexity and nuances of it, this is great advice. I'm not sure how much value there is to just state "Build physical strength" and the main take away is to do deadlifts. I think there isn't any doubt from a health perspective that doing weightlifting has benefits for overall health but the program someone should go on is dependent on so many factors. Also, why can't it just be "Stay physically active". I would say that has further greater benefits than even weightlifting. Doing half an hour to an hour of moderate cardio activity every day or a few times a week is great. My recommendation for someone wanting to seriously get into weight lifting is to do your research. There is definitely a lot of "bro science" out there but fortunately there is also a great set of resources out there that is firmly in the realm of solid science. Here is some Youtube channels that are very solid on approaching weightlifting grounded in real practice and science: Jeff Nippard, mountaindog1 (John Meadows), Greg Doucette, VitruvianPhysique and Renaissance Periodization. A good book is: https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Development-Muscle-Hypertrophy-Schoenfeld-ebook/dp/B0837DWFPF https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Development-Muscle-Hypertrophy... What I have personally found is that for me there is two primary focus points: reducing the risk of injury and keeping consistent with the program. Reducing risk of injury comes down to knowing your own limits for what exercises are comfortable and not going hard with attempting to do max reps all the time. Personally, I don't do any traditional squats and for deadlifts I use a trap bar. Being consistent is much harder. Making a schedule to be in the gym three to four times a week is really hard. So, yeah, if you want to get started with weightlifting, spend a few hours with those Youtube channels. Picking a class of exercises as a one size fits all is definitely not the way to go.
- eicossa 6y ago
  > Here is some Youtube channels that are very solid on approaching weightlifting grounded in real practice and science: Jeff Nippard, mountaindog1 (John Meadows), Greg Doucette, VitruvianPhysique and Renaissance Periodization. I'd add Mark Rippetoe (Starting Strength on Youtube) and Alan Thrall to that list.
  - westoncb 6y ago
__alias 6y ago
Do you have any source for Eddie Hall saying this? I couldn't find anything. This just feels like another blanket body building bro forum comment
thdrdt 6y ago
Currently I have a lot of trouble with my body because I am sitting to much. After different types of exercise I believe what matters most is keeping the blood flowing and stimulating blood flow. Strength is nice but when acids still build up it does you no good. There are also no shortcuts. Exercise takes at least half an hour a day. In my experience walking half an hour a day can be as good as lifting weights.
m0zg 6y ago
I think you might be missing the perspective. A heavy deadlift is one of the most "focusing" exercises I know. You can't lift 500lbs+ barbell without complete, singular focus. That's part of the value I derive from this exercise. Also, squats are harder to learn, require good shoulder mobility (which a lot of desk jockeys don't have), and, at a minimum, require a squat rack, which you're unlikely to have at home. Better yet, I'd advise to use a power rack, which will catch the barbell if you fuck up your balance and fall forward. TL;DR: while I agree that squat is a better overall exercise, and one that the author of the article should be doing if they don't have the time to do anything else, it requires a lot more gear and training than a deadlift. It is, therefore, not very practical to do barbell squats at home. And if the choice is between a deadlift and no lifting at all, it's deadlift all the way. It hits the posterior chain and core pretty well, and all you need is a barbell and a set of cheap-ass plates. One way to not overdo it out of the gate is to not use straps on the barbell - you'll be limited by grip strength which is pretty slow to build. You also get to build a truly crushing handshake that way, for when we're back to handshakes. :-)
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rvn1045 6y ago
Depends on how heavy you're going. If you're sticking to less than 2-2.5x BW you will be fine. Just don't try to set a 1 rep max.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Pitching in with a few cents of personal experience. Went to a personal trainer for a year or so - expensive as hell (like €75 per 30 minute session), but I had the money at the time and was lacking in many ways. I couldn't do push-ups at first, because my wrists hurt too much from RSI. I couldn't really do deadlifts at a proper weight either, because my hands weren't strong enough. But after just a few sessions (using wrist straps), my grip strength increased a lot, and my RSI complaints went away. TL;DR, deadlifts helped me beat RSI. They're back now though, haven't been to a gym this year and before that it was sporadic at best. Squats, I had trouble with those as well; the trainer identified the cause pretty quickly, pointing out ankle flexibility. Another one to consider. Gave me a specific exercise to sort that one out. We did a lot of the hip flexor ones as well, split squats I believe they were called? I was so bad at those at first, complete lack of balance and control. I mean even after a year they were still uncomfortable to do, but it was a big improvement. Part of me would like to go for PT again because I lack intrinsic motivation so I need some other guy telling me what to do, but I can't really afford it anymore.
cercatrova 6y ago
I'm not sure about deadlifting specifically, but weightlifting is supposed to be as good as cardio for your physical and heart health,so I can't agree with the only advantage to lifting weights is to be able to lift heavier things.
lmilcin 6y ago
I think weight exercises are way too overrated and misunderstood. People think they can take a single exercise, load themselves up with a lot of weight and that is enough when in fact this is just asking for problems. Weight exercises require a lot of knowledge, you need to know which muscles you are training because you also need to know how to train the other muscle to keep things in balance and you also need to know how to watch for trouble. I would personally recommend almost anything else -- running, swimming, natural weight exercises (ie. when you are in unstable position lifting your own weight), that train a lot of different muscle at the same time and help keep things in balance.
- minerjoe 6y ago
  Balance. I was a college football player, 60 lbs. heavier than now. When I met my current martial arts teacher he told me flat out, "it's going to take me 20 years to fix what you did to your body." He was right. I'm still fighting to heal tha damage that intense weightlifting over many years did to my body. Strength is nothing without balance, relaxation, and control. Weight lifting is generally about isolating the muscles, when you should be working on integrating them.
  - hopw_roewur_ne 6y ago
    > Weight lifting is generally about isolating the muscles Bodybuilding often involves a high degree of isolation exercises for fatigue management and for building specific muscles. But good luck deadlifting, squatting, pressing, snatching or clean&jerking etc without "integrating" muscles, or without good balance.
varispeed 6y ago
Should the name of the thing give away that it may not be exactly the right thing to do? I mean DEAD-lift...
blodkorv 6y ago
This so true its crazy. I once was a gym bro who believed that deadlift and barbell squats where like the only thing you should do in the gym. Until i blew my back really hard, doing squats following the 5x5 strong lift program. I really regret that now because it ruined so much for me. I now have constant pain in my back and i cannot do the sports that i truly love doing (boxing and bjj) like i used to. Now i have a much different view on the gym. I use machines to a greater extent and i focus more on training for health than lifting heavy barbells.
- kvgr 6y ago
  This might help you https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-do/ https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-d...
sclangdon 6y ago
>Take a book out of Eddie Hall's playbook who says the exact same thing... And he's literally the strongest man in the world. Robert Oberst, another WSM competitor also says the same thing and talks about it on the Joe Rogan podcast (#1321 I believe). To quote: "I went from football to strongman, and in football we never did deadlifts. It was all hang cleans and power cleans, which by the way, quick little tip: if you’re deadlifting to be a better deadlifter fine. If you’re not, (you’re) doing that for deadlift’s sake, don’t fucking do it. The risk to reward ratio is a joke." "A lot of people are not going to like that I’m saying that. (…) If you go to any NFL gym, any college football gym, any athletics where people are actually getting paid and it matters what they’re doing, they’re not deadlifting. They’re hang cleaning and power cleaning."
- yarinr 6y ago
  Does it mean he's saying hang and power cleans are safer than deadlift? I've only ever deadlifted, but cleans always looked way more injury prone to me. Am I missing something? (I do deadlift not for the sake of deadlift)
  - alexmorenodev 6y ago
    One of the reasons why I don't do weightlifting stuff is that they seem a lot riskier. Same doubt here. These people who recommend weightlifting stuff (I don't mean in any way to discredit Robert Oberst, Eddie Hall... I follow and watch Strongman scene and really enjoy these guys), are they recommending it as "you should get a weightlifting coach and learn the movements properly" or "go to the gym and do power cleans as you go"? I find powerlifting a lot easier to learn alone, youtube only. And less riskier with the progress of increasing load + nonstop learning.
  - sclangdon 6y ago
    I think the point he's trying to make is even if you know how to deadlift correctly the amount weight involved carries a high risk of injury. Cleans on the other hand involve lower weight and so has a lower risk of injury (assuming you know how to perform it correctly, of course).
  - 6y ago
knuthsat 6y ago
But in most cases injury has nothing to do with the movement. It’s load or workload. I’ve been lifting for 2 years and have not experienced any long lasting pain and have not been injured. My progress is slow, 330/225/360 S/BP/DL at 220 BW (gained 30lbs) but I’m not in a hurry. I’ve been doing round back deadlifts for a while now (my spine has completely lost it’s natural lordosis due to a lifetime of sitting, my lower back has a slight rounding that I just can’t force into extension, my discs are completely fine and I have gained 2 inches to my height since I’ve started training) and have never experienced any back pain. People start obsessing over their progress and start doing too much, either load or sets. My well-being improved by a lot. Sitting for 8+ hours a day stopped being an issue and all the weird pains I had before disappeared.
- bekantan 6y ago
  My experience is very similar, give or take a few pounds. Trying to add 5 pounds per workout and grinding through 5x5s after years of sedentary lifestyle is what gets people hurt.
- throwaway98797 6y ago
  Ditto. Plus the mental clarity is great and the general calmness. The hardest part (for me) is not to get too much into the culture. In the end as a middle aged man, I’m not going pro, I’m looking to feel great though. Nice progress btw, I too am 2 years in.
- khalilravanna 6y ago
  Righto I’d say the problem I see is with recommending an exercise with just a link to a video and saying “can be learned in minutes” without the recommendation “Make sure to start light and focus on great form”. For most people I wouldn’t recommend taking on deadlifts or squats without a trainer or a buddy to spot proper form. This advice comes from myself who in the past dove into numerous exercises after watching 1 video, had crappy form, and had pain as a result. Slow and steady with proper form is definitely the name of the game.
- jongomez 6y ago
  You're a strong dude. Just out of curiosity, are those values 1 rep maxes?
kvgr 6y ago
To everyone interested in the lifting and health aspects, I recommend: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ the are doctors and lifters and they clean a lot of BS of lifting. And they also have a lot of information for example on pain and lifting...
wreath 6y ago
The goal in powerlifting and strongman, like any other sports, isn't well being of the performer, but winning and very often that comes at all costs. Your average desk-worker would benefit greatly from deadlifts with appropriate load and under supervision for correct form that isn't derived from your co-gym-bro's form, but from physics and biomechanics etc. I don't mean to undermine your experience tho!
- jashmatthews 6y ago
  It’s hard to compete if you’re injured. At an elite level (like IPF world champion) injury prevention and recovering from training are what matters. Many lifters have 25 year careers from junior to starting masters. Strongman is a bit different, partially because WSM isn’t drug tested.
ramblerman 6y ago
Do you feel thats equally true of 1 rep max attempts vs something like 5x5 or even 3x8 for a more bodybuilding approach?
ubercow13 6y ago
Interesting, my physio prescribed deadlifts to fix a back injury I got from squatting with relatively low weight.
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
> It's an alpha exercise What's that?
throw1234651234 6y ago
I can't seem to squat correctly with anterior pelvic tilt. My main goal is to work glutes. I think I can feel them if I "push knees out, press heels into ground, push not pull." Am I supposed to mainly feel glute, rather than ham, soreness in a DL? Please only answer if you really know, mainly asking deviation.
sai_c 6y ago
I'm doing the farmer's walk for a couple of months now, and I have to say it seems my posture is getting better. Alongside this, I'm using the blackroll for the legs and back. I'm quite fond of loaded carries. So, if I may pester you, do you have an opinion on loaded carries regarding correcting bad posture and back problems?
VoodooJuJu 6y ago
For anyone questioning the safety of deadlifting based on this post, I encourage you to continue deadlifting - it's a great exercise that contributes to overall health and fitness, but first I want to expand on the above implicit disclaimer in the parent: >Ex-professional weightlifter of about 10 years here This implies a number of things: 1. First and foremost, it implies the use of much higher weights and workloads than what a typical non-professional stronglifts or starting strength type lifter might be using. This is related to the next two factors: potential use of performance-enhancing drugs, and potential obesity. Without these two factors, you'd plateau at lower and safer weight, close to your natural limit. 2. It implies the potential use of performance-enhancing drugs. Performance-enhancer use is incredibly pervasive in today's professional athletic world. Their use will push you beyond your limits; the limits of strength, and the limits of what's safe and healthy. 3. It implies potential obesity: competitive lifting requires massive amounts of food in order to fully recover and continue lifting as much as possible. Teamed with performance enhancers, one might achieve a strength level, body weight, and muscle mass far higher than one's bones and ligaments evolved to handle. So if you're using good form, not eating inordinate amounts of food, and not using performance-enhancers, you can safely and healthily deadlift. You will move less weight than the professional, but it will be weight that your body is more naturally capable of handling.
- arcturus17 6y ago
  I completely agree with this. We've had deadlift scaremongering for decades with yet any solid proof to be produced against its use in general, non-PED using populations, as part of a general strength training and conditioning program. I don't care what Hall or Oberall say - most of us are lightyears away from their numbers or from those kinds of environments. (I'm also asking for proof on Hall's negative stance on deadlifts, since I can't find anything about it) To add, the best strength training programs I've tried use submaximal loading most if not all of the time, adding a further layer of safety: not only are you not pushing yourself past your limits with PEDs or insane training tonnage, you're purposefully staying below your natural limits. Keep deadlifting with exquisite form and reap the benefits!
  - 6y ago
arcturus17 6y ago
I cannot find any comments from Eddie Hall against deadlifts... Got a source?
jwr 6y ago
This thread has so much misinformation that it's painful to read. I'd advise anyone offering advice to read "Starting Strength" (Mark Rippetoe), and if you are >40 (or >30 but in very bad physical shape), "The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40". That second book is actually a good read even if you are not over 40, because a) you will be, b) it contains excellent information on our physiology and biochemistry and a great rationale for doing strength training rather than just cardio. Don't base your decisions on what has been written in this thread. Most information here is anecdotal, garbage, or both.
- cma 6y ago
  Didn't the author of Starting Strength have extreme back injury issues?

redis_mlc 6y ago

Yes, I saw some of the strongmen interviews on either deadlifts or squats. What they said was to look at the probability of injury, and avoid anything that was high-risk. Something to keep in mind when you see men and women doing squats in Silicon Valley gyms is that often they're staff, so they know what they're doing, and you may not. When you do recruit larger muscles, you get better strength gains overall - the "one weird trick" about weightlifting. Strongmen also only spend time on high-reward exercises, so some like Robert Oberst don't do shoulder shrugs, as he found it be a waste of time compared to other exercises (for the time period he was interviewed for.) Overall for an office worker, walking, stretching and gym are good ideas for a routine. Professional chess players have worked out for the past 4 decades, so that should tell you something. (They do it for overall fitness to handle crippling stress levels during tournaments.) I was thinking about doing the Thomas Inch dumbbell lift back in the day, but I probably would have pulled an abdominal muscle, so no big regret: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Inch#The_'Thomas_Inch'_dumbbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Inch#The_'Thomas_Inch'_...

coldtea 6y ago

>Trust me folks. Doing deadlifts because you see the gym-bros on youtube doing them is a big mistake. A lof of gymnast / psycisian's advice I've read says the opposite. That deadlifts are a great exercize, and should not be restrained to the weight lifting / body builder types.

mqrs 6y ago
> deadlifts are a great exercize, and should not be restrained to the weight lifting / body builder types Great exercise != absolutely necessary or useful towards a specific goal
deviation 6y ago
The other comment says it best. Deadlifts are a core concept are great- you can implement them into your rack pulls, trap bar deadlifts, and romanian deadlifts and reap enormous benefits that they offer. However... Deadlifts as the exercise it is? Almost not worth doing in the scheme of things. Want to win a deadlift competition? Sure. But for any other reason I could strongly argue that there are many, many better suited exercises for your health than a Deadlift.
- scandinavegan 6y ago
  > Want to win a deadlift competition? Sure. Deadlifts seem to be an extremely functional form of lifting movement to practice. I can see bicep curls being mocked for not providing any general benefits, or static planks not doing much except make you better at performing the static plank. But the techniques you learn from and the muscles you strengthen doing deadlifts are the same you use when you lift a heavy box off the floor.
- stonemetal12 6y ago
  I do calisthenics with a goal of being healthier. It seems to be great for upper body but for lower body not so much. So I have been thinking about adding deadlifts (got from recommendations by seemingly smart people on /r/bodyweightfitness). These wouldn't be bodybuilder deadlifts, they would be didn't skip leg day deadlifts. What would you recommend as a good lower body exercise, in the not looking to get big category?
modo_mario 6y ago
The way I see it. Do it a bit. Please don't overdo it. Please only do it if you do it well. Maybe increase weight slowly if you're really starting quite low but at some and at a perhaps rather early point compared to what you see powerlifters pulling...Stop increasing the weight. It's tempting to keep going. To chase progress but....it's probably bad in that case. You can train your muscles. You can't train your spine and you especially can't train your spine out of an injury. You should try to be helping your back with that exercise. I don't think you need it to try and looked ripped. There's other lower risk exercises for that.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

Deadlifts are great for people who have taken the time to study and implement proper form as well as work their way up from lower weights over time. However, I’m not sure how we arrived at a situation where people are recommending deadlifts as the go-to exercise for people who want to maintain fitness. Experienced weightlifters and coaches generally won’t recommend that beginners focus on deadlifts, like you said. We shouldn’t be making fitness sound so complicated or setting the bar so high. No one needs to be doing deadlifts to get into shape. Frankly, most sedentary people need to focus on small, achievable, and enjoyable fitness goals to start. Simply going for a 15-minute walk every day is a step in the right direction for beginners. Going to the gym is great if that’s your thing, but doing a handful of push-ups and stretches at home is also great for someone looking to get started. The Internet has been great for disseminating fitness information and generating enthusiasm for exercise, but this trend of recommending advanced exercises and over the top workout programs like CrossFit to beginners has probably done just as much harm as good. We shouldn’t be making fitness sound like some complicated, difficult goal.

amelius 6y ago
Also, it might be harmful to make people believe they can completely offset working 8 hours a day at a desk without breaks by spending 1 hour at the gym. By medical standards you still have a sedentary lifestyle.
- jonfw 6y ago
  If you spent an hour at the gym every work day you would be in phenomenal shape- I absolutely do not agree that this is a harmful idea.
- roel_v 6y ago
  "By medical standards you still have a sedentary lifestyle" Is it? Is 1h of strenuous exercise at a time and sittimg the rest of the day not better than getting up every hour and doing some simple stretches or just walking around? Not trying to be argumentative, I honestly don't know.
jen729w 6y ago

Swizec 6y ago

Deadlifts are great for running. They give you more explosive power and increase speed because you get a bit more distance with each stride. Over a marathon (40,000 steps) that extra half-inch per stride adds up. They’re also great for boxing. Help you generate more power on your punche. Uppercuts especially. The trick is to not lift for hypertrophy. Lift for power and speed and neuromuscular activation. If you’re sore the next day you went too hard.

BRedSox 6y ago
>Deadlifts are great for running. Leg blasters are significantly better and have a lower risk of injury.
- silly-silly 6y ago
  Anecdotally, I have noticed that leg blasters (shitter squats in local slang) end up detrimentally affecting my balance. I never had this issue with deadlifts.
deviation 6y ago
I can understand where you are coming from- though I think you might be blurring the lines between conventional deadlifts and other forms which benefit much more than just your back. (rack pulls, sumo deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts) Deadlifts as the exercise it purely is, is less likely to give you the strength for running you desire. Having been in the atmosphere of "Train as efficiently as possible", I can attest that deadlifts are far from a great choice for physical health. My 75 y/o coach would tear me a new one if he saw me wasting time training them. I'm not surprised deadlifts have helped you gain a strong back, but having also trained for a marathon I can tell you there is a plethora of other benefits you will miss out on by training your lower back instead of your legs and overall cardio fitness.

jambalaya 6y ago

Are you a powerlifter? I feel like I've heard powerlifters shy away from deadlifts for what I'm sure are valid reasons. I can't think of why an olympic-style weightlifter would shy away from deadlifts. I think the best advice would be to get a good PT/coach/trainer.

deviation 6y ago
I can't speak to powerlifting as it's never been my strong suit. I've likely only been to a handful of powerlifting meets and they only were for benchpressing. Deadlifting as an exercise is actually one of the three main lifts in powerlifting. What makes the best powerlifters is a high total weight combination of Bench/Squat/Deadlift which is generally how it's judged in most competitions these days. I think there's a small line between deadlifting and what weightlifters like us would call cleaning. A deadlift is a lower-back dominant exercise, to build power and strength there. A clean is a similar movement of getting weight off the ground and into the air, but is completely leg and upper-body dominant, with many, many other accessory movements in-between. This is why we see Crossfit athletes implement weightlifting into their training and why it is so popular today- because of the rewarding "total body" strength gains and cardiovascular fitness.
- jashmatthews 6y ago
  I’ve never met an elite lifter who would describe cleans as being completely leg and upper body dominant. That’s a very odd statement.
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Johanx64 6y ago

I don't think this is exclusive to deadlifts either, the main physical benefit from weightlifting (strength training in particular) is that you can lift heavier things. Yay!? Any outdoorsy activity is vastly superior to it due to exposure to fresh air and sunlight. It also tends to be less boring and monotonous than lifting heavy things for some inexplicable reason.

silly-silly 6y ago
The strength gains directly translate into mechanical advantages in other situations. > Any outdoorsy activity is vastly superior to it due to exposure to fresh air and sunlight. Citation needed. > It also tends to be less boring and monotonous than lifting heavy things for some inexplicable reason. You're approaching this with the wrong mindset. Its the minimum viable test case for improvement. Many less variables than 'outside in fresh air and sunlight'. I also think you'll find that many people do lift outside, maybe you're stereotyping based on planet fitnessesque gyms that you've frequented.
barry-cotter 6y ago
> the main physical benefit from weightlifting (strength training in particular) is that you can lift heavier things. Personally I got religion on weight lifting after reading a book on aging. Losing bone and muscle mass is inevitable with age but if you have a good base you’ve got more to lose. If you keep on weight lifting you lose it much slower. I never got serious about it. I’ve never broken 100kg for a squat and I’m perfectly ok with staying there forever. But I’m going to get weak slower than those who only do cardio and I aim to able to sit up unassisted for as long as possible, and to avoid breaking a hip too.
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  Yes, bone loss or osteoporosis is (or should be) a big concern over 40, especially for women. Continuing weight training can reduce or even halt this loss. https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/strength-training-builds-more-than-muscles https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/strength-trai...
6y ago

th5 6y ago

Deadlifts cured my lower back pain. I did take a class on form though.

princeb 6y ago
i have an l5-l6 l6-s1 hernation from deadlifting. it's a somewhat similar story across some of my friends who i deadlift with. a number of of powerlifters we follow on instagram are on regular cbd oil therapy. i'm on lyrica and a truckload of painkillers every day. we still go out and do it. grit your teeth and grind through the pain. i don't do it as much anymore after i realized that i'm killing my future quality of life for absolutely no financial gain - i'm not selling instagram views, not selling training or equipment and things. but for a long time it was all vanity. none of it is necessary for sitting properly at a desk.
- 01100011 6y ago
  What sort of weight are we talking? I'm wondering if the stories we hear from more experienced weightlifters like you are because you were pulling, say, 400+ lbs. I don't know, but I think the danger probably goes up exponentially as you cross a threshold of average physical tissue capacity. My all time DL max was 405, and I generally pulled around 365. DLs only made my crappy back feel better.
  - ubercow13 6y ago
    Yes I suspect the same. I personally find deadlifts by far the most effective and easy exercise for preventing back pain and generally feeling healthier and more comfortable with a sitting desk job that I have found. However I have experimented a lot and I can get that benefit from lifting just 1x body weight, which is trivially easy for me and doesn't seem to pose any real risk of injury.
  - flictonic 6y ago
    Not the above comment but I find the story a bit suspect. I have many friends in the competitive powerlifting world and while many have nagging injuries, almost none of them came directly from deadlifting. That's my experience as well, I have pulled over 600 at 181 and never came close to an injury from the lift but I can't say the same for squat (knee, hip, and shoulder pain) and bench (wrist and lower back pain).

01100011 6y ago

Not sure what you think about this, but I feel like there are people who can deadlift, and people who can squat. I like low-bar squats, but I was never very strong in them(~1/2 my DL weight), they hurt my knees, and I've tweaked my back several times doing them. I freaking love DLs. They feel amazing, they actually seem to fix my back pain, and I'm just downright strong in them(compared to my maxes in nearly every other exercise). Now, I also have to say that as a 45 year old who has now gone through shoulder surgery, and gave up anything beyond farmers carries( * ) when it comes to weightlifting, that most people should just stick to cardio. I feel so much better now that I'm doing crazy hikes again and not carrying around a bunch of useless muscle. I'm better in bed, I feel less pain, I have more energy, and I'm not spending all day worrying about protein targets. To each their own. Weightlifting was fun and being big is kinda satisfying, but it's not something I will recommend anymore. * - I'll probably get a bar and some plates to resume lower weight(275 or less), higher rep DLs once I move out of the bay area and have the space.

colechristensen 6y ago
What it seems like is most people enthusiastic about weight lifting spend far too much time near their physical limits trying to increase that maximum target and end up with a growing list of increasingly permanent injuries. If your goal for exercising is to be good at exercising, I just don’t get it, and I have experienced far too many people who treated exercising as their lifestyle and appeared by any reasonable metric to be addicted.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  That’s not me. I do my 3km run couple of times a week, and a yoga and I’m happy
raverbashing 6y ago
> but I feel like there are people who can deadlift, and people who can squat. Well, kind of. Squats have different limitations than DLs. But even a kid can squat (and their knees do go past their toes so cut the BS about that) But low-bar squats are more similar to DLs than high-bar squats in movement requirements and activations.

koonsolo 6y ago

I was thinking the exact same thing. Robert Oberst also claims that no professional sportsman does it because the risk to injury is too high: https://youtu.be/FWizDhYjGsc https://youtu.be/FWizDhYjGsc

avenger123 6y ago

Having gone from considering weightlifting a simple set of exercises to now understanding the complexity and nuances of it, this is great advice. I'm not sure how much value there is to just state "Build physical strength" and the main take away is to do deadlifts. I think there isn't any doubt from a health perspective that doing weightlifting has benefits for overall health but the program someone should go on is dependent on so many factors. Also, why can't it just be "Stay physically active". I would say that has further greater benefits than even weightlifting. Doing half an hour to an hour of moderate cardio activity every day or a few times a week is great. My recommendation for someone wanting to seriously get into weight lifting is to do your research. There is definitely a lot of "bro science" out there but fortunately there is also a great set of resources out there that is firmly in the realm of solid science. Here is some Youtube channels that are very solid on approaching weightlifting grounded in real practice and science: Jeff Nippard, mountaindog1 (John Meadows), Greg Doucette, VitruvianPhysique and Renaissance Periodization. A good book is: https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Development-Muscle-Hypertrophy-Schoenfeld-ebook/dp/B0837DWFPF https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Development-Muscle-Hypertrophy... What I have personally found is that for me there is two primary focus points: reducing the risk of injury and keeping consistent with the program. Reducing risk of injury comes down to knowing your own limits for what exercises are comfortable and not going hard with attempting to do max reps all the time. Personally, I don't do any traditional squats and for deadlifts I use a trap bar. Being consistent is much harder. Making a schedule to be in the gym three to four times a week is really hard. So, yeah, if you want to get started with weightlifting, spend a few hours with those Youtube channels. Picking a class of exercises as a one size fits all is definitely not the way to go.

eicossa 6y ago
> Here is some Youtube channels that are very solid on approaching weightlifting grounded in real practice and science: Jeff Nippard, mountaindog1 (John Meadows), Greg Doucette, VitruvianPhysique and Renaissance Periodization. I'd add Mark Rippetoe (Starting Strength on Youtube) and Alan Thrall to that list.
- westoncb 6y ago

__alias 6y ago

Do you have any source for Eddie Hall saying this? I couldn't find anything. This just feels like another blanket body building bro forum comment

thdrdt 6y ago

Currently I have a lot of trouble with my body because I am sitting to much. After different types of exercise I believe what matters most is keeping the blood flowing and stimulating blood flow. Strength is nice but when acids still build up it does you no good. There are also no shortcuts. Exercise takes at least half an hour a day. In my experience walking half an hour a day can be as good as lifting weights.

m0zg 6y ago

I think you might be missing the perspective. A heavy deadlift is one of the most "focusing" exercises I know. You can't lift 500lbs+ barbell without complete, singular focus. That's part of the value I derive from this exercise. Also, squats are harder to learn, require good shoulder mobility (which a lot of desk jockeys don't have), and, at a minimum, require a squat rack, which you're unlikely to have at home. Better yet, I'd advise to use a power rack, which will catch the barbell if you fuck up your balance and fall forward. TL;DR: while I agree that squat is a better overall exercise, and one that the author of the article should be doing if they don't have the time to do anything else, it requires a lot more gear and training than a deadlift. It is, therefore, not very practical to do barbell squats at home. And if the choice is between a deadlift and no lifting at all, it's deadlift all the way. It hits the posterior chain and core pretty well, and all you need is a barbell and a set of cheap-ass plates. One way to not overdo it out of the gate is to not use straps on the barbell - you'll be limited by grip strength which is pretty slow to build. You also get to build a truly crushing handshake that way, for when we're back to handshakes. :-)

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rvn1045 6y ago

Depends on how heavy you're going. If you're sticking to less than 2-2.5x BW you will be fine. Just don't try to set a 1 rep max.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Pitching in with a few cents of personal experience. Went to a personal trainer for a year or so - expensive as hell (like €75 per 30 minute session), but I had the money at the time and was lacking in many ways. I couldn't do push-ups at first, because my wrists hurt too much from RSI. I couldn't really do deadlifts at a proper weight either, because my hands weren't strong enough. But after just a few sessions (using wrist straps), my grip strength increased a lot, and my RSI complaints went away. TL;DR, deadlifts helped me beat RSI. They're back now though, haven't been to a gym this year and before that it was sporadic at best. Squats, I had trouble with those as well; the trainer identified the cause pretty quickly, pointing out ankle flexibility. Another one to consider. Gave me a specific exercise to sort that one out. We did a lot of the hip flexor ones as well, split squats I believe they were called? I was so bad at those at first, complete lack of balance and control. I mean even after a year they were still uncomfortable to do, but it was a big improvement. Part of me would like to go for PT again because I lack intrinsic motivation so I need some other guy telling me what to do, but I can't really afford it anymore.

cercatrova 6y ago

I'm not sure about deadlifting specifically, but weightlifting is supposed to be as good as cardio for your physical and heart health,so I can't agree with the only advantage to lifting weights is to be able to lift heavier things.

lmilcin 6y ago

I think weight exercises are way too overrated and misunderstood. People think they can take a single exercise, load themselves up with a lot of weight and that is enough when in fact this is just asking for problems. Weight exercises require a lot of knowledge, you need to know which muscles you are training because you also need to know how to train the other muscle to keep things in balance and you also need to know how to watch for trouble. I would personally recommend almost anything else -- running, swimming, natural weight exercises (ie. when you are in unstable position lifting your own weight), that train a lot of different muscle at the same time and help keep things in balance.

minerjoe 6y ago
Balance. I was a college football player, 60 lbs. heavier than now. When I met my current martial arts teacher he told me flat out, "it's going to take me 20 years to fix what you did to your body." He was right. I'm still fighting to heal tha damage that intense weightlifting over many years did to my body. Strength is nothing without balance, relaxation, and control. Weight lifting is generally about isolating the muscles, when you should be working on integrating them.
- hopw_roewur_ne 6y ago
  > Weight lifting is generally about isolating the muscles Bodybuilding often involves a high degree of isolation exercises for fatigue management and for building specific muscles. But good luck deadlifting, squatting, pressing, snatching or clean&jerking etc without "integrating" muscles, or without good balance.

varispeed 6y ago

Should the name of the thing give away that it may not be exactly the right thing to do? I mean DEAD-lift...

blodkorv 6y ago

This so true its crazy. I once was a gym bro who believed that deadlift and barbell squats where like the only thing you should do in the gym. Until i blew my back really hard, doing squats following the 5x5 strong lift program. I really regret that now because it ruined so much for me. I now have constant pain in my back and i cannot do the sports that i truly love doing (boxing and bjj) like i used to. Now i have a much different view on the gym. I use machines to a greater extent and i focus more on training for health than lifting heavy barbells.

kvgr 6y ago
This might help you https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-do/ https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/pain-in-training-what-d...

sclangdon 6y ago

>Take a book out of Eddie Hall's playbook who says the exact same thing... And he's literally the strongest man in the world. Robert Oberst, another WSM competitor also says the same thing and talks about it on the Joe Rogan podcast (#1321 I believe). To quote: "I went from football to strongman, and in football we never did deadlifts. It was all hang cleans and power cleans, which by the way, quick little tip: if you’re deadlifting to be a better deadlifter fine. If you’re not, (you’re) doing that for deadlift’s sake, don’t fucking do it. The risk to reward ratio is a joke." "A lot of people are not going to like that I’m saying that. (…) If you go to any NFL gym, any college football gym, any athletics where people are actually getting paid and it matters what they’re doing, they’re not deadlifting. They’re hang cleaning and power cleaning."

yarinr 6y ago
Does it mean he's saying hang and power cleans are safer than deadlift? I've only ever deadlifted, but cleans always looked way more injury prone to me. Am I missing something? (I do deadlift not for the sake of deadlift)
- alexmorenodev 6y ago
  One of the reasons why I don't do weightlifting stuff is that they seem a lot riskier. Same doubt here. These people who recommend weightlifting stuff (I don't mean in any way to discredit Robert Oberst, Eddie Hall... I follow and watch Strongman scene and really enjoy these guys), are they recommending it as "you should get a weightlifting coach and learn the movements properly" or "go to the gym and do power cleans as you go"? I find powerlifting a lot easier to learn alone, youtube only. And less riskier with the progress of increasing load + nonstop learning.
- sclangdon 6y ago
  I think the point he's trying to make is even if you know how to deadlift correctly the amount weight involved carries a high risk of injury. Cleans on the other hand involve lower weight and so has a lower risk of injury (assuming you know how to perform it correctly, of course).
- 6y ago

knuthsat 6y ago

But in most cases injury has nothing to do with the movement. It’s load or workload. I’ve been lifting for 2 years and have not experienced any long lasting pain and have not been injured. My progress is slow, 330/225/360 S/BP/DL at 220 BW (gained 30lbs) but I’m not in a hurry. I’ve been doing round back deadlifts for a while now (my spine has completely lost it’s natural lordosis due to a lifetime of sitting, my lower back has a slight rounding that I just can’t force into extension, my discs are completely fine and I have gained 2 inches to my height since I’ve started training) and have never experienced any back pain. People start obsessing over their progress and start doing too much, either load or sets. My well-being improved by a lot. Sitting for 8+ hours a day stopped being an issue and all the weird pains I had before disappeared.

bekantan 6y ago
My experience is very similar, give or take a few pounds. Trying to add 5 pounds per workout and grinding through 5x5s after years of sedentary lifestyle is what gets people hurt.
throwaway98797 6y ago
Ditto. Plus the mental clarity is great and the general calmness. The hardest part (for me) is not to get too much into the culture. In the end as a middle aged man, I’m not going pro, I’m looking to feel great though. Nice progress btw, I too am 2 years in.
khalilravanna 6y ago
Righto I’d say the problem I see is with recommending an exercise with just a link to a video and saying “can be learned in minutes” without the recommendation “Make sure to start light and focus on great form”. For most people I wouldn’t recommend taking on deadlifts or squats without a trainer or a buddy to spot proper form. This advice comes from myself who in the past dove into numerous exercises after watching 1 video, had crappy form, and had pain as a result. Slow and steady with proper form is definitely the name of the game.
jongomez 6y ago
You're a strong dude. Just out of curiosity, are those values 1 rep maxes?

kvgr 6y ago

To everyone interested in the lifting and health aspects, I recommend: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ https://www.barbellmedicine.com/ the are doctors and lifters and they clean a lot of BS of lifting. And they also have a lot of information for example on pain and lifting...

wreath 6y ago

The goal in powerlifting and strongman, like any other sports, isn't well being of the performer, but winning and very often that comes at all costs. Your average desk-worker would benefit greatly from deadlifts with appropriate load and under supervision for correct form that isn't derived from your co-gym-bro's form, but from physics and biomechanics etc. I don't mean to undermine your experience tho!

jashmatthews 6y ago
It’s hard to compete if you’re injured. At an elite level (like IPF world champion) injury prevention and recovering from training are what matters. Many lifters have 25 year careers from junior to starting masters. Strongman is a bit different, partially because WSM isn’t drug tested.

ramblerman 6y ago

Do you feel thats equally true of 1 rep max attempts vs something like 5x5 or even 3x8 for a more bodybuilding approach?

ubercow13 6y ago

Interesting, my physio prescribed deadlifts to fix a back injury I got from squatting with relatively low weight.

eeZah7Ux 6y ago

> It's an alpha exercise What's that?

throw1234651234 6y ago

I can't seem to squat correctly with anterior pelvic tilt. My main goal is to work glutes. I think I can feel them if I "push knees out, press heels into ground, push not pull." Am I supposed to mainly feel glute, rather than ham, soreness in a DL? Please only answer if you really know, mainly asking deviation.

sai_c 6y ago

I'm doing the farmer's walk for a couple of months now, and I have to say it seems my posture is getting better. Alongside this, I'm using the blackroll for the legs and back. I'm quite fond of loaded carries. So, if I may pester you, do you have an opinion on loaded carries regarding correcting bad posture and back problems?

VoodooJuJu 6y ago

For anyone questioning the safety of deadlifting based on this post, I encourage you to continue deadlifting - it's a great exercise that contributes to overall health and fitness, but first I want to expand on the above implicit disclaimer in the parent: >Ex-professional weightlifter of about 10 years here This implies a number of things: 1. First and foremost, it implies the use of much higher weights and workloads than what a typical non-professional stronglifts or starting strength type lifter might be using. This is related to the next two factors: potential use of performance-enhancing drugs, and potential obesity. Without these two factors, you'd plateau at lower and safer weight, close to your natural limit. 2. It implies the potential use of performance-enhancing drugs. Performance-enhancer use is incredibly pervasive in today's professional athletic world. Their use will push you beyond your limits; the limits of strength, and the limits of what's safe and healthy. 3. It implies potential obesity: competitive lifting requires massive amounts of food in order to fully recover and continue lifting as much as possible. Teamed with performance enhancers, one might achieve a strength level, body weight, and muscle mass far higher than one's bones and ligaments evolved to handle. So if you're using good form, not eating inordinate amounts of food, and not using performance-enhancers, you can safely and healthily deadlift. You will move less weight than the professional, but it will be weight that your body is more naturally capable of handling.

arcturus17 6y ago
I completely agree with this. We've had deadlift scaremongering for decades with yet any solid proof to be produced against its use in general, non-PED using populations, as part of a general strength training and conditioning program. I don't care what Hall or Oberall say - most of us are lightyears away from their numbers or from those kinds of environments. (I'm also asking for proof on Hall's negative stance on deadlifts, since I can't find anything about it) To add, the best strength training programs I've tried use submaximal loading most if not all of the time, adding a further layer of safety: not only are you not pushing yourself past your limits with PEDs or insane training tonnage, you're purposefully staying below your natural limits. Keep deadlifting with exquisite form and reap the benefits!
- 6y ago

arcturus17 6y ago

I cannot find any comments from Eddie Hall against deadlifts... Got a source?

jwr 6y ago

This thread has so much misinformation that it's painful to read. I'd advise anyone offering advice to read "Starting Strength" (Mark Rippetoe), and if you are >40 (or >30 but in very bad physical shape), "The Barbell Prescription: Strength Training for Life After 40". That second book is actually a good read even if you are not over 40, because a) you will be, b) it contains excellent information on our physiology and biochemistry and a great rationale for doing strength training rather than just cardio. Don't base your decisions on what has been written in this thread. Most information here is anecdotal, garbage, or both.

cma 6y ago
Didn't the author of Starting Strength have extreme back injury issues?