If your deadlift form just doesn’t look the way it should, you need to watch this important video. There are 5 red flags that can undermine every deadlift and prevent it from being one of your strongest lifts, that are going to be covered. In general, those that struggle with deadlifts usually do so because they either don’t have the correct form, and simply kept piling on the weights over the years on a form foundation that was cracked from the beginning, or they are not strong enough in certain muscle groups to perform the whole exercise properly.
Here, we are going to focus on the different parts of the deadlift to identify the muscle weaknesses that are most likely causing your struggles to increase your deadlift.
First, we have to look at your grip strength. If you have a weak grip, you are always going to struggle with maxing out your deadlift without a compensation in the form on the exercise. While there are things you can do to overcome a weak grip (like wearing straps, or using a mixed grip) these don’t come without repercussions long term. Instead, strengthen your grip using exercises like weighted pullups, weighted hangs or even dumbbell or trap bar carries.
The best part about the weighted pullup is that it is an amazing back building exercise as well, a great compliment to the deadlift. Those additional grip strength benefits however are going to help you over time to handle more weight on the bar without having to quickly resort to straps or grip changes. Of course, the hook grip has amazing benefits but is not easily mastered, however it’s demonstrated and explained in the video linked at the end on the deadlift checklist.
Next, you may struggle to rip the bar off the floor. Breaking the bar off the ground is almost always attributed to one’s quad strength. If you have weak quads, you are going to suffer from red flag #1, an inability to get heavier and heavier weights off the ground, even if you had the strength to keep them moving once you did. Think of the deadlift as a leg exercise in the first part of the movement, and a back and upper body pulling exercise in the rest of the movement.
I like to have people envision the exercise as a standing leg press.
Push through the ground using the quads and you will get better at generating the upward movement of the bar. Exercises like the front squat, bulgarian split squat and barbell reverse lunge are going to be amazing leg exercises that are especially good at building up quad strength and getting you better able to break the ground on the deadlift and eliminate red flag number one.
That said, there are very important stabilizer muscles in the core and lats that are critical to the success of the bar breaking the ground. These are best trained through once again, carries but this time of the unilateral type or overhead to increase the core challenge and through the straight arm pushdown which trains the adduction requirements of the lats throughout the lift.
The third red flag comes from an inability to get the bar to and through the knees after getting it off the ground. Many people will struggle in this area of the lift. The key muscle groups working here are the hamstrings and the low back, with of course the quads and other stabilizers to be discussed in a second contributing as well.
Exercises like the RDL and deficit deadlift are the two best options for strengthening the hamstrings to better handle the loads in this part of the lift. The lower back muscles need to be strong as well and are best trained with something like the weighted hyperextension.
Once again, stabilizer muscles are important here too. Most notably, the lower, mid and upper traps are going to not only help you to better manage the load better through all parts of the lift but to keep the thoracic spine from excessively rounding under the loads during this phase.
Getting the hips fully extended at lockout becomes the fourth red flag when you struggle to do so. This is almost always due to glute weakness and of course still a lack of low back strength. Make sure you train hip extension movements that encourage full lockout of the hips at the top like the glute ham raise, barbell hip thrust and the cable pullthrough.
The fifth red flag however is where we tie it all together. This is where your form needs to be on point.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a program to not only build up your strength on the big lifts but to build ripped, high performance athletic muscle in just 90 days, be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link below.
If you’re looking for more deadlift tutorial videos and proper form on deadlifts, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube and remember to turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.
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Chris Wright
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Omg 1:52. I’m dyin, yer killin me…
now you are using nasty words to push your videos very sad i am going to have to stop following you. nasty foul language never makes a point come across.
Bro, less talk more action, please!!
@s7rasbourg Bro, less commenting more listening :)
Thanks to this channel I can finally deadlift 2.5x my body weight (I’m 160), now working on 3x!! Seeing Jesse pull these badass numbers is very inspirational for me. Love this channel!!
Well fucking done im bout 2 months in and im at a 1:1 ratio mind you im a boxer not a body builder or powerlifter i weigh 155 pounds
Right there with you, I’m 160, and just pulled 455 on trap bar for the first time 2 weeks ago!
Congrats on your lifts BTW!
Thanks Jeff for helping a lot of people like me to build their body and confidence.
I have fewer than 1 friend in the World. That’s right. Everybody disses me for making bad videos. I think they are perfect though. Who is right? My dissers or me? Which side are you on, dear ruf
Yeah me too
You are welcomed.
This was an awesome tutorial. I definitely see the difference between this video and the deadlift checklist video. Would you please do one for pullups? It’s my worst lift.
He has done one in the past and talked about it many times. Here are som tips:
Shoulder width grip
Squeeze your glutes
Tight core
Point your feet forward
Retract your scapula
Up with your chest
Pull yourself up!
This is exactly what I needed I’m gonna start lifting in college once my high school sports career is done and I’m strong at squat and bench but deadlift always crumpled me
For years I have always neglected Deadlifts but now I am putting more effort on this because it definitely is one of the best exercise there is. Not just for the legs but for the back, arms and core as well. Gives you great posture and balance. Lots of benefits. Thanks Jeff!
Right in time, on my way to start deadlifting again, did with trap bar last week.
Also Jesse is a absolute beast, love to see him pulling these weights.
I’m going to start lifting in college once my high school sports career is over, and while I’m strong in the squat and bench, the deadlift had always crumpled me.
I just did deadlifts today. I struggle with grip strength. A mixed grip makes it a lot easier. I am currently only on about 60-70% of my weight for 12 reps (about 60kg). Hopefully, I can get that number up now (although I can’t do pullups either, let alone weighted pullups lol).
You’ll get there. My deadlifts have improved drastically over a short period of time, but grip strength is starting to be an issue for me also.
My deadlifts issues
are mostly form related but for pullups over the summer i just got a 20 dollar chinup bar off amazon and the first three nights I just practiced dead hangs till I could hang for about a minute then went ahead and tried my first pullup. I will say I’ve compared the at-home chinup bars and the ones with the ribbed cushions make it so that you don’t fail from your hands hurting but frmo muscle fatigue, which is an issue I have with my 20 dollar one
Dont mix grip, stay overhand grip. Overhand grip wont be a problem for a long time, as long as you train it. Just hold the weight in your hands for a longer period of time. And if you go into high percentage of your deadlift 1RM, just hold it in the top for 5-10 seconds. Oh, and use chalk, wrap your thumbs properly over your fingers, and squeeze like you try to strange the bar.
Like everything with weightlifting; just train it. It takes time, but youll be fine.
Thanks Jeff and Jesse, your video’s truly do help us that suffer in our lifts.
I am currently on Jeff’s new program All American Muscle (great program btw). And seeing this video it makes so much sense why he added the exercise he added in the program. No wonder I’m seeing amazing strength gains! Thanks Jeff! All thought out like always!
The timing of this video is PERFECT! Because I’m literally working on increasing my deadlift 1RM now. Amazing video breakdown and amazing video!
Awesome video as always! Was wondering what Jeff thought about putting the weight back onto the ground tho – am I trying to lift more than I can handle if I find it hard to slowly lower the weight onto the ground?
i quit powerlifting 45 years ago; but this is a great tutorial and training advice for anybody working on their deadlift. congrats to jesse on his awesome progress.
Thank you so much for this video!
I was waiting for it for a while. It explained to me some of the mistakes that I was making and how to overcome them.
1:30 Grip strength
2:20 Quads strength
3:25 Lats and Core strength
4:41 Hamstring and lower back strength
6:10 Traps strength
8:03 Glutes strength
9:24 Fix your form
Thank you for being that guy!