Of all the exercises that get a bad rap in regards to injury, the deadlift might stand alone as the lift that receives the largest share of unwarranted blame.
Can you get injured on the Deadlift? Of course. And many people do. But I don’t feel like the Deadlift is inherently dangerous when done correctly.
I’ve been teaching clients how to Deadlift at Kingwood Strength & Conditioning for over 10 years now. I can count on one hand the amount of injuries we have had here at the gym from the Deadlift. I’ve coached hundreds of clients (maybe even thousands now) how to Deadlift – most of which were not elite athletes, and most of which were over 40 years of age! If Deadlifts were just inherently dangerous I’d have racked up alot more injuries by now!
Furthermore, the reason people get injured on the Deadlift is rarely if ever due simply to load. It’s due to incorrect technique. This can happen on heavy loads or lighter loads. In fact, most of the injuries I’ve seen have been at submaximal weights.
One of the reasons for this is that people get sloppy with their warm ups at times and on their way up to that 405 workset, they don’t give the 315 warm up enough respect. You have to practice perfect technique even at lighter loads. It’s that, coupled with the fact that sometimes very heavy weights won’t actually move much when you demonstrate poor technique. Light weights will allow you to move them, even with poor technique, and there is enough time under tension with bad mechanics to cause an injury. Really heavy loads just have a way of gluing themselves to the floor when you try and pull them wrong.
So here is your 4-Step Deadlift Safety Checklist to avoid injury:
#1: Don’t Get the Bar Forward Of Mid-foot
This most often happens when trainees sink their hips/ass down too low at the start position. Whenever you try to “sit” down into the deadlift and the hips get too low, it will cause the knee angle to close, and as a result the shins will travel forward. When the shins travel forward it can push the barbell forward of the midfoot.
For most beginners especially the hips will start out higher than you think they should be in the correct starting position. If in doubt, video yourself from a profile shot and see if the barbell is in line with your midfoot (the knot on your shoelaces) and also that your scapula is over the barbell and not behind the barbell. So we want a straight vertical line drawn from the scapula through the barbell through the mid-foot. If the hips are too low the scapula will be behind the barbell, the torso will be too vertical, and the shins will be angled too far forward thus pushing the barbell out over the front of the foot. When you try and lift from this position the bar will try and leave the ground while it’s out over the front of the foot and this can cause back injury.
Never attempt to pull a bar off the ground that is out over the toes. Even just a few inches forward of mid-foot is dangerous. If you do this right, and do everything else wrong you’ll probably be okay. But this is the number one cause of injury that I have seen.
#2: Don’t Shoot Your Hips Up Early
I see this alot when lifters are attempting a heavy weight, even if it didn’t manifest itself on the warm ups. In an effort to pull the bar with force and speed, the lifter’s body misinterprets the cue, and instead of exploding the bar up off the ground, they shoot their tailbone straight up into the air and THEN try and pull the bar off the ground.
This error essentially turns a deadlift into a stiff-leg deadlift and causes the lifter to pull with nothing but hamstrings and back without any contribution from the quads. When you try and pull a maximal load with less muscle mass it can result in injury. More often it just results in a missed rep or burning up more energy than you needed to and so what should have been a 5RM becomes a 2RM.
Focus on keeping the hips down (not too low or you encounter mistake #1) and breaking the bar off the ground with the quads. Again, a quick profile video with your cell phone can identify this error rather quickly.
#3: Get Your Back Into Extension
I know, DUH! Extending or “arching” your back is Deadlifting 101 but many fail to do it even so. Sometimes this is just do to negligence. Maybe focused on fixing some other form error, they simply forget to do the final simple step that occurs before you pull which is to set the back into extension.
For others, setting the back into extension, or arching, is just difficult. That mind-muscle connection with the lumbar spine is simply not established and without constant verbal and tactile cues the lifter may not be able to tell if he or she has indeed set their back. You must practice this on all warm up sets and even between sets without load until it becomes habit.
Some older men especially may not have the ability at all to achieve spinal extension that is pleasing to the eye. Their back may be flat at best or even always have some small degree of rounding. As long as the lumbar muscles are actively held in tight contraction a very small degree of rounding may be acceptable BUT you must be very careful with this scenario and I do not recommend that trainees deadlift maximal loads in these situations.
I often advise these types of trainees to elevate the barbell off the ground by 1-2 inches using cut out rubber mat squares or squares of plywood. Sometimes (not always) this helps get the trainee into a better pulling position. Another option is a rack pull with the pins set very low in the rack. Just enough room for the trainee to get into a safe start position.
#4: Lower the Bar Correctly
Some trainees have a picture in their brains of lowering the barbell between reps with a nearly vertical torso as they “squat” the weight down back to the floor. When you do this, the knees will travel forward and then the barbell will have to loop out around the knees before it hits the floor. Doing so will get the barbell waaaaay out in front of the mid-foot as you lower it. This can result in injury with even very light loads.
Lower the barbell down to the floor by pushing the hips back and letting the barbell “fall” in a line that is over the midfoot. Keep your knees out of the way. The barbell should NOT hit the top of your knees on the way down. The deadlift does not have a slow eccentric. But it’s not a complete free fall either. Guide the bar down to the floor but you shouldn’t be under a lot of tension.
By trying to “squat the weight down” you will be forced to lower the bar with a pronounced eccentric, the bar will be out over the toes, and your starting position for the next rep will be off. Your hips will be too low and that puts you in the scenario where mistake #1 occurs.
