10 Tips to a Better Deadlift...part II

Tip #6:  Say it with me, “The box is my friend.  The box is my friend”

People avoid these because they are hard.  Lets face it, most people don’t even deadlift, let alone add another 4-6” of movement to it.  This movement sucks, and I have a love-hate relationship with it.  Bottom line, if you want to lift big weights, you have to do box pulls.

I like to use a 4-5” box as the bar can just clear the tops of my feet.  Nothing is worse then dropping a bar and having it smash your feet.  I don’t use a belt because if I do I cannot get into position.  I squat down as low as I can and I initiate the pull by squatting the weight.  You can try to keep an arch in your back but it will be futile, so I suggest starting light to avoid getting hurt.  Get some air, go down, and haul that weight up.  This will make your speed off the floor tremendous.  I do three sets of doubles. 


Tip #7: The suit must be tight, Mr. Camel Toe

You don’t get anything out of your deadlift suit you say?  My first question is, how tight are your straps?  My old Marathon deadlift suit is made for a 198-pound lifter.  I weigh 220.  The straps are maybe 6” long.  It takes both of my training partners to get up and over my shoulders and they leave disgusting black and green bruises on my traps and chest.  Such is the price you pay if you want to hang with the big boys in the deadlift.  Suck it up and deal with the pain.  Yes, when you stand erect the suit should give you some massive man camel toe.  Deal with it.  The plus is it gives your training partners something to chuckle about.  Until you out lift them by 150-pounds.  Ain’t that right Cullen???  ;)

Basically, it should be so tight that you cant get to the bar.  I have to take in my air, and then squeeze myself down to the bar.  Once I get there though I am a compressed rocket fueled spring.  Sometimes the weight comes up so fast I nearly topple over backwards.  Get some.

Tip #8: Shakira was right fellas, the hips don’t lie

I don’t even have to watch you deadlift to bet your hips are weak.  I would say 99% of the people who deadlift conventional and 70% of those who pull sumo have weak hips.  I will never forget when my biomechanics professor in college told us that no one needs to train their hips as they are already the strongest muscle group in the body and training them will only bring imbalances.  I don’t think my biomechanics professor wanted to deadlift 900 pounds.  What ever works.

Truth be told, you need strong hips.  Strong hips allow you to extend hard at the top and not get stuck 4” from lockout.  That is where the hips really take over, right when the bar passes the knees.  Ever see a lifter have a solid perfect set-up, only to straighten their legs and bow over like the hunch back as soon as the weight comes off the floor?  The reason is their hips are weak, and thus the body, in an attempt to cooperate with the mind, dumps all the weight onto the stronger lower back.  Continuing to lift like this will either A. give you a very strong lower back or B. destroy you.  Fix it.  Get your hips up via handle squats, very wide sumos, box squats with a wide stance, pull throughs, kettlebell swings, belt squats, and other fun exercises.  Shakira recommends them!  The hips don’t lie friends, and I am not going to argue with her.

Tip #9: Is it ghey to use a strap on?

Hey, I am a grip guy back before grip work became mainstream.  I have done all the classic grip feats, closed the #3 and the Mash Monster 1, hoisted blobs, pinched 3-25s, etc. etc.  However, I am not ashamed to admit that I use straps EACH AND EVERY TIME I TRAIN THE DEADLIFT.  Yeah.  Now what.  It is true, and the simple reason is I hate holding onto the bar.  I hate it.  I bought a set of Ironmind straps about 3 years ago and I have not done a training deadlift of more then 1 rep without them.  At any weight.  I use straps with 135.  Here is the kicker-I have never lost a weight due to my grip being weak.  If I wanted to train my grip, I would train it.  I don’t.  I want to increase my deadlift, so I use straps.  I just recently hauled up 700 at 220.6 with no straps and I had a solid grip the whole time.  Now, if you can’t hold onto 225, then by all means don’t use straps.  Get your grip strong by doing some double overhand pulls.  But, if your grip is solid, get a little ghey and use straps.

Bottom line, they save my hands and my forearm on the underhand grip side.  Nothing is worse then having hands all calloused and ripped up.  When I tear a quarter sized hole in my hand it makes me sad.  I don’t like to be sad.  Plus, my wife likes my hands to be smooth…

Tip #10: Traps make the man

Come on, traps make you look like a stud.  No one cares how big the rest of you is as long as your traps stand up to your ears.  Years ago we were all shouting “GOLDBERG! GOLDBERG!” for a reason, the guy had traps that made us all jealous and made our women’s knees weak.  Fellas, you have to do shrugs.  Don’t go around in life un-yoked!

I use power shrugs, and you should to.  Not only will they make you cock-diesel and irresistible to the ladies, but they will also improve your speed and lockout abilities.  Take a loaded bar, pick it up double over hand with straps, and do sets of 15-20 shrugs.  Don’t use a lot of leg, but rather explode up like you are trying to do a high pull, and when the weigh reaches arms length, rebound right back up.  If you are using a sporting good special bar, this would be the time you would bend it into a permanent U so make sure you don’t use a bar you want to keep straight.  Lots of pop, elevated the shoulders to the ears, and use some damn weight!  Bending bars is cool. 

So there you have it, 10 tips from the dark recesses of the pit.  Just implementing one of them will help your deadlift, I guarantee it!  Most importantly, get out there and deadlift.  You will add some size, scare some chicks, and get talked about by the pencil necks that are doing machine curls. 

Until next time-

Comments

[Jedd]

Rick, another great one!

[Dan]

Nice article, Rick.

Would you mind shooting me an email at dan.montague@gmail.com?

I have some deadlifting questions (surprise!).

Dan

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