YOUR BACK AND THE DEADLIFT

We have so far figured out that the reason why we lift weights is to get stronger. This may sound as obvious as today being the first day after yesterday - but often, obvious things are not that obvious at all.

Rule number one in the deadlift: You need to learn how to set your back tight.

'Why?' - you ask.

Here are the two main reasons:

DEVELOPING A STRONGER BACK

The deadlift strengthens the back better than arguably any other exercise on the planet. First and foremost, it is designed to function in an isometric way through the means of muscular contractions holding the spine 'in place.' This includes predominantly the spinal erector muscles which reach from the base of the skull to the bottom of your spine. They are like two thick cables running parallel on both sides of your back to preserve spinal integrity. When we pick something up off the floor, for example, the erectors provide a rigid position of the spine in order for things not to 'give.' Imagine having no muscles in your back at all. Your discs would slide out of the space between your vertebrae, and your skeleton would likely crumble.

Often we see in gyms that the back musculature is trained in a dynamic fashion on the back extension machine. This does not reflect the static nature in which our back musculature operates under normal human conditions. Our back musculature is meant to stabilise our spine - not to jerk it through the room!

Going back to the example of picking up something off the floor: say you reach for a box which you want to lift onto the top of a shelf. In order to grab the box, you are going to bend at your hips and knees first and foremost. Your back will bend as well - but it won't actively lift the box up to standing upright. This is done by the leg musculature, while the back acts as a stabiliser to prevent your spine from collapsing.

This is exactly what is being trained in the deadlift: we bend over to grab the bar, take a breath in to brace, set our back flat, and use the legs to drive the floor away - while the back is held in a rigid position. This is the mechanism by which it gets stronger over time.

BETTER FORCE TRANSFER

Picture the deadlift this way: there two contact points which connect a part of our body to either an object or a surface. That is, our feet attach to the floor, and our hands attach to the bar. In between the hands and the feet, there is a chain of muscular tension being created - spanning the arms, shoulder blades, rib cage, spine, as well as hips and legs. This chain of tension warrants nothing else than efficient force transfer between the floor and the bar.

Once we initiate the deadlift motion by pushing our feet firmly into the ground, the powerful hip musculature levers the bar upwards in front of our body by making the back more upright. As we produce force into the floor, ground reaction force is created in the opposite direction upwards which is transmitted through the legs into the hands and bar via the back musculature. As such, our back acts as a force transmitter in the deadlift.

Now here comes the multi-million pound question:

Do you think that a soft back works better as an efficient force transmitter - or a rigid one?

This time, the answer is obvious.

HOW TO SET YOUR BACK TIGHT

There are various ways of how we can set the back musculature into a firm contraction before the bar breaks off the floor in the deadlift.

Here are some cues I have found to be effective in doing so:

"Glue your chest to the wall in front of you"

"Slide your chest forward"

"Imagine someone pulling your chest forward to the wall with two strings"

"High chest"

"Stick your lungs to the wall"

The most important thing when setting your back tight is to ask yourself 'Can I feel the tightness in my back as I set the position?' If the answer is yes, good to go. If the answer is no, try again, try harder, or try something else.

We have found that using tactile cues is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to fix movement or positional problems. In the deadlift, this is done through the help of a coach who touches your back musculature located in close proximity to your spine. This cue helps you to quickly develop a brain-body connection on what it should feel like to set your back tight. If you are lazy with this, the coach will instruct you to push against his fingers or hand with your back musculature a bit harder, or he might gently push downwards on your back. This is a sure-fire way to troubleshoot a back-setting issue quickly.

Next time you deadlift, remember why you need to set your back tight before you break the bar off the floor.

Now off and onto the bar. We have no time to waste.

#strengthtraining #deadlift #barbell #hamptonwick