The Unfiltered Health Podcast
The Unfiltered Health Podcast delivers real, authentic conversations about health, wellness, and longevity. We break down complex health topics, sharing evidence-based insights, practical advice, and personal experiences. Our mission is to educate, inspire, and build a supportive community committed to living well and thriving together—no filters, just the truth about what it takes to achieve lasting health.
The Unfiltered Health Podcast
75 - Deadlifting; Practical Tips for Safe and Effective Deadlifts
What if the deadlift, often viewed with skepticism, is actually key to unlocking your fitness potential? Join us as we tackle the myths and misconceptions that surround this misunderstood exercise. By comparing it to everyday actions like picking up a box, we highlight its inherent simplicity and offer reassurance to those hesitant about incorporating deadlifts into their routines. Our discussion sheds light on the importance of proper form and technique, ensuring you engage the right muscles like the hamstrings, quads, core, and the thoracic region, to prevent undue lower back strain.
Discover how deadlifts can transform your fitness journey by strengthening your entire body and enhancing stability, mimicking real-life lifting situations. We'll address the common misconception that post-exercise soreness signals harm, and emphasize the value of gradual reconditioning, drawing parallels with the process of resuming running after a break. Balance and variety are pivotal, and we guide you on how to master movements safely through repetition, ultimately making deadlifts a rewarding addition to your fitness repertoire.
For those with specific concerns such as spinal pathology or vertigo, we provide thoughtful considerations and alternative exercises to suit individual needs. The episode underscores the significance of listening to your body and seeking personalized advice as you progress. By sharing personal stories and answering listener questions, we invite you to engage with our community and confidently navigate your unique fitness journey.
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Welcome, guys, to episode 75. Today we're going to be talking about the deadlift. We are talking about some of the concerns of the deadlift that we come across with clients. We're talking about myths, we're talking about the benefits of a deadlift, we're talking about where people can go wrong with the deadlift, and we've also got a few questions from our clients that we're going to answer on today's episode as well. So let's jump straight into it Cool, I think.
Speaker 2:firstly, I just want to say a disclaimer. The deadlift isn't a bad movement. It gets a really bad rap in the lifting world, but I do think that there is a time and place to do the deadlift. There's a time and place when you're ready to do the deadlift. There's a time and place when you shouldn't do a deadlift per se, but it's not something that has to be forever. So I think there's coaches in the industry who are very extremist and there's perhaps people that you might meet who like, oh, be careful. When you tell them you're doing deadlift, doing a deadlift, I think you just need to have your wits about you and you need to be doing it correctly, because if you don't do it correctly, like any other movement, you will hurt yourself.
Speaker 1:And I think that's, I think, out of all exercises in the gym, that's probably the only exercise. Dare I say that as soon as you mention it, you get a lot of criticism. Or you get a lot of people that say, oh, be careful, make sure you're not hurting your back, make sure you know your core is on. Or you get a lot of people that say, oh, be careful, make sure you're not hurting your back, make sure you know your core is on. Or you might get all these claims oh, it's really bad for your spine. Or like, oh, doesn't that hurt your back?
Speaker 1:And it's one of these things where those type of people are just people that aren't educated in that area and you know, which is fair enough. It's either from you know, know a health professional that's told them that a deadlift is bad, or from something that they've seen online, or from friends or family that told them or have had a bad experience from a deadlift, and so the deadlift gets such a bad rap and such a bad um, what's the word for it? Just such a bad. What am I looking for? What am I looking for? Sorry, blake, help me out here. Raquel, it's a bad name.
Speaker 2:It's the red flag movement for any person training, because, yeah, it's so normal to see injuries pop up online and also, just in general, people being scared of it. I don't even know how this happened. I don't even know when this started. There has to be some history behind why the death has been considered bad, because, when I think about it, maybe it's in relation to seeing people's spine curve and then people getting an injury from the curve, but it might not necessarily be. That is what did it slash? What caused it? It could have been a multitude of events, like we'll obviously go through interspinal flexion, but I'm very curious as how it all came about, because it's not a bad movement like anything. Like I said, if you do it bad, of course you're gonna hurt yourself. You could be running on the field in soccer and hurt yourself. You'll be walking down a flight of stairs and you miss a step and you roll your ankle. How did the deadlift get this? You know?
Speaker 1:this massive bad like don't do it. It's the worst thing ever for your spine. Just so much fear around the deadlift. Yeah, which is crazy because when you think about it's she bending over to pick something up?
Speaker 2:yes, how many times has someone on this podcast probably listening got out of their car, sat in their car or bent over to pick a box up and then hurt their back, oh no. How many times has that probably happened to our listeners?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. I think, if you're someone that's worried about the deadlift movement, or you think it's going to cause your back injury, or you prefer to shy away from that movement because you're worried about what it would do to your back, what are some steps we could, you know, have in place for those type of people in terms of, like, getting them or introducing them to a deadlift movement?
Speaker 2:getting them or introducing them to a deadlift movement. When it comes to deadlifting, we need to be mindful of the muscles that we're using. So a deadlift gets the bad rap because people hurt their back, because they pull with the back, so someone doesn't actually know how to lift. So, for our audience specifically, when doing a deadlift, if you feel your back, you've done it wrong. There will be a point and this is at a competitive level where you do feel your back because you're reaching pbs. So we're not talking about pbs, we're not talking about competitive lifters who will recruit muscles that they are already using in other ways and needs and their body has to do that because they they're overreaching it's.
Speaker 2:It's like think about the bell curve they're on the complete other spectrum for a general person who's going to the gym would just like to lift some weight, get a little bit stronger, improve their form. What you need to be mindful of is that you're not using your back. You're using your hamstrings. You're using your quads a little bit, you're using your core, you are using your back, but maybe most of your thoracic um and some of your lumbar, I'm sure, to create tension. So your whole body is creating tension in order to drive through the floor and do the movement.
Speaker 2:It's not something that you're just. It's not an isolated movement at all. It's not a tricep, it's not a bicep curl, it's not a shoulder lateral raise or a side raise. It is a compound movement. A compound movement, as we both know, is a, is a movement including multiple muscle groups. Yeah, so for someone who do, who does want to do them, if, if you are feeling your back, you need to look for some help, some professional advice, or reach out to a PT. Reach out to Steph, because she also knows how to do them as well. You need to work with someone who understands how to coach you as well to get where you need to be. But it might not be that you start with a deadlift. It might be that you learn how to engage your hamstrings, how to feel that mind-muscle connection. That might be where you start.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or how to actually get into like a hinge position, how to learn how to drive from your feet and from your legs rather than, you know, pulling up from the ground through your back.
Speaker 1:And I get this a lot with clients that I initially introduce a deadlift for the first time. They're always lifting with a 30-kilo deadlift, so a 20-kilo bar, kilo bar, five kilo plates on either side, and most of the time I don't actually cue them and I just tell them to pick the, pick the bar up from the, from the floor, and most of the time they actually will reorganize themselves into the deadlift position. It's like their body just kind of knows um, and initially when you do a deadlift, because it's very new, naturally you're going to feel your back a little bit. And so for the first week I, my clients, do actually feel a little bit of their back. We focus a bit more on pushing through the ground with their feet and it's just all about them getting used to the movement. By second week, third week, they don't feel any back and it's all through their legs and you know, I think that's also normal.
Speaker 1:I think people get so, so scared that the first sign of feeling it back it's like oh my god, I'm gonna hurt my back. It's like no, you actually use your back when you are doing a deadlift as well. Yes, it's not going to be the prime mover but you are going to get a little bit.
Speaker 1:It's an extension movement, so you are going to get your back muscles working. So if the next day you do feel your back, it might actually be back doms, back fatigue, back soreness as opposed to back pain. And I think a lot of people get really scared of that because we're always so used to saying be careful of your back, don't hurt your back, don't injure your back, don't load your back. So the minute they feel the back working.
Speaker 1:I mean we're not saying that we're definitely not just to clarify, just to clarify. But the minute they feel their back working, they think it's a bad thing. But it's actually a good thing, because a lot of people have really weak lower backs because we don't train them perfect.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think when I get a new client coming or just in general some of our clients who are not training enough, they automatically have this like predisposed uh injury. Probably incidents to like a back injury because this is true, like so. You're not using your erectors, you're not using your lumbar spine, you're not actually using any of those muscles there.
Speaker 1:So if you go for the deadlift, you're probably gonna hurt yourself or you know, if you are going to go through a deadlift, start off with light. Focus on the technique, focus on the movement, learn to actually condition your back before then adding more weight, because that is part of the process and that's why people tend to hurt their lower back. It's because their back is not ready for the weight that they have just forced their body to, you know, exert essentially, and that's often why people hurt themselves.
Speaker 2:I totally agree with that. I think the exposure is really important to all sorts of movement patterns. And I see this with clients who are super stiff and I know you would as well Clients who haven't trained at pardon me me clients who haven't trained at all in the past and they've just come to you to start learning, or they've been injured for a while and then they need that rehabilitation process. Right, they they're doing nothing to everything. I guess, like a lot of older age women that come to us who are over the age of 50, 60 and they're so stiff, like stretching movements is almost like a workout for them because it's so intense. Their posture after 60 years is so bad that you have to work with that range of motion, but it's going to take a long time to undo that habit. So if you've been doing something for x amount of time and then you expect it's going to be perfect on the first go, it's not how it works.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. It's all about conditioning yourself to the movement just like any other movement. Rather than going from zero to 100, you're building up from the start. You're building your foundation and then you're slowly increasing and progressing the weights as the weeks go by. You're not sort of jumping into a deadlift and expecting you can lift 100 kilos.
Speaker 2:That's when you're in danger of hurting your back yeah, so that would be the main common concerns that we're discussing, I guess, today is that that deadlift is going to hurt your back. Is there any others that come up for you?
Speaker 1:I think that's definitely number one and I guess the the second one that comes up, which is an extension, that is, is it safe to deadlift and load your spine? Is it safe to bend the spine and flex the spine under heavy load? And the answer that is yes, it's absolutely safe. Um, the flexion of the spine, so bending forward, is actually unavoidable. You're always going to do some degree of flexion. In a squat, in a deadlift um, you might find that when the weight gets heavier, that degree of flexion increases because you're basically activating every single muscle fiber in your body to lift the weight up. But that is when you're more so lifting for your one rep max.
Speaker 1:Um, and when it comes to that bending forward and when it comes to spinal flexion, a lot of people do um, put spinal flexion or associate spinal flexion obviously with back pain, and there's actually very limited evidence to suggest that spinal flexion is an independent risk for low back pain. So, like that, that alone is the thing that gives you low back pain. Um, and because it's unavoidable in all movements, it just doesn't make sense that that would be the you know the cause of your back pain because you've flexed your spine and that just goes back to. Often or not, it's because the back is not conditioned for the load or it's not prepared for the load.
Speaker 2:You're you're forcing it to do I remember learning about this a little bit from dr lock. I did a seminar and he was there for three days and we're talking about back injuries and deadlifts and he showed us like a visual of the spine and how the, the disc, obviously the fluid between the actual joints, and how that works, how that functions and when someone does slip their disc, and he was talking about how all this stuff comes together. I think this is why I've really been strongly that a deadlift doesn't hurt your back. It's only when you do it wrong or when you are so so bad to say outdated, as I say, when you're outdated, when you're not mobile when you haven't actually
Speaker 2:been working on your mobility and your strength of your spine, these injuries happen. He was saying think about you, sit in a certain position for whatever eight hours a day. You're slunched over. The body's used to you actually being rounded already, so then you go and load it with an exercise. It's obviously putting a lot of pressure on that disc and that is how things go wrong. Right, and then he was saying how to help condition that back. You need to do the reverse.
Speaker 2:So rather than being and just to give, like the audience, a visual rather than being slunched and hunched over for eight hours of the day, it's also not equally not as good to be sitting upright and trying to be, you know, super stiff and tall for eight hours a day, because there are endurance muscles, he was saying, and endurance obviously is strenuous. So neither doing this for eight hours hunched over and neither sitting upright for eight hours is equally healthy. So you need to find the middle ground where you're both maybe doing a mixture of both things and involving the flexion, extension of the spine to keep it in equilibrium. If anything is out of balance and one thing is doing more than the other all the time, of course, that's when you're going to have the injury like yes, that's coming.
Speaker 1:That's when you're going to have overload, just like when you know if you're sitting down for too long. They say, okay, stand up as a balance. You know, have a sit to stand desk. So you do a bit of both too much. One thing is never good. The body loves variety. The body loves to be mobile. The body loves different movements all the time. So if you're only giving it one movement, well then you're. You are more likely to overload in that particular movement exactly right.
Speaker 2:So why is the deadlift great then? What's the benefits? Because we've really banged on. And why? Why everyone is wrong about thinking that it's not good. But why is it good, I think?
Speaker 1:it's funny because one of the benefits is that it strengthens your back, which is hilarious because it goes against what people are saying deadlifts are bad for your back. Deadlifts are actually really great for your back because you build really good strength through your back extensors, which most people are really weak in, and because it is a compound movement, it not only strengthens your back, it strengthens literally your entire body, your whole lower leg. Your core is on, you get forearm strength, you, you know you're working everything.
Speaker 2:I think also, I would add, is it teaches you how to lift something up from the floor, because I feel like when you are lifting a couch or you're doing like, we've had clients who have come in it's a functional movement yeah, it's a functional movement who have been doing renovations or been moving out and helping someone else move out, and then they've hurt their knee, they've hurt their back, they've twisted wrong. Like it's actually stable, like a deadlift requires a lot of stability.
Speaker 2:It's like compound movement Like a squat, as wellbell squat. It requires your body to be tensed and tension is so good and when you do it correctly, obviously your body's going to work with you. But as soon as you're slack, that's when things go wrong, so it's very functional yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It strengthens you to do, strengthens your body in order to prepare things you know in life heavy lifting, moving stuff, whatever it builds why wouldn't you want to do it? Why wouldn't you want to do it? It's such a great movement, it's such.
Speaker 2:If we haven't sold you on this, I'll be really sad I think for me personally, I did this I haven't done deadlift probably a couple months. Personally, I love, I love it, but then I go through a phase where I hate it but I can still do it. So I think it's good to have the understanding of how to do it and be really, really good at doing it because, like to be honest, doing something for a couple weeks is not going to make you an expert at the deadlift at all. Same, with the squat, a bench press, a hip thrust overhead press, you need to be doing like it's reps. You need reps and reps and reps and reps on reps on reps to really get good at something and be doing it properly. Because when you start to injure yourself and you're just doing reps on reps of injury prone movements like that, you're putting yourself under. Then, of course, why would you want to do it again?
Speaker 1:so you need reps on good reps on good reps and it's funny because whenever there's a period where I haven't done deadlift for a while, when I reintroduce deadlift I get really crazy back fatigue. So the next day I almost prepare for it and when it happens I expect it and I think cool, I worked my back a little bit. I'm happy with that because I know that's going to happen. But for most people, if they're feeling back fatigue the next day, they're freaked out. They're like oh my god, I used my back. Oh my god, you know this is really bad, I'm going to hurt myself, but most of the time it's actually fatigue.
Speaker 2:That's not a bad thing do you think, though, because we lift, there's a certain expectation even for lifters who have a break or they don't do a movement for a while, there's an expectation that because we've done that certain weight before, we can introduce it straight away? Definitely, yeah, and that mind, but I think it's a bonus that there's a mind to muscle, so like there's muscle memory. Sorry, so you can do it, it's just that, oops not yet.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's more like you probably get to it quicker, you probably build back up to that weight quicker, but just not in the first instance. But then I guess it's kind of like um, it reminds me of when a client, I don't know, just say they're in their 40s and when they're in their 20s they used to play a certain sport and they used to be really good at running, and then all of a sudden they decide they want to get back into running and they haven't ran in like 20 years and they decide to do like a 5K run. And they come to me and they're like my knees are sore, my ankles are sore, I've got really bad shin splints.
Speaker 1:You know, running so bad? It's because I'm old and I'm like no, no, no, no, no, it's just because you're not conditioned or running, you're not used to running, you're, you know, you haven't ran for 20 years, or whatever the timeline is, and you're now demanding your body to move in a way that hasn't that it hasn't done in years. Of course it's going to be so. Of course it's going to be tired, of course it's going to be a little bit grumpy. You went a little bit too hard and they're like oh okay, that actually makes sense.
Speaker 2:So, my cool, just pull it back a little bit, maybe do like 1k, it's almost so obvious, but it's like it's so obvious, but it's not yeah, it's like the expectation that they'll just be able to bounce back and like I think we we'd also do the same thing. Like we can, we can do this, we can do this, and then you might do it. You're like geez, I'm gassed with geez, like I don't have that skill anymore. Geez, I gotta work on that again 100%.
Speaker 1:I did that last week. Last week I haven't ran in a very long time and I just had. So you're the example I was no, I was not the example, but I. This is this is a second example I um I decided I wanted to do a 1k run just because I wanted to test myself out.
Speaker 1:I'm like let's see how I go. I was on the tready. I had just finished a leg workout which guys do not do this at home. So I just finished a leg workout. I was tired and then I just decided I'm going to go for a 1K run after that. But in my head I knew. I knew the next day I was going to be fatigued. I knew the next day I was not going to be able to probably walk.
Speaker 2:I knew the next day there was a chance I was going to be sore.
Speaker 1:And I did the 1K and I was very proud of myself. Good job. And then the next day my knees were sore, I could not walk, my legs were done, my calves were sore, my glutes were sore. But then, you know, two days later I was fine and I knew it was because I went too hard what do you run that? 1k and I'm curious sorry, it was a very slow 1k. It was, I think it was six minutes 40. It's very minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's slow okay it was at a nine and a half kilometer per hour pace. Okay, it was like a faster. It got slower towards the end, but I was just proud that I could do it. But the thing was in my head I knew that I probably was going to be sore because I overloaded. And I think if clients understand that, okay, if you're going to go hard, expect that you're also probably going to be sore for the next couple of days. Doesn't mean that you're going to be injured. Doesn't mean that you have to throw in the towel. Doesn't mean that you know the the movement is bad for you. It just means hey, you went too hard, your body needs some time to recover. Give it that time and then maybe don't go as hard the next time.
Speaker 2:Exactly I think that's a good lesson same with the deadlift, you know yeah, it's good to be able to control yourself because there are moments for those of you who are listening. I'm sure there are a fair few of you who are quite active and that's why I probably listen to our podcast, because we do talk about this kind of activity stuff. So if you are that type of person who you know maybe has a bit of a stop-start routine and you are yo-yo habit behavior with training, food, rehabilitation, you know your exercise, that your rehab professionals given you whatever it is, that stop-start is also holding you back and maybe also that annihilation point, it's fun, I get it, it's a good challenge sometimes. But if you're definitely yo-yoing between like on program, off program, I wouldn't recommend doing what Steph did. Steph is not on and off the program. I wouldn't ever recommend what Steph did, but Steph knows.
Speaker 1:Steph knows the consequences, steph understands it. Steph allows herself a couple of days afterwards and Steph will not do it again.
Speaker 2:Maybe until three months later. Until three months later, we had questions. Should we go through some questions?
Speaker 1:Let's go through some of the questions. All right, so the first question was is it safe for individuals who are previously presented with pathology of the spine? All right, so the first question was is it safe for individuals who have previously presented with pathology of the spine to deadlift? Now this is a hard one, because I'm going to be that annoying person that says it depends, because I don't know what the pathology is. But um say, for example, when wouldn't you?
Speaker 2:when wouldn't you?
Speaker 1:when? Yeah, okay, I guess, yeah, I guess, in the case, when wouldn't you, um, you wouldn't go back into dead lifting? If you are very, very sensitive to that spinal flexion, that's probably not the first exercise I would recommend. If you have a disc bulge and it's pushing on the nerve and spinal flexion sets it off, that's what aggravates the. That movement is what aggravates your disc bulge, it's what aggravates the nerve pain, it's what aggravates your back pain. That's when I probably would not choose like. That probably wouldn't be an appropriate exercise because it's an aggravating factor for a client. If it's not an aggravating factor for a client and they do not experience pain, inflection, then it is okay and probably encouraged to build some spine strength because, remember, bones adapt too, discs also adapt to, so loading up inflection can actually be really good for the spine if it's not an aggravating factor, if they don't have pain, if they're not getting any of that nerve tingling, burning sensation sorry.
Speaker 2:Can you talk more about what you just said? Then? Bones adapt. Bones I don't understand, discs adapt, but can you talk about how bones adapt?
Speaker 1:yeah, so like, just like bones, just like muscles, muscles get strong. Bones can actually get strong as well in terms of increasing density.
Speaker 2:Ah, duh I mean my bones adapt yeah, I was like how does a bone adapt? This is new to me. Yeah, okay, okay Can with.
Speaker 1:so so yeah, with someone with a disc bulge you're essentially saying that if it is quite fresh, yeah. And the disc bulge? It depends on the severity of the disc bulge as well, because you can have a disc bulge. So if you look at like stacked up Lego, if the Lego is slightly backwards or forwards but it is not pressing on the spinal cord and is not pushing on any nerve, that's when it is probably safe to deadlift. That's when it is probably safe to deadlift if flexion is not an aggravating factor and if they're not experiencing that pain down the leg and everything like that depends where they are during their rehab process.
Speaker 1:I actually like giving clients with disc welters deadlifts. I won't give it to them at the start, depending on their presentation and how severe the deadlift is uh, sorry, how severe the spine is, um, and the bulges, um. But I have rehabbed many clients with disc bulges who would like to return back to deadlifts, who are now deadlifting. And again, that goes back to the second thing, or the second answer with that is well, it depends on your goal. If your goal is to get back into dead lifting because you love it, well then slowly build them back up. If they don't care about the deadlift, they don't care about lifting heavy, then is it the right exercise. You might want to choose something else, because why would you want to risk?
Speaker 2:that sorry again, steph, is this the same for a spinal fusion?
Speaker 1:yes, okay, if they don't have any pain then and they want to deadlift, then I don't see an issue in slowly building them into a deadlift and conditioning them into that movement. But if it's not really their goal, then you know you don't have to. And again, you know there are more ways to deadlift than just conventional. You can do a sumo deadlift, you can do a trap bar deadlift. They're great variations, for if you can't conventional deadlift or if you don't have the mobility, you can always you know you don't have to always conventional deadlift yeah, there are options as well I think with the deadlift there's a couple of things you can do to look at to see if someone can deadlift, but a good like starting point is lever lengths, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Length of femur, their hip, their hip, mobility Hip mobility, yeah, and mobility too. Yeah, and the hamstring engagement for me is a big one and like being able to, like you said, start pushing through the floor. Those kind of simple things are so pivotal.
Speaker 1:And it just goes back to the goal. If um say, for example, so when I used to work with a few soccer athletes getting them strong in their off season, um, we would basically lift, they would be lifting heavy and they would be doing whatever they want in terms of lifts. They would do deadlifts, they would do squats, but when it got to in season we pulled them back on a conventional deadlift and we would get them doing trap bar deadlifts because it's less pressure, less demand on their back and it's sport-specific. So for them, you know, we didn't want to risk causing them an injury if they're lifting heavy. We wanted to complement their sport by giving them stuff in the gym that is low risk but still getting great adaptation and keeping them strong.
Speaker 1:So for us, choosing the trap bar deadlift was just a lot better one, because athletes get stiff during the season. They can't get into that hip hinge position with the deadlift. Their backs get really fatigued from running. They get really sore. So trap bar deadlift was a really great option and it worked really well for those athletes. So again, it's just specific to the actual goal and what you want to achieve. That's clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely shall we do? Second question yeah, okay. So you had another question come through. It was when do when do you start to feel it in your glutes? Person said I only feel like I feel it in my legs. What am I doing? So steps made me answer this one. So I think with you're not going to feel your glutes as much, I would say it's probably like 10, 15 I'm really throwing out a random, arbitrary number here but to me, as I've said from the very start, hamstrings, feet, you should be feeling those mostly take over. Perhaps you feel your glutes when you do an rdl, when you do a hip thrust, but that it's not going to be the same kind of stretch prime squeeze.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that you do. You do feel from those movements and you want to find that in a deadlift. You're not going to find that If you're doing a sumo. I know a lot of influencers and there are a couple of coaches who I do follow that like to use a sumo deadlift for glute. I do think this uses your adductors a hell of a lot in a deadlift position. Personally, I think for glute development and RDL, or if you're doing something like a hover deadlift, this can be really good like a pause at the shins.
Speaker 1:It can be really good for glute.
Speaker 2:I have found personally with myself and clients, when you essentially are doing the deadlift movement, you come off the ground just a little bit, maybe five centimeters or so, and you're at just hovering at that shin, being able to cramp your glute is a really cool mind to muscle skill. So I do think that it can. It can be utilized, but I don't necessarily think that it's going to be like steph said, it's not the prime mover. If you're just doing regular conventional deadlifts and you're looking to achieve to shift the most amount of weight possible from a powerlifting perspective, of course they're going to be involved. Like you can't just not use your glutes, of course you can't just not use your quads either, but it's like when you're pressing from that position, the activation required from your hamstrings and your quads either, but it's like when you're pressing from that position, the activation required from your hamstrings and your quads is so much more dominant than it is from your glutes just the positional.
Speaker 2:It's just a positional thing.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's my answer you're not going to quote unquote feel you won't necessarily feel your glutes during the deadlift. So if that person does feel it in their legs and they're probably doing it, right hey yeah, if you feel your quads and deadlift, fantastic.
Speaker 2:But I would say that there is another muscle that you want to take care of, which is the posing muscle, which is your hamstrings, and if you can load them both equally and drive through both of them, then you're going to get a lot more bang for your buck in strength and overall hypertrophy anyway.
Speaker 1:So and I think it just goes back to again your goal of the deadlift. If it's to lift as much weight as you can, well, then you will want to bring on the quads and you will want to get into a position where you're loading both quads and hamstrings, because then you'll be able to lift more. If you want to load up your hamstrings more than you'd probably get into more of a higher hip hinge starting point where you're not really recruiting as much quads and it's becoming more of a hamstring dominant type deadlift.
Speaker 2:Actually yeah, you should have said this off, cam we're talking about the deadlift. And what is the style of deadlift that we're actually talking about? Because there's a powerlifting deadlift and then what I term is the olympic weightlifting deadlift where essentially for them, they're trying to recruit as much power as possible and that position for them is the strongest by their quads. They're pulling from that and using their, their quads, to actually generate the power is more advantageous than trying to generate powerful hamstrings. They use the hamstrings to land and actually stop moving and create tension, right, right, stability, essentially. So it depends what you're talking about. But if we're talking about a regular deadlift, where what did you coin it before? Like a high hip?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, high hip or low hip. High hip is like you start in like a high RDL position, and then low hip is you're almost squatting it yeah.
Speaker 2:So I call the low hip to. To me, the low hip I'm thinking of is even lower than the powerlifting position you're talking like the deep yeah that's.
Speaker 1:That's a whole nother. That's a whole nother.
Speaker 2:Movement altogether that's so amazing. Oh, they're so amazing they really are we had one more question how do?
Speaker 1:I get back into deadlift if my back hurts and I'm scared to deadlift this one I really love, because I've had quite a few clients that do hurt themselves from a deadlift if they've gone um too hard or they're a bit overloaded or stressed, or often it's external factors or adding layers and layers and layers into a snowball effect, and that's kind of how they got there in the first place.
Speaker 1:But obviously the easiest and most obvious answer to get back into a deadlift is to just do it lighter as a starting point. But if you are scared to deadlift from the ground initially, a rack pull is a really good starting point. So for those that don't know what a rack pull is, um, you're using a squat rack with the long pins, you're popping the barbell down and you basically line it up in an rdl position. But you can go as low as you can or as long as you feel comfortable, so you can get comfortable hinging and lifting up. So you might start from the knees and then you might drop it down to mid shin. Then you might start to use plates underneath the barbell. So you're not starting your deadlift from the ground.
Speaker 2:You're starting it a little bit higher and then you're slowly lowering your weight down until you get to the ground I think that's a good recommendation to go like, as long as you've also been training for at least four weeks and training two, three times a week, because you want to also incorporate 45 degree back extensions. If you can't do 45 degree back session, do some supermans on the floor, do some hamstring curls.
Speaker 1:We want to make sure we're busting the other areas to help exactly and maybe there's a um more psychological confidence to do it there's a really good um endurance back endurance test on the um on the glute ham raise. So you're basically you're basically parallel, yeah, to the ground and you're basically parallel to the ground and you're basically in mid-air and you're holding that position and it loads up, it fires up like crazy your back extensor muscles and if you can hold it for three minutes it means that you have really really good lower back endurance we actually did this at uni.
Speaker 1:We did this at uni and I held it for the whole three minutes. I was so adamant that I was going to hold it in the back fatigue. It was crazy. I can feel my back tensing up and I swear for the next three days it felt like I was still doing that back extension. They were on.
Speaker 2:Okay, what not to do. Maybe start with two minutes, yeah, or probably start with two minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or probably start with 30 seconds. It's an aggressive movement, but if you really really want to strengthen the crap out of your lower back, that exercise, which is a very advanced version of Superman, that exercise is phenomenal. Such a great exercise.
Speaker 2:It's actually a client question. If a client is experiencing vertigo and they need to strengthen their back and the 45 degree is just really not going to work for them and Superman is also not advanced enough, in a sense, that you can't load it enough, is there another variation of a 45 slash split hand that you might have? It's on the spot, this is so on the spot. That you might have on the spot. This is so on the spot, it's just on the spot a superman you could hold it rather than rep it.
Speaker 1:That would be number one variation. Can they what? If they can do it?
Speaker 2:for a minute already, okay, and like we're squeezing glutes, squeezing quads, pulling hands, like arms are reaching everything's on, they can feel everything they can lay on the floor, but they can't lay on a 45 degree. Is it because they can't drop down. Yes, it's the down and up. Use it on the bench down. Use a bench. How?
Speaker 1:so get them laying down on a bench, prone it's on their stomach yeah so the distance between them and the bench them and the floor is not as high, so then they can lift up that way, so then they don't have to drop their torso all the way down and come all the way up and hold it are they locking their legs on the bench?
Speaker 2:they're locking the legs on the bench or you can hold their legs. Okay, cool, good, good to know, glad I asked so left field from the deadlift. But I just had to ask you some more train of thought about it's a back strength exercise yeah, because there are yeah fairly few people who suffer with vertigo vertigo.
Speaker 1:Vertigo is a hard one because you, you do need to wait till it passes. There's nothing from a. It's based on the um crystals in the ear getting moved and shifted and they kind of have to essentially wait till the crystals get back in there's. I've seen some um exercises from physios that help with the crystals in the head and help with the vertigo to treat it. Yeah, I think, but I don't specialize it in myself it is it was such a left field question.
Speaker 2:I do, but you, you're on. But try the bench, try the bench. Yeah, we'll try the bench. That should be a good example um, that's.
Speaker 1:I guess that answers the third question. Really, in terms of how to get back into it's a slow build start, start high and then slowly make your way down to the floor. I get, I get that absolutely sometimes it's just as simple as that you just gotta.
Speaker 2:If you want to get better at something, you've got to do the thing it's also hard to answer these questions sometimes because the context is missing and I think, with like talking about content, we need context about what is your personal case? What is?
Speaker 1:what?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly specifics about this that we're missing it can give you some general guidance on it, but it might not be as as individualized to you, and if you're someone that is a bit scared to deadlift, then you definitely need to be working with an allied health professional or a trainer that understands how to regress you and makes you feel comfortable with getting into the movement. Um, and you know, your starting point is just the point where you can do it comfortably, with little to no pain, and if that feels good, that's when you can progress. If you still feel the pain and it's higher than you know a four out of 10, 10 being excruciating then you're probably not ready for that movement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good advice too. Well, that's the questions. Thanks for sending those questions in peoples.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was great, we absolutely love answering questions.
Speaker 2:So, please, I love more questions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please drop as many questions as you guys want so we can answer them for you, because the more information we can provide you, the more helpful it's going to be.
Speaker 2:Well, we love talking, so give us more to talk about.
Speaker 1:We love a good chat, except for when the internet cuts out for five minutes and I have to sing. We are so lucky this podcast worked today.
Speaker 2:No, one wants, because I am sitting in my car doing this podcast after work. The internet has been down in the gym. I normally do it from home. I have had to reschedule this with step four, step like three, four times. It's been an ordeal.
Speaker 1:The internet's great when it works, and when it doesn't. We're left stranded, but that's okay yeah we improvise we did.
Speaker 2:This is the unfiltered health podcast.
Speaker 1:Exactly everything is unfiltered, original being ourselves all right.
Speaker 2:Well, that wraps us up. I think that's the wrap. Yeah, appreciate everyone listening. Thanks for being here and we'll see you next week. That's all folks.