How to Perfect Your Deadlift Form (Part 2)
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Welcome back to Part 2 of our mini-series on perfecting your deadlift form! In this episode, we dive deeper into the nuances of deadlifting, covering advanced tips for maintaining proper form and exploring various deadlift variations. In this episode, I will guide you through each variation with step-by-step instructions, ensuring you understand how to perform them correctly and safely.
What I discuss:
Romanian Deadlift AKA RDL
Single Leg Deadlift
Stiff Leg Deadlift
Sumo Deadlift
If you loved this episode, be sure to tune in to…
Episode 441: How to Perfect Your Deadlift Form (Part 1)
Episode 415: How to Perfect Your Squat Form
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey there, beautiful human you're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I get you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it. Let's go. [00:00:28][21.0]
[00:00:28] Welcome back to part two of How to Perfect your Deadlift form. So I'm putting these mini series together because I get some of the most common questions when it comes to certain exercises, like how do you perform it correctly? Why are there so many variations? How can you tell them apart? How can I improve my form? All of those things. I get that regularly inside the app. And so I thought it would be great because these are all great questions to just kind of put together these mini series on certain exercises. So I did one on squats, which was Episode 415. And then last week I did part one of How to Perfect Your Deadlift Form. And then today's episode is going to be part two. And so I'm going to really in today's episode, not only going to completely give you the step by step guide on how to perfect your form, why they're so important, and kind of the main benefits. I'm going to continue some more benefits of deadlifts, how to do it properly, and then also going to share with you some, you know, deadlift variation and why each deadlift variation is what it is, how to perform it, what the purpose is and whatnot. So hopefully by the end of this episode you have number one. Like I mentioned in part one, you have a great greater appreciation of Dallas. [00:01:37][68.8]
[00:01:37] If you didn't have an appreciation of them before, or at the very least, you feel just more informed about it and you recognize, okay, this is why Julie programs so many freaking deadlifts throughout the week on a week to week basis. And, you know, the different variations and why they're programed in terms of, you know, what muscle groups they're hitting and, and working and whatnot. So in part one, I will go ahead and link that in the show notes that you can easily go tune in to that after that, after this episode, you don't need to tune into them. That one first necessarily. But essentially in part one I discuss the main benefits of deadlifts, which include, number one, that it's a compound exercise, so it's going to be working a bunch of large muscle groups. And just remember that this will help you build more muscle mass. And the more muscle mass that you have, the more calories you're burning throughout your workouts, as well as burning calories at rest. Number two deadlifts are actually amazing at strengthening those deep core stabilizers as well as just your core in general. Number three deadlifts increase your grip strength, which is, weirdly enough, increased grip strength is actually related to greater longevity and can help you in so many different areas in your day to day life. And lastly, number four deadlifts are the best exercise in my opinion. Arguably the best exercise you can do for your glutes, as it's a compound move that really focuses on your entire posterior chain. And it does have that that huge emphasis on glutes due to the hinging motion. We also talked about three big tip forms from part one. Number one, don't round your back and keep a neutral spine. [00:03:10][93.1]
[00:03:11] Number two hinge at your hips. And number three engage your core. So let me continue with more kind of form tips. And then towards the end I'm going to be sharing with you some deadlift variations and kind of their purpose for each variation and whatnot. So number four keep your neck in line with your spine at all times. So by doing this, it's going to really help you to keep a neutral head and neck position, which we all know is crucial for the form and what we learned in part one. For your deadlift, a neutral spine is essential for distributing the law, like the load evenly along your vertebrate column, which will ultimately reduce the risk of injury. So looking up or down, that's going to strain your neck and will throw off your spinal alignment. For example, tilting your head upwards while deadlifting, that's actually going to strain your neck muscles and alter your spine. Not all spinal alignment. This position can lead to hyperextension of your cervical spine, which can cause pain or even injury. Plus, looking at may actually shift your weight forward, which compromises your balance and makes it harder for you to actually engage the correct muscle groups. On the flip side, looking down, that can disrupt your form so it may cause you to round your upper back excessively as you attempt to maintain eye contact with the ground, leading to rounding your shoulders forward. This rounded back position. This actually can increase the pressure on your spinal disc, which is not good, and this can actually drastically diminish the effectiveness of the lift. So think of your spine and neck moving as one and staying in line, never breaking that line. So when your hips hinge backwards and your spine moves forward, your head moves with it. [00:04:47][96.4]
[00:04:47] Number five avoid your knees caving, so your knees should always track over your feet throughout the lift. And what I mean by that is that you should always be in one line. So when you look down at your knees, you shouldn't see your feet off to the left. They should be directly in front or in line with your knees. So keeping proper knee alignment during your deadlift. This is pretty important for several reasons, but the main reason is that it's really going to ensure that you help to prevent injury, because ultimately, all of these things, all of these cues are to help you to prevent injury because we don't want you to get injured, you know, trying to perform a movement that is supposed to be helping build more. Muscle, along with rounding your back in the exercise. Allowing your knees to kind of cave in is one of the biggest things that I see in terms of people and common mistakes that I see in terms of people getting injured, and it's typically just like an overuse injury that happens over time, like you're placing this imbalance pressure on your joints over time. That's going to lead to and result in a bigger injury. Right? This can lead to so many different things. It can lead to a meniscus tear, a ligament sprain, chronic joint issues, all those things that you I'm sure you don't want to deal with, right. The whole point of view resistance training is that you can effectively train your muscles and strengthen your bones and all of those things. So we don't want you to experience injuries, and that's why we're really going through these cues is so, so important to recognize proper form. So if you're someone who tends to allow your knees to cave inward, this typically means that you have some weaknesses or imbalances in your lower body muscles, especially your glutes or adductors. [00:06:24][96.7]
[00:06:25] And if that's the case, you're going to want to lift a lighter weight than you normally do to practice that proper form. So once you have corrected the imbalances, then you can start to increase your weight and lift heavier again. But I want to reiterate this. Lift lighter weights until your knees caving in is no longer an issue. So again, putting that ego aside, even though you think you might be able to lift a little bit heavier, really making sure that you're focusing on maintaining that proper form, because the last thing I want you to do is for you to increase your weight and then get injured, and then you have to spend, you know, 6 to 8 weeks of time off because you're trying to repair the injury, depending on how, you know, profound that injury is. Number six, push your hips forward at the top of each rep. So when you stand all the way back up, make sure that you finish the rep by straightening your knees, pushing your hips forward, and squeezing your glutes. So this is really way to maximize the effectiveness of your glute activation. Seriously, when you do this, you will notice a difference instantly. Like you're pushing your hips forward, you're squeezing your glutes. You will literally feel every fiber of your glute being worked. And to get kind of more technical on why this helps, locking out the hips at the top of the deadlift really ensures that you're completing the full range of motion of the exercise, so by fully extending the hips, you're maximizing the activation of your posterior chain, which again, are all of those muscles on the back side of your body. Your glutes specifically, are a very powerful muscle group that plays a significant role in the hip extension. [00:07:54][89.0]
[00:07:55] So by consciously squeezing the glutes at the top of the lift, you're ensuring that you're engaging these muscles to their fullest potential, which can lead to greater gains and muscle growth over time, which is ultimately what I know we all want. So at the top of each rep, push the hips forward and squeeze your glutes, not hyper extending it like not going all the way forward. But really, you know, pressing your hips forward and squeezing those glutes as much as you can. Number seven keep those dumbbells close to your body. So by keeping those dumbbells very close to your body, this is going to help you to keep proper alignment throughout the entire exercise. When you keep those dumbbells close to your body, you're effectively keeping the weight centered over your center of gravity, and this makes it easier to control the weight and maintain balance throughout the exercise. So when the weight is held away from the body, this is when it can shift your center of gravity, making it more challenging to control the movement. And that's what's likely going to trigger you to roll your shoulders forward, round your spine, and make other form mistakes that eventually could lead to serious injuries. But when your dumbbells are hold close to your body, this is going to reduce the sheer force acting on the spine and joints. And this is going to help to minimize the strength on your lower back and also encourages proper hinge hip mechanics, which we talked about. And this how essential that is in performing this deadlift effectively. This is also going to help you with proper muscle activation throughout the entire exercise. And this includes the muscles on the back, hips and legs. So by keeping those dumbbells closed, you're able to more effectively engage these muscles and maximize the benefits of the exercise. [00:09:30][95.7]
[00:09:31] So when I do dumbbells, I even think about kind of grazing the dumbbells along the length of my legs through the entire movement. So they're not entirely touching my legs, but they definitely are grazing my legs. They're definitely as close as they can get without, you know, completely being on my legs throughout the entire movement. And lastly, number eight, lift lighter. And this is my last piece of advice. Make sure that you're lifting lighter again until you've really nailed down the movement. It's going to be very difficult for you to master your form if you're lifting too heavy. And this goes for any movement, but especially movements that you really want to master. If you can master the hip hinge motion, pretty much every other exercise that has a hip hinge motion you're not going to struggle with because you have mastered that mind muscle connection. So think of it as you like, learning the foundations of the movement patterns so that it will actually benefit you with other movements in the future. Again, just remember that. Wait with correct form. This is always going to allow you to have better results than heavier weight with the wrong form. And the last thing that I want is for you to try these cues. And you know you're all excited. So you pick up these heavy dumbbells, you're trying all these cues and then you get injured. That is not what I want for you. I want you to feel comfortable and confident so that over time, you can master this move and then slowly build that strength over time, because that's what's going to lead to the greatest gains. Okay. So now that you kind of know the ins and outs of the deadlift form, there's one more thing that we need to get clarity on. [00:11:00][88.7]
[00:11:00] And that is all the different kinds of deadlifts. You've probably seen so many different variations, and there are so many more variations that I'm not going to talk about from this episode that there are generally and just deadlifts, but I'm going to talk about the deadlift variations that I program most inside my program, and that is the Romanian deadlift, the single leg deadlift, the stiff leg deadlift, and the sumo deadlift. So that's kind of break down each one. So number one Romanian deadlift. You guys might also know this as RDL. So if you ever see RDL or that that's just short for Romanian Deadlift. This is the type of deadlift where you begin by standing with your feet shoulder width apart. Your toes are pointed slightly out, holding the dumbbells in front of your thighs, so you're starting position should have a slight bend in your knees, and you maintain the bend in your knees throughout the entire movement, but you're not going to bend them more as you lower the lift down. So the amount of of bend that you have in your knees, that's the amount of bend that you keep in your knees, you're not going to be bending them down more throughout the movement. That would more so be a squat as you're you know, as you're lowering your knees are bending more. This is more. Again, this is a hip hinge motion. So the majority of the movement comes from that hip hinge pattern. So as you initiate the movement hinge at the hips while maintaining that neutral spine like we talked about, keep that chin tucked. But you're not totally looking down, right. You're keeping that neutral eyes, that neutral gaze. You don't you're not looking up. You're not looking all the way down. [00:12:26][85.3]
[00:12:26] That neutral gaze, that chin is tucked. Push your hips back and allow the weight to lower along your legs, keeping it as close as you can to your body without like, you know, scratching your legs but grazing your body. Engage your glutes and hamstrings throughout the movement. Feeling that stretch in the back of your legs. Lower the weight until you feel a slight stretch in your hamstrings. So for me, that's a little bit lower than like the mid to bottom of my kneecap. And then squeeze your glutes and return to the starting position. Remember that pressing the hips forward and giving your glutes that extra squeeze. So the biggest differentiator, your differentiator here is that your feet are shoulder width apart. Your knees remain bent throughout the entire movement, but they're not bending. As you lower. They stay the same amount of bent. So they're not slightly bent. They're not totally bent. They're halfway bent. If that's if that's a good way to kind of describe it. One piece of advice that, again, I mentioned in the previous episode was really just think of shutting that door with your glutes. And even if you need to practice that, like practice this movement pattern in front of a door, shut that door as you go down. Your glutes should go down and back right down and back down and back down and back your hips, your glutes. Those are it's shutting that door. It's shutting that door knob to close the door. Number two single leg deadlift. So the single leg deadlift. This is a unilateral exercise that's going to target the glutes, hamstrings and core. But because it's a unilateral movement meaning one leg, it's going to challenge your balance and stability because you're deadlifting, you know, one leg at a time versus both legs like the Romanian deadlift. [00:14:03][97.0]
[00:14:04] So to perform this exercise with proper form, you're going to start by standing on one leg with your weight evenly distributed throughout your foot. I personally prefer to hold two dumbbells even though it's a single leg movement. I prefer to have a dumbbell on both hands to kind of even out the way. Or if I am holding one dumbbell, I will hold that goblet, so meaning that I'll hold it at the lip of the dumbbell, but the rest of the movement should stay the same movement pattern as the RDL. So as all of those cues that I just mentioned about the Romanian deadlift, they're going to keep that slight. Not ever so slight, but not totally bent. So, you know, halfway bent knee bend in your knee and and then you're not going to bend it more as you lower down whatever the bend is that you start with. That's the bend that you're going to keep throughout the entire movement. And keep in mind that because this is a unilateral movement, it's definitely going to challenge your balance. And so if you're just starting out, I would recommend with especially the single leg deadlift, you start out with bodyweight only or better yet I prefer the be stance version, which you'll see a lot programed in the movement app. And that's simply because a lot of women struggle with balance in single leg deadlift, and so I would prefer to have more balance and be able to still work that unilateral like still have the unilateral benefits of the exercise, but just have the back leg kind of be as a support. So that's what the B stance means. So this is where your non-working leg is on the ground, but it's only acting as a support. [00:15:30][86.6]
[00:15:31] Think of it kind of like a kickstand, so none of the weight is bearing on that leg. But it's there to help with balance so that you can get the movement pattern down without struggling with balance. Because that's the thing that I see most. And this is just I mean, I'm ten plus years into my lifting journey and I still struggle with single leg deadlift balance. So this is a great variation to do the B stance, even starting out with the bodyweight B stance. Single leg deadlift. Again, those are programed regularly in semi program, but this is just a great option. Another great variation that I program regularly in segment with Julie app that helps with balance, but you're still getting all the benefits of the unilateral movement pattern is single leg bench deadlift. And that's where your non-working leg knee is resting on the bench. So you're still reaping all the benefits of being able to work one leg, but your non-working leg is rested on the bench and I love that one. So the single leg bench deadlift is another one that I program regularly. Okay, the third variation that you'll see a lot is the stiff leg deadlift. So stiff leg deadlift is a movement that really targets. I mean obviously it's still going to target your glutes, but it's really going to target your hamstrings because you're not bending your knees nearly as much as you are as a Romanian deadlift. So your feet are shoulder width apart, maybe a little bit more narrow. I personally face my feet towards the forward versus having that slight bend out of my toes in this variation, and I'm still holding the dumbbells in front of my thighs. So again, you're hinging at the hips while maintaining that neutral spine, keeping that chin tucked but not going all the way down to where your gaze is low or your gaze is high. [00:17:09][98.2]
[00:17:09] That neutral gaze chin tucked, pushing your hips back and allowing that weight to lower along your legs, keeping it close to your body. The range of motion in my. For me personally, again, this is going to vary from person to person, but is the range of motion for the stiff leg deadlift is a lot less than the Romanian deadlift, and that's because I do not been pass the top of my kneecap. And that's because I'm really trying to hit my hamstrings. So as soon as I feel that complete stretch in my hamstrings like I am back up, I'm not going past my knee. So typically again, it's the top of my kneecap. Again, this is going to vary from person to person based on their anatomy, their length of torso and whatnot. But you really want to be feeling this. The majority of the exercise in your hamstring versus just, you know, the majority of it in your glutes, which is what you normally do in what you normally feel in the Romanian deadlift. And again, this move is specifically targeting your hamstrings. Obviously, your glutes are going to be activated, but not as much because they're still secondary. Secondary. The nature of the hip hinge movement but stiff leg deadlifts, man, those are a great movement to target the hamstrings. Another move that you know, I I'm not going to go into too much detail, but to really target those hamstrings are hamstring curls. Dumbbell hamstring curls love them. But dumbbell hamstring curls can be difficult for some people. So I always program stuff like deadlift as an alternate for dumbbell hamstring curls. Because of the nature of stiff leg, you're just naturally going to be recruiting those hamstrings a lot more. And lastly, number four sumo deadlift. [00:18:44][94.7]
[00:18:45] So the sewer deadlift is a variation kind of of the conventional deadlift, which we did not really go into detail in this episode. And that's simply because the conventional deadlift typically tends to be with barbells, because the conventional deadlift is where the barbell starts on the ground. And so every single movement, you're picking up the barbell from the ground versus like having the doubles in your hands and then going down. But regardless, you start with a wider stance, a more upright torso position. So to perform this sumo deadlift with proper form, you're going to start by positioning your feet much wider than shoulder width apart, not so far to where you're going to lose your balance, but definitely wider than shoulder width apart. And your toes are definitely going to be pointing out at a 45 degree angle. So I program this movement a lot as well. I have a variation of this. This I have the sumo deadlift with two dumbbells. But then I also have another variation which is similar to the sumo deadlift that I program a lot called the central weight deadlift. And this is again more of a sumo deadlift because of the wider than shoulder width apart in terms of your feet, and then your toes are pointing outward. But I personally with the central weight deadlift you're doing one heavy dumbbell. And so you are still getting all the benefits of the sumo deadlift. But I personally, I don't know. I personally prefer the central weight deadlift over the sumo deadlift. When it comes to dumbbells, I find that I can just get greater range of motion and I just feel more comfortable with the central weight deadlift. But either way, both of them are going to be targeting your glutes and hamstrings. [00:20:15][90.7]
[00:20:16] Definitely your hamstrings a little bit more than the Romanian deadlift because of the nature of just your feet being wider than shoulder width apart and those toes pointing out. Out at the 45 degree angle, but regardless, similar kind of setup when it comes to row Romanian deadlift, your knees are not going to be bent as much. I would say your knees are probably going to be bent a little bit less than Romanian deadlift, similar to the stiff like deadlift, where it's just a slight bend in your knees. And that's because your feet are so wide that you won't be able to bend your knees as much. Right? The nature of the Romanian deadlift is that your feet are shoulder width apart, so you have the ability to bend your knees more. But with the nature of the sumo deadlift and the central weight deadlift, your stance is wider than shoulder width, so you won't be able to bend your knees as much. But no matter what kind of deadlift you're doing, all of these forms and the form cues that I previously mentioned, those kind of do apply. They're all very, very similar. So I hope that this was helpful for you. I know that it's kind of an audio. And oftentimes visual can be easier when it comes to cues for exercises, but I really think that it can be super beneficial of you, you know, tuning into this episode with a pair of dumbbells or even just bodyweight and kind of going through these cues so that the next time that you see it programed in the movement with Julia, if you're able to say, oh, yeah, I do remember those cues, and you're able to perform proper form so that you can recruit all of the proper muscles. [00:21:43][86.7]
[00:21:43] But again, let me quickly recap what we talked about in today versus our, in regards to proper form. So number four, keeping your neck in line with your spine at all times. Number five, avoiding your knees from caving in. Number six pushing your hips forward at the top of each rep. Number seven keeping your dumbbells close to your body so grazing your body not necessarily like hitting your body but grazing them. And lastly number eight lifting lighter. So putting aside that ego and remembering that form is superior. And then we went into the different, types of deadlifts that the most common. Again, there's so many different variations, but these are the most common that you'll see programed inside my program. That's the Romanian deadlift, aka RDL. You can think of this as kind of, you know, your knees are the most bent that they are of any deadlift, but they don't bend as you go down. Whatever your bend is at the start of the lift, that's the bend that you stay in the entirety of the lift. And then we have the single leg deadlift, similar to the RDL, but you're focusing on one leg at a time. Or better yet, you're doing that B stance or the bench deadlift variation. And number three, the stiff like deadlift. This is going to really be targeting and recruiting those hamstrings. So very very slight bend in your knees shoulder width to maybe a little bit even more narrow than shoulder width apart for your feet. My feet personally face forward versus slightly toes pointing out they like they do in the Romanian deadlift. And then just that ever so slight bend in the knees so that you're really recruiting those hamstrings. And then lastly, sumo deadlift. [00:23:14][90.2]
[00:23:14] Again, this is going to be much wider than shoulder width apart. Your toes are going to be pointing outward at a 45 degree angle, but your knees are going to be bent similarly to the stiff leg deadlift. Just because of the nature of how wide your stance is, you won't be able to do much bend in your knees, so hopefully that was helpful for you. I know that that was a lot of information, but again, my goal is that you feel encouraged, empowered, educated, and if you didn't have an appreciation of deadlifts before, hopefully now you do. Hopefully now you're like, I love the deadlift, especially if you're wanting to grow those glutes. I'm telling you, it is one of the best exercises to grow to grow the glutes. So if you want to learn more about movement, Julia. After I program five brand new workouts every single week, we have lower body, upper body, cardio and core, shoulders and glutes. Full body. You can do one workout. You can do three workouts. You can do all the workouts. Every workout comes with a 30 minute or 60 minute variation, depending on your time constraints. Go at your own pace so you're not having to keep up with, you know, one long video and and sacrificing your form. You really there's form videos for each movement, video demos, and then you have the ability to log and track your weight, which is so fun. So you can learn all about that by going to sale. That's S-A-L-E dot movement with Julie.com I will go ahead and link that in the show notes. And then also be sure to check out part one of this two part series. And then if you want to learn more about how to kind of perfect your squat form, that is episode 415. [00:24:44][89.4]
[00:24:44] I will link that as well in the show notes, but that is all that I have for today's episode. I hope that you found this helpful. I love you so dang much, I mean it, I'll talk to you in the next one. [00:25:01][16.7]
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[00:25:01] All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie A Ledbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily post workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace it real because you're worth it. [00:26:08]