Wednesday Red Session Week 2

Rest Day

Below is a portion of a good article.  Make sure you read it and compare it to your own deadlift.  The deadlift is an important movement, one that creates a strong foundation for all other lifts (clean, powerclean, snatch, etc)

REMINDER: We've got Rick Hawkes, Psychologist, coming on Thursday at 7.  Make it happen.

Deadlifts

Set your eyes straight ahead, lower your hips until you’re in a strong starting position with your back very flat, then make certain that your frontal deltoids are slightly out in front of the bar. This is a key form point. Should your deltoids be behind the bar, you will not have as much thrust at the start and almost always, they will continue to move backward during the execution of the movement. Once the frontal deltoids move back behind the bar, you lose pulling power.Those athletes with a great deal of experience can benefit by setting their hips fairly high, even as high as parallel to the floor, but this isn’t a good idea for those just learning the lift because they usually do not have the necessary back strength to hold that position at the start. The basic rule to remember on any pulling movement is that your hips and the bar must move upward at the exact same rate. While the higher starting position is an advantage, lever-wise, if you’re unable to hold it, you’re better off setting your hips lower.Keeping your back extremely flat and tight is critical for success with heavy weights and also for those final reps on high-rep sets. You can achieve this by pulling your shoulder blades together and keeping them locked in that position throughout the exercise. And this also includes lowering the bar back to the floor. While learning to do deadlifts, you should never allow your back to round at all. Later on, after a solid foundation has been established, you can get away with rounding your back, but not in the beginning. Flat going up and flat going down.Once everything is as it should be, take a deep breath and make sure every muscle in your body is tight, then do this: instead of pulling the bar off the floor, think about pushing your feet right down through it. This positive action will let you bring the bar off the floor smoothly and in the perfect line. Then, still keeping it tight to your shins and thighs, guide it all the way to the finish. When done correctly, the bar will just float upward. The bar should climb upward as if it were in a Smith Machine.The middle range is usually the most troublesome for both beginners and those more advanced. Many try to rush the bar through this range by jerking the bar off the floor, in hopes of using momentum to overcome the sticking point. This doesn’t work. All this does is to cause your arms to bend and your back to round. Your arms are no more than connecting links. Think of them as powerful chains. If they bend, you lose upward thrust, so they must stay straight from start to finish. And if you jerk the bar off the floor, your back will invariably round and the bar will be carried out of the proper line.Experienced lifters can explode the bar upward at the start and still maintain perfect technique through the middle and finish. Beginners cannot, so learn to break the bar off the floor in a smooth, controlled manner.The finish also gives some beginners trouble, mostly because they wait until the very last moment to bring their traps into the mix. A move that I learned to do enabled me to finish strongly was to involve my traps much earlier than my competitors. There’s no reason to wait to contract the traps, so when the bar reached mid-thigh, I contracted them. This elevated the bar several crucial inches and then all I had to do was drive my hips forward to complete the lift.Whenever an athlete waits until the bar is almost at the top before shrugging it upward he will almost always end up jerking the bar around. Which is not a legal lift. The move is much easier to do with the over-hand grip. Since I didn’t mind using the hook grip, it didn’t bother me at all. And of course, when you use straps, that’s not a problem. It can be accomplished with an over and under grip as well, but it’s a bit more difficult.Once you’re fully erect with the bar firmly under control, take a breath or two and lower the bar deliberately back to the floor while maintaining a very flat back, and keeping it once again close to your body. Always keep in mind that you can injure yourself using sloppy form while lowering a bar just as you can while lifting it. Don’t get in the habit of letting the bar crash back to the floor. This is troublesome on two counts. One, it can aggravate your shoulders and elbows, and two, it will throw you out of the correct position for the next rep. Even if it’s the final rep, lower it with care.Article Link: http://startingstrength.com/articles/deadliftusestarr.pdf