Exercises Everyone Should Do Part 2: Deadlifts

Welcome Back! Today I’m going to continue with my “Exercises Everyone Should Do” series and tell you all about the exercise that, next to the squat, I find to be the most important and functional exercise there is. The Deadlift.

Why do I feel that way? Well, have you ever had to pick something up off the floor? A bag of groceries? Your kid? Anything else? We’ve all heard stories about the guy who messed his back up picking a pencil off the floor, right? The deadlift teaches us how to do that while strengthening the muscles to make sure it’s done safely.

Also, it’s probably the exercise that uses the most pure muscle to perform. You use nearly every muscle in your body one way or another. Your quads, hamstrings, glutes, lower back muscles, spinal erectors, lats, chest, forearms, shoulders, traps and core all work very hard to perform this movement. What that means is that you burn a ton of calories performing it and you build more lean body, which increases your metabolism. That leads to fat loss.

As the cherry on top of your sundae, it’s also the purest strength building movement there is. If you want to get stronger — and you should always want to get stronger — you’ve got to deadlift.

Needless to say, I believe that nearly everyone should be doing some kind of deadlift movement in their exercise program. After all, why do we exercise if not to help perform better in our daily lives?

There are a few different variations of a deadlift and in the video I’ll show you two of them. The key, as always, is to use correct form. This will allow you to get everything you want to out of the exercise and do it safely.

What you always want to think about when performing a deadlift variation is the position of your back and chest. You want to make sure that you have an arched position in your back and that your chest is up. One way to help get into this position is to squeeze your shoulders back and down behind you. In the video I’ll demonstrate what this means and what this looks like.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many people simply do not have the ability to get into a good deadlifting position. For those people, simply put the weight on a step or a platform to lift it from a higher position. It is very important to keep that in mind and it is something that I go over in my video.

Please let me know if you have any comments or questions about the deadlift or anything else. Have a great day!

Mitch Rothbardt, CPT, PN Lean Eating Coach

510-754-7113

MitchRFitness@gmail.com

www.MitchRFitness.com

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