Deadlifts: A Brief Guide

Legend in the making.

Heck yes!

If you’ve ever spent any conscious amount of your life in the gym, you would have heard of deadlifts. What are they? Should I be doing them? (Hint: Look at the picture above). How do I get started? Look no further; in this post I am going to discuss this legendary lift (I’ll explain in a bit) in detail.

The human body is a very interesting machine. Millions of years of evolution has made us the way that we are today. And each joint, tendon and muscle fits in like a cog in a big factory. After a few months of being born, babies have been known to deadlift stuff off the ground (image below).

HAHAHA! GOTCHA!

Seriously though, babies are awesome deadlifters. However as we get older, we lose this natural gift.

Let me backtrack a little here. My first introduction to this legendary (wait for it) lift was in a gym where I saw one of my lifting buddies do it and another one commenting on how dangerous it was for the back. That’s like saying, don’t buy a car because there are thousands of vehicles which get into an accident every day; and so driving is dangerous.

Anyway, back to the article. So as we age, our bones and muscles grow bigger and stronger. We get taller and more muscular. On the contrary when we are kids, we have to optimize strength in order to lift something. This is why you will notice toddlers lifting things in the proper way —

As we get older, we stop doing these imperative motions to pick up things from the ground. We instead, prefer bending over our backs and lifting with the back instead of the legs. This takes a toll on our spines; which aren’t weak but if this motion is repeated, spinal injuries ensue.

So, in order to get started, stop bending over to pick up objects and bend your knees to get closer to the ground before picking anything up. This is the first step in learning how to deadlift.

Now going to the subject of who should deadlift. In the words of Jon Paul Sigmarsson

“There is no reason to be alive if you can’t do deadlift.”

And that is where the lift becomes legendary. Jon Paul Sigmarsson was a legend of his time. During his short 32 year life, he won the World’s Strongest Man four times (a record at the time). He passed away doing what he loved the most — deadlifting. That didn’t kill him though, he had a heart defect which resulted in his undoing. So, the man was nothing short of a legend. Hence, deadlifting=legendary.

Why should anyone do deadlifts though? Are they really going to make that much of a difference? Don’t listen to me. Take it from Dean Somerset here.

To quote him —

“Deadlifts are a total body exercise, working muscles from your toenails to your hair follicles.”

“Your testosterone will spike with each 1 rep max, roughly 13246% your regular walking around levels, which means you’ll be more likely to impregnate casual observers with nothing more than an icy stare, disrupt gang fights with your mere presence, and become the next supplier of Red Bull by bottling your urine.”

Alright, enough with the jokes (still an awesome read). Deadlifting has been scientifically shown to release testosterone (muscle building hormone) and HGH (human growth hormone). Don’t worry ladies, you cannot deadlift yourself to look too muscular unless you’re completely going insane on steroids. Deadlifting has also been shown to recruit almost all of the muscles in the body which means it is truly the definition of a total body workout.

If there was one movement which I could do for the rest of my life; it would be the deadlift. Pick up the weight from the ground and put it back, easy.

Now that I’ve got your attention, you must be asking; what is the proper way to deadlift. Here are some tips

No deadlift post is complete without a Yo Elliot video. I am a big fan.

Here are some more tips and tricks which will help you in your deadlifting journey —

Enough of me blabbering about deadlifts. Go lift some weight!

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Aspiring Polymath

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