However, I’m not sure how we arrived at a situation where people are recommending deadlifts as the go-to exercise for people who want to maintain fitness. Experienced weightlifters and coaches generally won’t recommend that beginners focus on deadlifts, like you said.
We shouldn’t be making fitness sound so complicated or setting the bar so high. No one needs to be doing deadlifts to get into shape. Frankly, most sedentary people need to focus on small, achievable, and enjoyable fitness goals to start. Simply going for a 15-minute walk every day is a step in the right direction for beginners. Going to the gym is great if that’s your thing, but doing a handful of push-ups and stretches at home is also great for someone looking to get started.
The Internet has been great for disseminating fitness information and generating enthusiasm for exercise, but this trend of recommending advanced exercises and over the top workout programs like CrossFit to beginners has probably done just as much harm as good. We shouldn’t be making fitness sound like some complicated, difficult goal.
It is that, but that’s all. I’ve realised lately that it really isn’t enough.
Until earlier this year I was cycling about 15kms a day in the natural course of going to work, and climbing perhaps 30 flights of stairs a day in the natural course of living on the 3rd floor. Then I moved house, and I no longer do either.
I do, however, still walk a decent amount on the flat. My phone says I average about 7km/day (near enough 10,000 steps).
It’s not enough. It’s taken me a while to realise it, but I’m pretty sure that my current lower back issues are basically a result of stopping the cycling & stairs. I can’t prove it of course, but it makes a lot of sense. All of my glute/hamstring strength has just gone.
Starting tomorrow I’m forcing myself to ride about 15kms a day (~5 days/week), with some sort of an incline in there. I’m lucky that I enjoy this; I was luckier when it just happened as part of my day without me thinking about it. Making myself do it is going to be a lot harder. I need to figure out a way to “science the shit out of it” so I can at least gain motivation from the fact that it works (assuming that it does).
What's important is consistently moving. That means getting up from the desk every hour for a 5 minute walk or some stretching. Switching between standing and sitting at a desk is a first step in the right direction but really we need to be moving.
This gets almost completely ignored at most desk jobs but now that many people can work from home, the opportunity to get into the right routine presents itself.
Yeah, that's it. At least when it comes to overall health (I'm not sure about back issues).
I did a little bit of research on this theme myself and it seems that the key is to interrupt periods of prolonged sitting with any movement (even walking helps) for any period of time (even 1 minute helps). The more intensive/longer the better, obviously.
See also notes from my web-research at http://mnicky.wikidot.com/healthy-programmer (it's based on the book that got me started on this topic, but e.g. in Section 3 there's some additional reading about benefits of making pauses when sitting for a longer time and similar research).
Btw, using standing desk for prolonged time can be harmful as well, the truth is even more than sitting :) So yes, combine standing and sitting, but stand only for a shorter time (after 30min it starts to have negative effects).
If you stay in one position on the bike, and bike for a long time (hour+), it's probably worse for your back. But if you switch positions, you can find some nice stretches sometimes. Depending on the terrain, you might have to specifically remember to stretch your back while you're on the bike.
PhysicL therapist showed me a few basic stretches that helped. YouTube helped fix decades of problems.
Most important is to find something you can make into a lasting habit (for years). Otherwise you will end like most people with dieting do.
Is it? Is 1h of strenuous exercise at a time and sittimg the rest of the day not better than getting up every hour and doing some simple stretches or just walking around? Not trying to be argumentative, I honestly don't know.
I like low-bar squats, but I was never very strong in them(~1/2 my DL weight), they hurt my knees, and I've tweaked my back several times doing them.
I freaking love DLs. They feel amazing, they actually seem to fix my back pain, and I'm just downright strong in them(compared to my maxes in nearly every other exercise).
Now, I also have to say that as a 45 year old who has now gone through shoulder surgery, and gave up anything beyond farmers carries( * ) when it comes to weightlifting, that most people should just stick to cardio. I feel so much better now that I'm doing crazy hikes again and not carrying around a bunch of useless muscle. I'm better in bed, I feel less pain, I have more energy, and I'm not spending all day worrying about protein targets. To each their own. Weightlifting was fun and being big is kinda satisfying, but it's not something I will recommend anymore.
* - I'll probably get a bar and some plates to resume lower weight(275 or less), higher rep DLs once I move out of the bay area and have the space.
But deadlifts I seem naturally good at. I did a 200kg deadlift (2.5x bodyweight) which I'm proud of, but honestly I think I could go much heavier if I really wanted to train it. But I decided to leave it there as the risk of injury becomes too high after that. Nowadays I don't train it regularly but find I can still deadlift 160kg (2x bodyweight) at any time. It really helps my back and my shoulders.
Well, kind of. Squats have different limitations than DLs. But even a kid can squat (and their knees do go past their toes so cut the BS about that)
But low-bar squats are more similar to DLs than high-bar squats in movement requirements and activations.
What BS? This strikes me as an incredibly naive take on squats and people's ability to do them. Likewise, a kid is a bizarre benchmark, because they haven't yet had decades to abuse their body. Duck feet/knocking knees/knee valgus or even shin splits will make squats incredibly uncomfortable if not implausible to do with correct form. Add to that years of being a software dev. I imagine there are many other conditions that would start you at -2 or more in terms of progression.
> What BS?
About the myth that knees shouldn't go past the toes (the article is correct) https://squatuniversity.com/2016/01/29/can-the-knees-go-over...
I’ve been lifting for 2 years and have not experienced any long lasting pain and have not been injured. My progress is slow, 330/225/360 S/BP/DL at 220 BW (gained 30lbs) but I’m not in a hurry. I’ve been doing round back deadlifts for a while now (my spine has completely lost it’s natural lordosis due to a lifetime of sitting, my lower back has a slight rounding that I just can’t force into extension, my discs are completely fine and I have gained 2 inches to my height since I’ve started training) and have never experienced any back pain.
People start obsessing over their progress and start doing too much, either load or sets.
My well-being improved by a lot. Sitting for 8+ hours a day stopped being an issue and all the weird pains I had before disappeared.
This advice comes from myself who in the past dove into numerous exercises after watching 1 video, had crappy form, and had pain as a result. Slow and steady with proper form is definitely the name of the game.
Plus the mental clarity is great and the general calmness.
The hardest part (for me) is not to get too much into the culture. In the end as a middle aged man, I’m not going pro, I’m looking to feel great though.
Nice progress btw, I too am 2 years in.
Trying to add 5 pounds per workout and grinding through 5x5s after years of sedentary lifestyle is what gets people hurt.
Robert Oberst, another WSM competitor also says the same thing and talks about it on the Joe Rogan podcast (#1321 I believe). To quote:
"I went from football to strongman, and in football we never did deadlifts. It was all hang cleans and power cleans, which by the way, quick little tip: if you’re deadlifting to be a better deadlifter fine. If you’re not, (you’re) doing that for deadlift’s sake, don’t fucking do it. The risk to reward ratio is a joke."
"A lot of people are not going to like that I’m saying that. (…) If you go to any NFL gym, any college football gym, any athletics where people are actually getting paid and it matters what they’re doing, they’re not deadlifting. They’re hang cleaning and power cleaning."
For any pro athlete, consistent work is far more important than any one workout, hence avoiding injury is instrumental in success. The same holds true for hobbyists as well, of course, but the topic doesn't get as much focus there since many are self-taught. For consistent progress, work volume is much more crucial than work weight [0], hence doing an exercise with high risk and low volume isn't the best option.
I think one caveat he doesn't mention, is all the pro athletes choosing cleans over deadlifts also have coaches there who are making sure their form is good.
In that case then yeh, it's a more technical lift and provided you're getting good coaching you're less likely to burn out your CNS on a clean than on a deadlift.
I don't see why so much fear about DLs (and yes I've hurt myself once or twice - which is less than on other sports btw). And yes if you do it properly it's ok.
But I guess the issue is people trying to overexert and maybe not getting all the cues, and/or it's easy to "slip" and end up doing it with bad form and it requires good coordination (but maybe less than power cleans)
Low intensity, warmup, of course go for a PR once in a while because that's fun and maybe doing it more than 2x week is going to take a toll on your CMS
They’re also great for boxing. Help you generate more power on your punche. Uppercuts especially.
The trick is to not lift for hypertrophy. Lift for power and speed and neuromuscular activation. If you’re sore the next day you went too hard.
Deadlifts as the exercise it purely is, is less likely to give you the strength for running you desire. Having been in the atmosphere of "Train as efficiently as possible", I can attest that deadlifts are far from a great choice for physical health. My 75 y/o coach would tear me a new one if he saw me wasting time training them.
I'm not surprised deadlifts have helped you gain a strong back, but having also trained for a marathon I can tell you there is a plethora of other benefits you will miss out on by training your lower back instead of your legs and overall cardio fitness.
Leg blasters are significantly better and have a lower risk of injury.
I once was a gym bro who believed that deadlift and barbell squats where like the only thing you should do in the gym.
Until i blew my back really hard, doing squats following the 5x5 strong lift program. I really regret that now because it ruined so much for me. I now have constant pain in my back and i cannot do the sports that i truly love doing (boxing and bjj) like i used to.
Now i have a much different view on the gym. I use machines to a greater extent and i focus more on training for health than lifting heavy barbells.
>Ex-professional weightlifter of about 10 years here
This implies a number of things:
1. First and foremost, it implies the use of much higher weights and workloads than what a typical non-professional stronglifts or starting strength type lifter might be using. This is related to the next two factors: potential use of performance-enhancing drugs, and potential obesity. Without these two factors, you'd plateau at lower and safer weight, close to your natural limit.
2. It implies the potential use of performance-enhancing drugs. Performance-enhancer use is incredibly pervasive in today's professional athletic world. Their use will push you beyond your limits; the limits of strength, and the limits of what's safe and healthy.
3. It implies potential obesity: competitive lifting requires massive amounts of food in order to fully recover and continue lifting as much as possible. Teamed with performance enhancers, one might achieve a strength level, body weight, and muscle mass far higher than one's bones and ligaments evolved to handle.
So if you're using good form, not eating inordinate amounts of food, and not using performance-enhancers, you can safely and healthily deadlift. You will move less weight than the professional, but it will be weight that your body is more naturally capable of handling.
We've had deadlift scaremongering for decades with yet any solid proof to be produced against its use in general, non-PED using populations, as part of a general strength training and conditioning program.
I don't care what Hall or Oberall say - most of us are lightyears away from their numbers or from those kinds of environments. (I'm also asking for proof on Hall's negative stance on deadlifts, since I can't find anything about it)
To add, the best strength training programs I've tried use submaximal loading most if not all of the time, adding a further layer of safety: not only are you not pushing yourself past your limits with PEDs or insane training tonnage, you're purposefully staying below your natural limits.
Keep deadlifting with exquisite form and reap the benefits!
This is anecdotal evidence I know, but I can think of two friends that have gotten slipped disks from doing deadlifts in 2019, and this was during personal training sessions from "ex-Olympians" that cost $100s an hour.
A lof of gymnast / psycisian's advice I've read says the opposite. That deadlifts are a great exercize, and should not be restrained to the weight lifting / body builder types.
Great exercise != absolutely necessary or useful towards a specific goal
Maybe increase weight slowly if you're really starting quite low but at some and at a perhaps rather early point compared to what you see powerlifters pulling...Stop increasing the weight. It's tempting to keep going. To chase progress but....it's probably bad in that case.
You can train your muscles. You can't train your spine and you especially can't train your spine out of an injury. You should try to be helping your back with that exercise. I don't think you need it to try and looked ripped. There's other lower risk exercises for that.
However... Deadlifts as the exercise it is? Almost not worth doing in the scheme of things. Want to win a deadlift competition? Sure. But for any other reason I could strongly argue that there are many, many better suited exercises for your health than a Deadlift.
Deadlifts seem to be an extremely functional form of lifting movement to practice. I can see bicep curls being mocked for not providing any general benefits, or static planks not doing much except make you better at performing the static plank.
But the techniques you learn from and the muscles you strengthen doing deadlifts are the same you use when you lift a heavy box off the floor.
it's a somewhat similar story across some of my friends who i deadlift with.
a number of of powerlifters we follow on instagram are on regular cbd oil therapy. i'm on lyrica and a truckload of painkillers every day. we still go out and do it. grit your teeth and grind through the pain.
i don't do it as much anymore after i realized that i'm killing my future quality of life for absolutely no financial gain - i'm not selling instagram views, not selling training or equipment and things. but for a long time it was all vanity. none of it is necessary for sitting properly at a desk.
I'm wondering if the stories we hear from more experienced weightlifters like you are because you were pulling, say, 400+ lbs. I don't know, but I think the danger probably goes up exponentially as you cross a threshold of average physical tissue capacity. My all time DL max was 405, and I generally pulled around 365. DLs only made my crappy back feel better.
my physio basically said some people are born with better biomechanics and better structural strength for competitive lifting than others and i'm just not one of them.
if i can get back to at least a 400 lb DL i'd be pretty happy.
I'm not sure how much value there is to just state "Build physical strength" and the main take away is to do deadlifts. I think there isn't any doubt from a health perspective that doing weightlifting has benefits for overall health but the program someone should go on is dependent on so many factors. Also, why can't it just be "Stay physically active". I would say that has further greater benefits than even weightlifting. Doing half an hour to an hour of moderate cardio activity every day or a few times a week is great.
My recommendation for someone wanting to seriously get into weight lifting is to do your research. There is definitely a lot of "bro science" out there but fortunately there is also a great set of resources out there that is firmly in the realm of solid science.
Here is some Youtube channels that are very solid on approaching weightlifting grounded in real practice and science: Jeff Nippard, mountaindog1 (John Meadows), Greg Doucette, VitruvianPhysique and Renaissance Periodization.
A good book is: https://www.amazon.ca/Science-Development-Muscle-Hypertrophy...
What I have personally found is that for me there is two primary focus points: reducing the risk of injury and keeping consistent with the program. Reducing risk of injury comes down to knowing your own limits for what exercises are comfortable and not going hard with attempting to do max reps all the time. Personally, I don't do any traditional squats and for deadlifts I use a trap bar. Being consistent is much harder. Making a schedule to be in the gym three to four times a week is really hard.
So, yeah, if you want to get started with weightlifting, spend a few hours with those Youtube channels. Picking a class of exercises as a one size fits all is definitely not the way to go.
I'd add Mark Rippetoe (Starting Strength on Youtube) and Alan Thrall to that list.
Here's an example where he's talking about developing strength to get your first pull-ups: https://youtu.be/3YvfRx31xDE?t=75
Great source for problem solving specific issues that come up in strength training.
I would personally recommend almost anything else -- running, swimming, natural weight exercises (ie. when you are in unstable position lifting your own weight), that train a lot of different muscle at the same time and help keep things in balance.
I was a college football player, 60 lbs. heavier than now. When I met my current martial arts teacher he told me flat out, "it's going to take me 20 years to fix what you did to your body." He was right. I'm still fighting to heal tha damage that intense weightlifting over many years did to my body.
Strength is nothing without balance, relaxation, and control. Weight lifting is generally about isolating the muscles, when you should be working on integrating them.
Bodybuilding often involves a high degree of isolation exercises for fatigue management and for building specific muscles. But good luck deadlifting, squatting, pressing, snatching or clean&jerking etc without "integrating" muscles, or without good balance.
Don't base your decisions on what has been written in this thread. Most information here is anecdotal, garbage, or both.
Went to a personal trainer for a year or so - expensive as hell (like €75 per 30 minute session), but I had the money at the time and was lacking in many ways.
I couldn't do push-ups at first, because my wrists hurt too much from RSI. I couldn't really do deadlifts at a proper weight either, because my hands weren't strong enough. But after just a few sessions (using wrist straps), my grip strength increased a lot, and my RSI complaints went away. TL;DR, deadlifts helped me beat RSI. They're back now though, haven't been to a gym this year and before that it was sporadic at best.
Squats, I had trouble with those as well; the trainer identified the cause pretty quickly, pointing out ankle flexibility. Another one to consider. Gave me a specific exercise to sort that one out.
We did a lot of the hip flexor ones as well, split squats I believe they were called? I was so bad at those at first, complete lack of balance and control. I mean even after a year they were still uncomfortable to do, but it was a big improvement.
Part of me would like to go for PT again because I lack intrinsic motivation so I need some other guy telling me what to do, but I can't really afford it anymore.
Any outdoorsy activity is vastly superior to it due to exposure to fresh air and sunlight. It also tends to be less boring and monotonous than lifting heavy things for some inexplicable reason.
Personally I got religion on weight lifting after reading a book on aging. Losing bone and muscle mass is inevitable with age but if you have a good base you’ve got more to lose. If you keep on weight lifting you lose it much slower. I never got serious about it. I’ve never broken 100kg for a squat and I’m perfectly ok with staying there forever. But I’m going to get weak slower than those who only do cardio and I aim to able to sit up unassisted for as long as possible, and to avoid breaking a hip too.
This is false and shortsighted. Here are some benefits of strength training:
- Muscle mass and bone density maintenance and acquisition, which translates to better overall health. Many physical ailments in old age are related to the degradation of lean body tissues and strength training mitigates that. There is a massive change in trends where even general fitness, health-oriented programs for older trainees now incorporate a substantial resistance-training component.
- Strength acquisition causes performance gains in pretty much every sport with an anaerobic component. Even sports where strength training has been historically ignored like soccer (which I follow closely) are seeing a change of trend, as it has become obvious that stronger is better, and that significant strength gains do not have to come at the expense of other athletic attributes such as agility or speed.
- Strength training fixes posture and mobility issues. For untrained individuals, squatting under a light load (or even bodyweight) will likely reveal a host of problems issuing from the modern sedentary life, such as a lack of strength and mobility in key parts of the body, such as the abs or the hip flexors. Training for strength requires addressing these imbalances and helps greatly in the process too.
> Any outdoorsy activity is vastly superior to it due to exposure to fresh air and sunlight
This is in fact ignorant advice, and false, for the following reasons:
- Few "outdoorsy" activities are close to providing the benefits listed above
- You can train for strength outdoors: with your bodyweight, resistance bands, kettlebells or even a barbell setup. This is a false dichotomy that's being put forward.
It is absolutely fine if you want the bulk of your physical activity to be long walks in nature, but do know that the weight of scientific and practical evidence is overwhelming: you won't be optimizing for general health unless you incorporate some degree of resistance training into your physical activity routine.
> Any outdoorsy activity is vastly superior to it due to exposure to fresh air and sunlight.
Citation needed.
> It also tends to be less boring and monotonous than lifting heavy things for some inexplicable reason.
You're approaching this with the wrong mindset. Its the minimum viable test case for improvement. Many less variables than 'outside in fresh air and sunlight'. I also think you'll find that many people do lift outside, maybe you're stereotyping based on planet fitnessesque gyms that you've frequented.
I tried to simulate these feelings with other activities (soccer, running, bike, even calisthenics). No success. Not the way that barbell stuff do to me. And I'm not even a very strong guy (101kg bench, 130kg squat, 150kg deadlift @ 73kg).
After different types of exercise I believe what matters most is keeping the blood flowing and stimulating blood flow.
Strength is nice but when acids still build up it does you no good.
There are also no shortcuts. Exercise takes at least half an hour a day.
In my experience walking half an hour a day can be as good as lifting weights.
I'm quite fond of loaded carries. So, if I may pester you, do you have an opinion on loaded carries regarding correcting bad posture and back problems?
Deadlifting as an exercise is actually one of the three main lifts in powerlifting. What makes the best powerlifters is a high total weight combination of Bench/Squat/Deadlift which is generally how it's judged in most competitions these days.
I think there's a small line between deadlifting and what weightlifters like us would call cleaning. A deadlift is a lower-back dominant exercise, to build power and strength there. A clean is a similar movement of getting weight off the ground and into the air, but is completely leg and upper-body dominant, with many, many other accessory movements in-between. This is why we see Crossfit athletes implement weightlifting into their training and why it is so popular today- because of the rewarding "total body" strength gains and cardiovascular fitness.
I don't mean to undermine your experience tho!
Strongman is a bit different, partially because WSM isn’t drug tested.
Am I supposed to mainly feel glute, rather than ham, soreness in a DL?
Please only answer if you really know, mainly asking deviation.
What's that?
Also, squats are harder to learn, require good shoulder mobility (which a lot of desk jockeys don't have), and, at a minimum, require a squat rack, which you're unlikely to have at home. Better yet, I'd advise to use a power rack, which will catch the barbell if you fuck up your balance and fall forward.
TL;DR: while I agree that squat is a better overall exercise, and one that the author of the article should be doing if they don't have the time to do anything else, it requires a lot more gear and training than a deadlift. It is, therefore, not very practical to do barbell squats at home. And if the choice is between a deadlift and no lifting at all, it's deadlift all the way. It hits the posterior chain and core pretty well, and all you need is a barbell and a set of cheap-ass plates.
One way to not overdo it out of the gate is to not use straps on the barbell - you'll be limited by grip strength which is pretty slow to build. You also get to build a truly crushing handshake that way, for when we're back to handshakes. :-)
Don't get me wrong... It's an alpha exercise and you feel amazing doing it. But the only physical reward you get from deadlifting is the ability to deadlift more and alongside it have a severely higher risk of injury.
If you want a correlation between sitting at a desk and building strength to offset that, look at squats in all it's forms, and hamstring and quad dominant exercises. Your lower body is in much more trouble than your lower back from sitting at a computer.
Hipflexer stretches with resistance bands will also do you wonders.
Trust me folks. Doing deadlifts because you see the gym-bros on youtube doing them is a big mistake. Take a book out of Eddie Hall's playbook who says the exact same thing... And he's literally the strongest man in the world.