How do deadlifts work your back

Tamir explains that deadlifts also work your traps, along with your lower, middle, and upper-back muscles. And your entire core gets a challenge, since it's responsible for stabilizing your spine through the movement. When performing a deadlift, you can use whatever weight you prefer: dumbbells, a medicine ball, barbell, trap bar, or kettlebell.

And you can opt for a conventional stance, or sumo where your feet are wider than hip-width —whatever feels most comfortable to you. There are a few variations on deadlifts to keep in mind, all which affect your body a tad differently:.

How to: Hold your weight down in front of your thighs at arm's length. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your knees slightly bent.

Brace your core. Bend your knees, and hinge at your hips, lowering until your thighs are almost parallel to the floor. Pause, then squeeze your glutes and raise your torso back to starting position.

Simply wear high socks or sweatpants to protect your legs, Gentilcore says. A conventional deadlift requires some knee bend—not as much as a squat, but enough that will allow you to get down to the bar. Put very simply, without a good knee bend, your deadlift won't be able to get off the floor. Not giving yourself enough of a knee bend can throw that alignment out of whack, bringing your hips way too high—above your shoulders.

Shannon agrees. Your spine is still neutral with your trunk in a forward leaning position. Cue the back pain. When lots of guys get to the top of the lift, they finish it off with almost like a hip thrust—with the belief that extra range of motion will actually work their hamstrings and butt even more. As a result, you might end up with your pelvis too far forward. You want to finish your lift completely upright and your knees locked, squeezing the glutes, he says.

Actually, most guys do a pretty good job engaging their abs at the beginning of the lift, according to both Gentilcore and Shannon.

Once you complete your lift, you might be tempted to let gravity take over and just drop it from the top. Bad idea: The uncontrolled dropping of the weight can knock your body out of position as you hunch your shoulders downward, seriously straining your lower back and leading to pain. Keeping yours abs engaged—as well as your lats—during the controlled lowering of the weight can help.

Before your lift, brace your gut as if you were going to take a punch. You can take a breath at the top, but you still need to keep your abs on. Shannon is a big proponent of alternative exercises.

He suggests trying a standard barbell deadlift from a higher position: "Maybe deadlifting from the ground does not best cater to your needs," he says. They are the driving force behind the deadlift from the ground up. The hamstrings comprise of 3 muscles, that act to flex the knee. As you push your hips back in the deadlift, you should immediately start to feel tension through the hamstrings. The stronger your hamstrings, the healthier your knees are going to be.

The muscles of the low back include the erector spinae extensors and the deeper abdominals flexors. Rounding of the lower back during the deadlift is the number one cause of low back injury with this exercise.

The secondary muscles in a deadlift are engaged more for stability than for primary movement. Remember, the deadlift is about producing energy from the ground up. Once the bigger muscles get the weight moving, we need a ton of stabilisation for the shoulders and back.

From the bottom to the top of the lift, you want to think about rolling shoulders back, pulling the bar into your body and doing a lat spread. The involvement of the trapezius muscles are more isometric. They work hard at producing support and stabilisation for the upper back and shoulders.

All of your core muscles are involved when shifting heavy loads off the ground. During the deadlift, your spine is dependent on these muscles for stability. The abdominals act in the same way that a weight lifting belt does, by compressing the internal organs during the big lifts. The deadlift is a very technical exercise to perform. Sumo deadlifts are performed with a wider stance and the toes pointing out with your hands gripping the bar inside the knees.

This variation targets the glutes and hamstrings, as well as the inner thighs. They can help you learn proper technique and reduce your risk for injury. A bodyweight squat requires no equipment. For more of a challenge, you can also do a weighted squat using a rack and barbell, with or without weights. Or, do squats with dumbbells in each hand. For more weight, add 2. The amount of weight to use depends on your fitness level.

Depending on your fitness level, there are endless ways to make squats and deadlifts easier or more challenging. Advanced variations include lifting additional weight.

You can also mix it up by using a trap or hex barbell or a kettlebell. Beginners can also try squats with a chair behind you, sitting down on the chair at the bottom of the movement. Then you can use the chair to push back up to a standing position. Advanced squat options include performing squats with a weighted barbell on a rack or performing jump squats or split squats with or without weight.

They work slightly different muscle groups, so you can perform them in the same workout if you wish. You can also mix up doing squats one day, deadlifts another. Good things come to those who squat. Not only do squats shape your quads, hamstrings, and glutes, they help your balance and mobility, and increase….