Best Video on Learning to Deadlift

We teach two fundamental, absolutely essential lifts to all our athletes: the goblet squat and the KB deadlift.  Spend 20 minutes to make your athletes and yourselves better at one of  the most fundamental movements by watching this video from two smart guys.

Appreciating The Setup In Training

Setting up properly for lifts is an overlooked aspect of training from what I’ve seen in the general population and something we make sure to nail down when teaching our athletes movements.  I can think back to my football playing days and my participation at Michigan’s football technique camp where at least 30 minutes of each day was spent on stance and setup in order to get off the ball quickly and effectively.  How can you effectively execute a lift safely and properly if the setup is not consistent?  Set yourself up correctly in every lift in order to set yourself up for progress.  In the picture below we can see where this would go if he started his set like this…

 

How many times has someone seen this in training?  It’s not always the person’s fault because they may not know better but that’s one major way we can impact our athlete’s training.  The deadlift is another prime example of a misunderstood lift that people think causes back pain.  Dan John has said many times that people have told him that squatting or deadlifting hurts their back. His response, “No, how you are doing those things is hurting your back.”  Of course, we will pick more back friendly exercises such as trap bar deadlifts and single leg variations of lifts but you’re missing the boat if your setup is not correct to start with.  The cues listed below are ideas to get people to stay in good alignment from the back of the neck through the tailbone.  They can be applied to many lifts and there are probably 50 other cues that coaches use to help their athletes lift safely and effectively.

• Get tall
• Chest up
• Chin tucked

Sometimes it’s about taking a step back and realizing that results and effectiveness can be as simple as performing consistently and appreciating the setup of your training on each day.

Cheers,

Matt

 

My Favorite Way To Teach the Hinge (So Far)

Coaching is always awesome, unpredictable, and sometimes downright crazy.  Luckily we have many professionals in the field who are willing to share their experiences and knowledge with the rest of us (Thank you!).  I have learned various coaching cues, ideas, methods, etc… from attending seminars, reading blogs, watching DVDs, and reading various books from some of the nation’s best. Teaching the hinge (deadlift) to new athletes without previous training experience can be a daunting task and so far the best one technique I have learned has come from Dr. Perry Nickelston.

What happens when you don’t teach it right from the start

His practice is located in Ramsey, NJ and his website, Stop Chasing Pain, can be viewed here.  I have used this technique with a few clients with really poor control and body awareness with the hinge and with this technique it immediately cleaned up.  As Dr. Perry explains in his blog seen here ,the PVC cleans up a lot of the problems seen in the hinge.  Enjoy the video and feel free to use this with your athletes, it works wonders.

Sets and Reps with What Exercise?

     “How many sets and reps should I do?” This question comes up and it is probably one of the biggest “loaded” questions because there are many variables that we have to take into account.  What time of the off-season is it (or is it the in-season?), what the goal is, the training experience of the athlete, injury history, age, how much time you have to work with athletes/clients, etc…I know from my short experience with athletes, especially the younger age guys and girls, we tend to stay with 3-4 sets of 5-10 reps.  These set and rep ranges are including the major movements such as squat (single or double leg), deadlift (single or double leg), presses, and rowing.  These ranges tend to lend themselves more to grooving good technique and not focusing solely on intensity.  But I like some of these (listed below) guidelines for certain movements…

The “Money” Movements: Squat, Deadlift (Trap Bar included), and Bench (Barbell versions)

• These are very technical lifts.  Meaning that 9 times out of 10, staying under 6 reps is a smart way to steer away from technical breakdown.    I agree with this if purely “strength” or “power” emphasis.  For my own training, I hate doing these lifts past 6 reps.

Explosive Movements/Rotational Med Ball Work:
Hang cleans, 1-arm DB snatches, and all the MB work you can think of

• Again, all of these are very technical, which means we need to be explosive.  Doing high rep power movements, in my opinion, just does not work well.  You will lose the ability to be explosive after 5-6 reps.  Don’t forget, 1-arm DB hang snatches  need to be done with both arms so even 4 reps/arm turns into 8 total explosive jumps.

Core Stability/Loaded Carries

• Holding excessively long planks is probably a good choice to assess to see what someone’s core stability endurance is but from a programming standpoint, we want to progress to more difficult variations of those exercises after each phase, not necessarily lengthen the duration.  We have used all of these listed below to determine when the duration of a set.

Counting # of diaphragmatic breaths (2-6 full breaths)

10-30 second holds

Shortening the holds and increasing the reps (i.e. 5 x 5sec holds of belly presses)

Carries: 25-50-or100 yard walks

General Strength Work

• Ok, there is a ton of exercises we could do here (pushing, pulling, knee dominant, and hip dominant lifts)
• The 4 movements I listed above, whatever they are, should be the bulk of the training. 
• These could be primarily single leg (supported or unsupported lifts) or dumbbell versions.
• We tend to stick with 3-5 sets of  4-8 reps for most of these

Cheers,

Matt

Learning To Pick the Bar Up Off The Floor

How many times has someone informed you that they pulled out their back bending over to pick something up?  Probably at least once, and that one time is typically considered the reason why they pulled “their back out.”  The best analogy I’ve remembered that explained the mechanism behind how injuries occur is to think of a bucket sitting underneath a leaking faucet.

Drops are slowly adding to the bucket over time and eventually, overflow happens.  The overflow is the point at which an injury occurs happens.  It probably wasn’t the bending over that one time to pick the basket up that threw your back out, it was not learning how to hinge into your hips (why we learn to deadlift).  Maybe another advocate was sitting at a desk for hours in the slumped posture we have come to learn so much about.  For this post specifically, I wanted to share two videos which I have found to be powerful in teaching people how to learn to stand up, sit down, and pick up/put bars down safely.  Here is something for everyone that may seem stupid but then again crushing your back over and over again with foolish movements is stupid in my book.  I love Dan John’s explanation and typical response to “squats/deadlifts hurt my back.”  The answer after watching them do perform those lifts…No, how you are squatting or deadlifting is hurting your back.

Notice: hips driving the movement while the torso remains stiff.

Tony Gentilcore, who I think provides some of the best information out there, gives one of the best explanations for setting up to deadlift correctly.  Watch, listen, and learn so that you avoid an injury later or so that you can know more cues to help athletes get stronger safely.

Cheers,

Matt

Improving Deadlift Pattern On Wrestlemania 28 Day

It’s Wrestlemania Sunday, and this will be short but I wanted to send a quick video of a new exercise I thought of to help athletes (particularly inexperienced or young ones) improve upon their deadlift pattern.

 

      The exercise is primarily for inexperienced lifters or younger athletes because they tend to disengage from using their lats.  The importance of the lats during pulling should not go unnoticed…the lats…

• Allow the bar to stay in tight to the body which makes for a more fluid and effective pull
• Keeping the bar in tight prevents the bar from drifting away from the body which can result in rounding of the lumbar spine thus increasing your chance of injury
• Keeping this tight “lat” brace is something they will always need to know how to do with pulling movements (trap bar deadlift, deadlift, 1-leg sldl, cleans, snatches)

I would not just jump into using this for anyone because if you can cue them in simpler ways (touching their lats to help for feedback, ask them to pretend to break a pencil under their armpit) then by all means do it..KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle always rules.  A good choice to use as a last-ditch resort for grooving this pattern.

Cheers,

Matt

 

 

Hip Dominant Progressions

These are basic progressions for hip dominant exercises that we utilize at Endeavor and athlete’s/clients progress accordingly.  The first two are the basic movement but often times the little things can be ignored such as the cervical spine position (needs to be neutral), slight knee flexion (around 20 degree), and neutral lumbar spine (very easy to hyperextend).  We also used this in conjunction with single leg DB deadlifts, slideboard hamstring curls depending on the progress but we typically alternate a movement each day of the program whether single or double leg.

PVC Hip Hinge

• Butt, Upper back, Back of head all touch throughout the movement

Cable Pullthroughs

• Great coaching and performance here

KB Deadlift (I would like the chin to be tucked throughout the movement)

Stiff-Legged Deadlift (this does not mean knees hyper-extended) – keep slight bend

Trap Bar Deadlift

Cheers & Merry Christmas,

Matt

Deadlift PR on a Random Day & Deadlift Recommendations

A few weeks ago the staff and I had not been on a typical training program for 2 weeks, we have kind of being doing our thing with short lifts (<30 mins).  After reading Eric Cressey’s 3-part series, “How to Deadlift: Which Variation is Right for You (Part 1):Conventional Deadlift” I just figured I would try to conventional deadlift for a PR.  I never really feel comfortable pulling conventional and that can be due to a variety of factors, for me, probably poor ankle/t-spine mobility.  Anyway, my personal bests in the trap-bar deadlift is 445 and the last time I remember pulling heavy conventional was awhile ago but at 385 (not pretty).  Well, here is the video of me actually getting 405 after a good deload week.

Ok, yes that’s not me but folks that is called a back injury.  Here is the PR for real.