🔥Four Ways to Improve your Deadlift Strength 👇
If you have any weightlifting/bodybuilding experience, you’re most likely familiar with deadlifts! A deadlift is a highly effective weight training exercise where the bar is lifted to your hips and back down to the ground. The name comes from the simple fact that you’re lifting dead weight.
It builds mass and strength in your whole back, legs and glutes, as well as muscles in the upper body. The deadlift is one of the three major power lifting exercises, and it is vital to add this into your routine if you are looking for the best possible results when it comes to core strength and overall muscle mass. Make sure you’re working toward improving your deadlift along with your squats and bench presses for the best power-lifting work out!
🔥Â Doing deadlifts correctly
You can only reap the benefits of deadlifting if you’re actually doing it the correct way. Incorrectly deadlifting can really injure your body, especially the lower back. So, how do you know if you’re doing the right thing? The movement should hinge at the hips. If the movement is coming from your knees, you’re not using proper form. Practice hinging your hips by standing upright by a wall, bending your knees slightly while keeping your lower back arched. When you step up to the barbell, make sure your feet are about hip width apart, gripping outside of the legs.
Be sure that you’re gripping overhand with a flat back, shoulders down. With the bar in contact with your legs, use your hip and knees to move the bar up to the upper thigh. If you break form why rounding your spine or not being able to move your hips and knees, you’re not doing it correctly and should reduce the amount of weight. Here are four specific ways to improve your deadlifts:
1. Squat for Strong Legs
Strong legs make for successful deadlifts, and doing squats is one of the best ways to ensure you build strength here. Front squats will be the most beneficial for you when it comes to deadlifting. This is because it is a minimal risk exercise, and they are easy exercises to recover from. If you aren’t advanced in weight lifting, try to use this move as more of an accessory.
2. Farmer Walk to Improve Grip Strength
One of the best ways to improve your deadlift strength is to make sure your grip strength is up to par. Holding onto the bar is a vital aspect of making sure you’re completing the exercise correctly. Farmer’s Walks are a great exercise to improve your grip by strengthening the muscles in the hands, wrists, and forearms.
It’s a very simple exercise, too. Just pick up a set of heavy weights and walk for a set distance, drop them, pick them up again and continue to walk.
3. Barbell Rows
Chances are, barbell rows are already a big part of your lifting routine. If they aren’t, you’ll certainly want to start focusing more on this exercise. Not only do the rowing motions work your back, but they also force the body to keep a neutral position. It’s important that you do not stress your biceps with this exercise! You can accomplish this by gripping the bar in a double overhand fashion. Doing this, you will also improve the strength of your grip.
4. Strengthen Your Hamstrings
Your hamstrings are super engaged through out the process of a deadlift, so don’t neglect them. If you focus on strengthening this area, you will definitely reap the benefits. There are a lot of different moves to help strengthen this area, but hamstring curls are among the most
efficient.
It’s an isolated exercise that is best performed toward the end of your session because it can be quite intense. Try to aim for five or more reps at a high weight if you are able, and you will see improvement quickly. Glute ham raises are another exercise that will help
strengthen this area.
Any time you feel as though your work out routine is getting a bit stale or you aren’t making as much progress in your deadlifts, try to freshen things up with one of these exercises. If you’re looking to make sure your form is the best it can be, be sure to consider the benefits of weightlifting belts.