Deadlift

The deadlift is a compound movement that works all of the major and most of the minor muscles in the abdomen and lower body, with emphasis on the Erector spinae, lower back and mid-back, along with the quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteus maximus which for us is the most important muscles. The remaining muscles are involved in stability control. The areas that garner the most benefit from this are primarily the gluteus maximus (main butt muscle), erector spinae, lower back and back along with the hips, thighs, calves and to some extent, the trapezius, latissimus dorsi and forearms. It is, in a sense, the purest single event test of strength because it is one of the few lifts of dead weight (weight lying on the ground). In most other lifts the weight changes direction or starts in the air and several other athletic skills such as balance, coordination are emphasized. It is for this reason that the deadlift is quite different to other types of weight exercises and for our purposes is quite useful if you want to put your muscles through a different set of motions.

The variation of the deadlift that is of most interested to us is the Romanian deadlift, in spite of its name, is not a true deadlift as the bar doesn't actually touch the floor (except for initially picking the bar up) for the duration of the movement. If it does, it means proper form is not being executed and you could be risking injuring your back. This variation places emphasis on the hamstrings, lower back and butt. The method is to keep the knees almost straight through the motion, bending them very little, and bending mainly from the hips. This is the "almost straight leg" deadlift which effectively forces muscles in your lower back, buttocks and hamstring to stretch and work harder.

 Deadlifts - Part 2