Is the Deadlift Dead? And Tips for Youth Athletes- New Albany, OH Strength Coach

Deadlift Tips for Youth Athletes- New Albany, OH Strength Coach

NOTE: This blog post contains 2 different posts on the deadlift. The first is an article I wrote in 2018 with my new interjections about the deadlift. I have not done a barbell deadlift (traditional or sumo) since 1/28/24. And I no longer program them for my clients as well due to the things that I have learned about movement, strength, the spine, and the deadlift.
The second article was a video and article I made in 2019 attempting to help athletes in particular with their deadlift form. There are so many better exercises to do for athletic performance and also life. The ability to move our entire life should be the goal.

So down below is article I wrote in 2018 on the deadlift. I will interject my current feelings (because I don’t believe anybody should be doing it anymore unless you are a powerlifter.)

My injections will be italic and underlined.

The deadlift.

People go back and forth whether the deadlift or the squat is the king of all exercises (sprinting actually is, however most cannot and should not until build that ability back up). I personally like it better then the squat but that’s because I’m better at it then the squat.

It’s pretty basic— bend down and pick the weight up. That’s pretty functional to life too. How many times in your life do you need to bend down and pick something off the floor.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a pen, a child’s toy, a big rock, or a 300 pound barbell.

The barbell lifts or traditional hinge and pick up from the floor in a straight vertical line with any implement is one of the problems.

The bar is moving straight up vertically, while your hips/glutes are moving horizontally. So at the start of the lift is most transferability to life and sport, but as you continue on the way up, the posterior chain (backside muscles-hamstring, glutes, low back, calves) become less and less engaged.

At the top this puts a huge amount of stress on the spine.

The barbells center of mass always remains close to the body throughout the lift. In real life, say you were picking up a basket of laundry or your child, or you’re a wrestler attempting to pick someone up (both WWE & Amateur) then the center of mass will be more away from your center line.

So you are now being pulled down and forward, especially in regards to the child or opponent, so you now you must engage your posterior chain to help keep you upright.

Form should look relatively the same on all of the examples though— if you want to be moving pain free.

The movement starts with a hip hinge as do pretty much all movements that involve the lower extremities. A lot of people who rarely do this exercise will start by driving the knees forward first. Hip hinging is a lot harder when you are inactive, or sit for hours on end. You are basically turning off your primary movers for this exercise. (Sitting is the new smoking)

The deadlift works all muscle groups: hamstrings, butt, low back, calves, quads, forearms, back, traps, shoulders, chest, abs. However, the primary movers are the back side (hamstrings, butt). Hips also play a crucial role as well.

Deadlift is considered a full body movement working multiple muscle groups all at once. Which if you don’t have a lot of time would be a reason one would default to 1-3 of these types of movements to get your workout in.

However, our primary evolutionary patterns–the ones that had to evolve or we would not have survived as a species are

1. Standing
2. Walking
3. Sprinting
4. Throwing

The latter 3 all require unilateral movement or one leg at a time.The deadlift is a bilateral movement both legs take 50% of the weight at all times.

Tell me a sport where during the acutal game time that an athlete is 50/50 on both legs. The actual active time. Prep time like a 3rd baseman waiting for the pitch to react to the ball, a volleyball/Tennis player waiting for the serve, a running/fullback waiting for the snap, etc…..I’ll wait…….

Most strength & conditioning programs program the deadlift in because it is easy to see strength go up from it, but is it the right kind of strength and is the athlete making up for the possible detriments of the exercise via their play/practice/jumping/sprinting/running and we just think deadlifts are helping without ever questioning it?

The deadlift is primarily performed with a barbell. But when we are teaching people how and getting them strong enough for the bar we usually will use kettlebells or dumbbells placed up on their ends.

Come into my program now, you will never deadlift nor will your child.
Youth Program | Adult Program in New Albany, Ohio

It’s easy to practice……anything you pick up off the floor should be performed with either a deadlift or squat pattern.

That is life. But again remember the center of mass example from above. And see the spine below.

Unfortunately due to our lifestyle especially here in the US we lose our ability to do this. Teaching our youth strength program I see it as young as 7 or 8 years old. They come in and can’t perform a body weight deadlift without everything falling apart (back, knees, ankles, shoulders).

Being strong is never wrong. This exercise will get you strong and translate into other exercises and get you stronger in those exercises as well.

Strong is wrong if it is the wrong type of strength. There is absolute strength, relative strength, speed strength, etc…. It will get you strong in other exercises but is that going to help you MOVE BETTER overall in life and your activites?

Remember there is a difference between getting strong and getting big and bulky. There are 130 pound women who can deadlift 2-3 times their bodyweight, but you’d never be able to guess.

I love the quote: ‘Somewhere in the world there is a 12 year old Chinese girl warming up with your max weight.’

Lastly, the effect on the spine and spinal health is a huge factor. I haven’t deadlifted since 1/28/24. Before I used to HAVE to perform my mobilizations to stay out of pain or elimiante pain. NOwadays most of mobilizations are self-myofascial releases instead of my knee or back hurts so I need to do specifici mobilizations to get rid of that issue.

Stuart McGill, the back pain specialist said in an interview that the people he’s seeing the most for hip replacements are not the average Joe/Jane but the people who have been deadlifting and back squatting their whole life and the people who have been doing yoga for 20-30 years (something else I’ve stopped, ligament laxativity without strength is not how our body is supposed to operate).

Deadlift tips for Youth Athlete (Article Originally Published 10/19/2020)

Deadlift tips for Youth Athlete

Parents you need to be careful with ‘weight room’ workouts for your young athletes, it usually is not a certififed strength coach. There is a difference between a professional who works with athletes and on themselves, vs. a personal trainer, a teacher who lifts, a sport coach, etc….. Every athlete is different. If they are squatting or deadlift or lifting heavy you have to makje sure they are doing it correctly. It may injure them as a teen, or later in life when they are 40-60.

This video will go over deadlift technique, so it will also apply for adults.

Our youth strength & condiotioning program is Improvement Warrior Athlete-New Albany. Register here. Or click on the logo

14 Pillars of Health Webinar as mentioned in the video:

In the video I go over proper standing technique and posture that you take into a proper deadlift.

Also go over the butt squeeze test.

A lot of kids will have their feet turned out due to sitting all day in crappy posture and wearing crappy shoes. Nike Adidas, Reebok are not good shoes for athletes. The feet have more nerves then anywhere and the muscles in the feet affect everything upstream. Get a barefoot type of shoe like ballops, viffur, 5 fingers, minimus, beach shoe (not FLIP FLOPS-should never be worn-horrible for feet). Or best is to go barefoot- but have to work up barefoot full time–go shoe, barefoot, shoe, barefoot throughout the workout.

“Take off your shoes they will make you sick.” -Native American Proverb

The video above (not available anymore) comes from a high school weight room attendant for the Hilliard high school track and field team had my athlete doing deadlifts lifting the bar from behind. He called this a ‘deficit deadlift’, which is not what it’s called. Jackson, my athlete, said that the coach injured a kid doing it in front.

Watch the video and make sure your child is performing the deadlift properly. Ask them how they are performing it in the weight room, then correct any form errors.

Most common form flaws for the deadlift:

• feet turned out (on sumo deadlift this is ok. Video is going over traditional deadlift)
• Lifting with rounded back
• Shoulders move before hips
• Shoulders start too far in front of bar. Should be lined up with bar.
• Yanking the bar rather then having smooth start
• Not hip hinging to get down into position
• Heels come up off the floor
• Starting too far back on the heels, all the weight is on heels. Weight should be balanced. Toes should be driving into the floor. Main weight should be between ball of foot and heel.
• Wrong type of footwear
• Bar not close enough to the body. It should be as close to body as possible. Many will actually scrap the bar up the shins
• Not setting the body TIGHT (upper and lower body)
• Sucking in the abs and stomach. We want to expand the belly as much as possible for more support especially on more than 85% of a max personal record weight (PR).
• Breathing wrong. Exhale on way up. Many will hold breath through hardest part then exhale.
• Knees shooting forward over the bar at set up. This is indication of not getting tight in hips and hamstrings. Remember set up from top down. Some people will not be able to properly hip hinge at start.

So if any of those are coming true for you or your child they must be fixed

Also know that some people, especially kids SHOULD NOT be deadlifting. Or squatting, or olympic lifting, or using a barbell. If someone cannot squat or do a proper pushup then they should not be using a barbell. Stay with bodyweight, bands, suspension trainers, med balls, lighter kettlebells/dumbbells until a base of strength is built up.

The goal of any person walking into a strength & conditioning program or any gym or any workout program should be INJURY PREVENTION. Regardless if the coach or program’s focus is on that. You are in charge of you. You do not want to hurt yourself permanetly or set up a injury later in life. Ego lifting must not be a thing for you if you are going to be in this for a long time—-meaning lifetime. I have been training for 30.5 years now. Looking forward to the next 30 years and then next 30 after that.

Strength is life. Once you lose it, you’re dead.

Below is some compilations of crappy form. Warning langauge. It should never look like this.

Written by Jason Yun certified strength and conditioning coach, personal trainer, youth fitness specialist and Youth speed and agility specialist (CSCS, NSCA-CPT, YFS (1), YSAS)

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