The Deadlift is one of our favourite lifts and is always popular with our Personal Training clients and members of our Glasgow Bootcamps. It's a great whole body exercise with huge benefits but it can also carry with it a higher risk of injury than most movements if performed incorrectly.

Here's some guidance on how to execute the movement correctly and get the most out of it.

Top tips for your Deadlift

🔹Feet roughly shoulder width apart or slightly wider. This is the stance for a conventional Deadlift, the exact stance will vary from person to person but in general this is a good guideline to get you in a strong position.

🔹Feet pointing forward (or slightly out) and bar over mid foot. The foot position for a Deadlift differs from the Squat in that we want the toes pointing much more forward to ensure a good alignment. The bar should be over your mid foot in the starting position, think somewhere over the laces or near the tongue of your shoe. This helps us put the bar in an optimal position biomechanically, too close and your hips will shoot up first, too far away and you will need to pull the bar in towards you and place unnecessary strain on your back.

🔹Hips set at the correct height and not too low. Ideally we want your hips set at the exact point that allows your chest and hips to rise at the same rate as you lift the bar. This might take a bit of trial and error but pulling yourself into the bar as you set your position can help find this point.

🔹Squeeze your lats out and down. This helps set your back in a nice strong position and stabilise your torso for the pull. This technique is sometimes describe as putting your lats in your pockets. Another way to think of it is as if you had a sheet of paper in each arm pit, if you squeeze your lats out and down you will lock it in place. If you lose tension in the lats the piece of paper will fall to the floor.

🔹Eyes forward. There can be some differing views on head position for Deadlifting but in our experience the vast majority of people benefit from a neutral head position with the eyes looking forward and not down.

🔹Chest and hips rise at the same rate. As you pull the bar off the floor, think of leading the movement with your chest. Similar to a Squat we want the chest and hips rising at the same rate to ensure optimal position and allowing you to stay in the safest and strongest position possible.

Learn more and put it into practice

As always these are some of the main factors to consider in order to achieve a good Deadlift but it is not intended as an exhaustive list.

It's one thing to read a blog post about good technique and another to put it into practice, so if you think you would benefit from detailed in person coaching on this and other lifts take a look at our Personal Training Glasgow and Glasgow Bootcamp pages.

Happy Deadlifting team!