This week commences a series of articles that I’m writing about specific strength exercises and why they are important for you to learn! I don’t need to post on here why its important to include resistance/strength exercise especially as women and if you aren’t sure why that is lets have a chat.
The deadlift is in my eyes one of the best exercises around. If you want to build muscle, increase strength, burn fat and increase your athleticism it is one of the best movements that every person in the gym should do.
However, it only helps you if you learn it to do it in the right way and quite simply it is the most technical of the lifts!
Why you should learn how to deadlift and why is it considered a staple in training? Most (not all) gym goers spend their life focusing on the front of the body, ignoring what is in the rear, because it is not uncommon to only focus on what we can see. Developing our body without balance can lead to a postural issue, weak back, rounded shoulders, etc…
Deadlift reintroduces us to our back side, The hamstring, the glutes and back. Helping us to stand taller and with greater strength.
Here is just some of the reasons Deadlifts are the King of exercises!
The deadlift really is the compound exercise that utilises the most muscles stimulating the Whole Body. The Deadlift is the only exercise that stimulates both the lower and upper body. The same cannot be said of squats. Deadlifts work the butt, upper thighs, hamstrings, lower back, upper middle back, traps, the chest…. All of those bigger muscles, so yep bigger bang for your buck.
Any functional exercises are those that will benefit you outside the gym. As mentioned, Deadlift recruits a lot a muscles and mimics correct lifting. Using a heavy weight on a barbell or trap bar will help you implement in everyday life. Whether this be picking up a bag of groceries, picking up something from the floor, it is especially helpful for those with lifting children lol. The deadlift will help in scenarios that require you to lift whether it be from a piece of paper to a heavy box of shopping.
When we think of burning calories most will assume cardio is the only way, preferably diet should be looked at first but that is another blog for another time. However, the deadlift is a compound exercise that recruits multiple muscle group at once. This takes a lot of effort which means that the body is working very hard, and the harder you work and more muscles you use then more calories will be burned, am I making sense here?
As stated above doing the deadlift movements your core strength will improve, this will enhance your posture. Poor posture can cause a bad back, can cause pain and discomfort, can leave you susceptible to injury and can even cause you to lose height. Deadlift helps you engage your core and straighten your spine – simply put – better posture, better life quality.
Having a strong core is essential when it comes from health and fitness. If you core is weak, everything else around it will be weak. That’s why athletes focus on strengthening their core so much. After all, the core is where you generate your power and hold your entire body. Deadlift will not only help you build an incredibly strong core but also help you perform other compound movements such as squats. This can be a lot more beneficial than simply completing planks left right or centre!!
Most of us think of squats and lunges as great glute builders however the hip thrust movement (more on that soon) needed to perform a deadlift correctly requires immense strength in the bum muscles. The Deadlift is great exercise that can target the glutes more than the squat or lunges, due to the usually heavier loads that can be achieved during the exercise.
Hip mobility is crucial to prevent and reduce injury risks to lower back as well as stiffness in the hip flexors. This works in tandem with glute and core strength. Building a better hip thrust on the exercise and the movement can be transferred to many other important compound exercises to promote better form.
One of the most useful benefits of performing deadlifts is the fact that doing so will help to greatly enhance strength including grip strength which is very important and one of the elements of resistance training. If your grip is poor, you will find that your lift is poor, and you will not get as much from your training. With a good grip, all your lifts will improve
I could go on and on, but the last point here is possible one of the most important for me as a trainer is the adaptability. With its many variations of stance, grip and use of different equipment the deadlift is something that anyone can do.
The bottom line as you can see, there are plenty of benefits to performing the deadlift and there are plenty of more that I haven’t listed – book a session with me and we can have a full hour on deadlifts and I wouldn’t have even scratched the surface!