Are Deadlifts really that great? Part 1

The deadlift is the one exercise where someone can be pretty darn strong even without much muscle mass… if he or she has the right levers. I’ve seen skinny dudes with super-long arms and short torsos out-deadlift a 240-pound IFBB pro with short arms, a long torso, and poor mobility.

That’s why tons of average lifters love the deadlift: It makes them feel strong. They might only bench press 205 pounds and squat 275, but they pull 405. These guys will post their videos all over Facebook and Instagram. And people will think, “Hey, if he can do it, so can I!” Gradually, the deadlift became a very popular ego lift.

The deadlift is certainly a good test of strength. It’s also helpful to be good at picking things up from the floor. For competitive powerlifters, of course, it’s mandatory. But it’s an inferior exercise for building muscle. And for athletes, the deadlift from the floor has more cons than pros. I rarely have an athlete train the deadlift in the traditional manner.

In short, the deadlift isn’t as great as most people think. Let’s break it down.

Ineffective Muscle Targeting
The deadlift is the movement where everyone can lift the most weight. But that also makes it an inferior muscle-building tool. How does that make sense? If you lift more weight, shouldn’t you be stimulating more growth?

The fact that you can move more weight is because you’re involving more muscles as either prime movers or synergists. Once again, how’s that a bad thing? Because the workload is divided over a lot more muscle groups. The muscles involved don’t receive the same degree of individual stimulation, as in a squat for example.

You also don’t stretch many muscles under load in a deadlift. This is likely the key point. If you do a full range squat or front squat, the quadriceps and glutes get fully stretched under load.

If you bench press, the pecs and anterior delts get fully stretched under load. If you use a close-grip variation, the triceps also get stretched under load. If you do a proper pull-up, the lats get fully stretched under load. You get the idea.

In a deadlift, only the traps get stretched, but they don’t shorten. The hamstrings and glutes are somewhat stretched, but nowhere near their maximum.

Why is that important? Because having a muscle fiber lengthening while producing force/tension is one of the strongest growth stimuli. In the deadlift you lift a lot of weight because of optimal leverage. But because of the joint angles, no muscle receives optimal growth stimulation.

A Romanian deadlift (RDL) is much more effective at targeting the hamstrings and glutes.

It’s a better hypertrophy tool because you’re stretching those two muscles more fully. But to do that you must put your body in a “weaker” position (your leverages aren’t as good). You’re lifting less weight but you’re building more muscle via better targeting with the RDL.

I’m not saying isolation work is better than multi-joint movements because you can better target a muscle. The overall load applied to the muscles is important. The optimal exercises allow you to put a large load on your muscles while ALSO stretching the muscles you’re trying to develop.

Poor Eccentric Control
The eccentric or negative phase of a lift is extremely important for muscle growth. If you get rid of the eccentric portion of the lift you’ll get significantly less muscle growth.

Why? Because the main stimulus that triggers protein synthesis is lengthening the muscle fibers while they’re resisting by producing tension. That happens during the eccentric/lowering phase of most exercises. The eccentric phase is also where most of the muscle damage (another stimulus) occurs.

Now look at the way most people deadlift. They don’t control the eccentric. Some completely drop the bar after completion of the lift (very common among CrossFitters). Some actually accelerate on the way down to bounce the bar off of the floor to help them with the next rep.

Even among those who lower their deadlift somewhat under control, they do so with improper positions. They’ll use more knee or torso bend rather that pushing the hips back (like in a RDL). By doing so, they don’t place optimum loading on the targeted muscles – the hamstrings and glutes. It becomes mostly a lower-back exercise.

When I personally do deadlifts, or have my clients do deadlifts, a controlled eccentric tempo is always used. We do that by lowering it like an RDL (pushing the hips back) until the bar passes the knees. At that point, we bend the knees until the bar is on the floor.

This will lower the amount of weight you can lift because each set causes more fatigue in the muscles you’re trying to develop (a good thing for growth) and because you can’t use the bounce to get started. But from a muscle-growth perspective, it’s more effective.

Improper Body Mechanics
In the deadlift, you can move a lot of weight despite horrible form. You can look like a bent fishing rod and still make the lift.

Sure, hitting a PR isn’t always textbook perfect, but some people deadlift with poor form even if they’re not fatigued or using heavy loads. They do it all the time because they haven’t learned to set up properly and use the right muscles.

They don’t engage their lats at the start (imagine trying to break the bar and pinching a towel in your armpits) and they lift the bar straight up from the floor (instead of in a slight backward arc to engage the hamstrings and glutes). Both of these will leave the bar a bit forward and put most of the stress on the lower back.

They also don’t create intra-abdominal pressure to stabilize the spine and hips. As a result, they not only put all the stress on the lower back, they do it while having bad spinal support. You will build your lower back, but not much else, by deadlifting like that. You also increase your risk of injury.

“Yeah, but I want a strong lower back!” Yes, you do. We should all have strong lower backs. But there are better, safer, and less draining ways to target it.

If you want to deadlift, do it with solid mechanics. Don’t get lazy and “just rip it.” You might still make the lift and move lots of weight, but you won’t be building muscle optimally.

Body mechanics are what decide which muscles get stimulated the most. Improper mechanics on the deadlift will prevent you from stimulating the hamstrings and glutes.

If you decide to deadlift (which is fine, I do it myself), at least do it in a way to maximize your chances of getting growth out of it.

Set up properly. Engage the lats at the start, contract your abs as if you were going to get punched in the stomach, and keep your hips back.
Pull to emphasize the posterior chain. Initiate the pull in a “up and back” action, as if you were trying to bring your ass to the back wall. Do that while keeping the bar as close to you as possible – you’ll need to keep those lats engaged.
Control the eccentric. Lower the bar as if you were doing an RDL until the bar passes the knees, then bend the knees until the bar is on the floor.
Don’t bounce. Either reset on every rep or don’t lower the bar all the way to the floor. Stop half an inch above the ground.