One of the most common mistakes I see people making is with this key exercise.

In most cases the person doesn’t actually dead lift (combined knee and hip extension) but does a combination movement that is mainly made up of knee extension and lumbar spine extension.

One particular professional rugby player sticks in my mind. This gentleman had a history of hamstring tears and low back pain. After he finished his treatment, with one of my physiotherapists, I sat down and took a look at his programme design.

No real problems there.

So I had a look at what sort of weights he was lifting.

That’s when I saw it. He was dead lifting 185kg (c. 405lbs) for reps of about 4 to 6.

Now before you start shouting at your computer screen ‘That’s not all that much’ this guy was only about 13 stone (182lbs) and looking at his physique there was no way he could be lifting that sort of weight with ‘good’ technique.

So I got him to demonstrate it for me. That’s when I saw the mistake. He was doing it just as I described above – knee extension and lumbar spine extension.

When I quizzed him about his technique he told me that they had a great strength coach at the club, “He’s an ex commonwealth power lifter” he told me.

Ah ha! That’s the problem.

Now, again, before any power lifters out there start cursing and abusing me, I am in absolute awe of what these guys can do. The problem is that all a power lifter is really worried about is ‘how much’ weight he can move from point A to point B.

Yes they have great technique and excellent power generation (actually it’s more like force generation as peak power outputs usually occur at 30-50% 1RM) but they have probably had the advantage of years of conditioning for that one movement.

This is not the goal of dead lifting for an athlete who plays a running based game. These guys need ultra stable hips and pelvis in order to fully generate maximal speed and changes of direction, for their sport.

No wonder he kept on tearing his hamstrings, he never had strong enough glutes. This meant his hamstrings were doing the glutes job as well as their own. He was basically overloading them.

We dropped him right back to 85kg and worked on his technique – hey presto no more hamstring tears (well after a hell of a lot of work).

The problem was brought about because the exercise was taught as a ‘heavier weights are better’ goal based movement rather than for the actual movement and needs of the player concerned.

The key is, ‘form and function’ should always be the most important concern of a particular lift or training programme. Unless you compete in strong man or power lifting events make sure you are working the body in the way it is designed to move and control motion.

Concentrate on form and function and aesthetics will follow.

See more videos at the Weight Training Technique site

Remember, make every rep count.
Alex

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