Common Deadlift Form Mistakes
Upper back disengaged.
It’s important to have tension in the back muscles, including in the large latissimus dorsi. The lats help you lift the barbell off the floor without needing to round your spine or shrug the weight toward your shoulders, says Alison Heilig, a National Academy of Sports Medicine–certified personal trainer, yoga instructor, founder of Miles to Go Athletics in Maryland, and editor in chief of Fit Bottomed Girls.
Hips too high or too low.
As a hinge movement, the deadlift relies heavily on getting your hips in the right position. If you set them up too high, your legs won’t be able to contribute as much to the effort of lifting the weight off the floor, leaving your lower back to pick up the slack. If your hips are too low, you’ll push the bar farther away from your center of gravity, which puts you in a less mechanically advantageous position and makes the weight feel heavier than it is.
Bar too far away or too close.
How closely you set the bar to your body affects how well you’re able to lift the weight off the floor. If the bar is too far away from your body (say, over your toes), it’ll put you in a less effective pulling position and place more pressure on your spine. If the bar is too close to your body (against your shins before hinging), you’ll have to shift your weight back toward your heels to grip the bar. “Unfortunately, that can lead to the toes lifting off the ground, including the big toe, which is important for stability,” says Gaudreau.
How to Set Up for the Deadlift
Imagine squeezing an orange in your armpit.
This cue creates tension in your spine, lats, and upper-back muscles, helping you create more full-body tension and stabilize the spine, says Steph Gaudreau, NASM-CPT, CISSN, a strength and nutrition coach for women over 40. It also keeps your arms — and the barbell — from drifting away from your body.
Set your armpits over the bar.
Finding the proper hip position can be tricky, so Gaudreau recommends a simple trick: Hinge forward to grip the barbell and check that your armpits are directly over the bar.
Line up the bar over your midfoot.
When you look down, the barbell should be over the middle of your shoelaces. In this position, the weight is close to your center of gravity. “When you go to lift [the weight] off the ground, you’ll be able to leverage better and use your legs more than your lower back,” Heilig says.
(See “How to Mix Up the Barbell Deadlift” for additional variations of this move.)
Strong Starts
Are you setting up correctly while lifting? Get expert guidance on perfecting your setup for several common strength moves at “9 Strength Moves You May Be Setting Up Wrong (and How to Fix Them),” from which this article was excerpted.
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