Trouble coaching father's deadlift

[RicardoRivero]

Hello,

I am taking my father through the novice progression as outlined in the book, and he is having a very difficult time with the deadlift.

The main Problem: As the weight on the bar increases (225+) he is experiencing considerable pain in the lower back. He stalled out at 240 lbs, it was not an issue of strength, it is just too painful to continue on. He is capable of placing the lower back in extension, and has no problem holding it there during the lift. He complains that the pain is in the deeper structures of the lower back, and is not simply sore spinal erectors. He claims it is due to arthritis in the spine, but he has no medical confirmation of this.

Secondary problem: He has difficulty getting into thoracic extension. He has a considerable "hump" in his upper back, however he has made progress flattening it out during the deadlift setup. Even so, I do not think pulling from the floor in complete thoracic extension is going to be achievable.

In The Barbell Prescription I read that elevating the deadlift can be useful when a trainee struggles getting the upper back into full extension, so I will probably modify the exercise next time we train. However this still leaves the larger problem of pain in the lower back, which I am at a loss to solve.

Supporting info
My father is 58 years old, 5'6", 190 lbs. He has been doing a 2 day version of the novice program for about 3 months (he doesn't care to train any more often than that).

Current Lifts (sets of 5)
Bench: 195 lbs
Press: 135 lbs
Deadlift: 225 lbs
Squat: 125 lbs

Notes on the squat: We initially got to 185 lbs when he began experiencing pain in his left quad. I realized he wasn't doing the exercise well at all (my ability to recognize form errors started off pretty poor and has been steadily improving). His knees were sliding forward at the bottom of every rep and his back was far too vertical. His trouble with thoracic extension also causes problems here. He also has a tough time hinging from the hips. I feel I have demonstrated, explained, and even physically tried to put him into the correct position tons of times, but he simply cannot hinge and bow over as easily as most people. After weeks of attempting to fix these errors, I have found that using a bucket to give him something tactile to reach his hips back towards helps a great deal, and we are finally making some progress again. He also needs continual reminders to keep his upper back in extension, or the "hump" I spoke of will cause the upper back to round, allowing the bar to slide up to his traps, which screws everything else up.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

[Steve Hill]

My advice is to read the sticky and post a video. I can't fix what I can't see, and you are not a qualified observer.