Great, succinct article, Stef. I didn't explicitly cue this for the longest time until Mia Inman pointed out in a coaching video that I wasn't cuing it. I've noticed it make a big difference in the set up after actively cuing it on my lifters.
"The knees out movement is usually far more subtle in the deadlift than the squat since the toe point is more moderate, but the same benefits occur when we push our knees out in the deadlift."
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Great, succinct article, Stef. I didn't explicitly cue this for the longest time until Mia Inman pointed out in a coaching video that I wasn't cuing it. I've noticed it make a big difference in the set up after actively cuing it on my lifters.
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Thank you very much for the great article. This is the first time I heard widening my grip a bit to accommodate this new knees out position. I want to ask if another cue, close to the knees out cue, is also valuable. Should the knees also stay in the same plane made by the two arms holding the bar? I'm sorry if this point has been mentioned and I missed it.
My thought is touching the elbow pits with the knees should be maintained between reps. Knees should not be far forward or backwards in the sagittal plane. Too forward means the hip is too low and backward means the hip is too high. These two cues make the hip start a bit lower, better accommodate lumbar extension to anchor the torso and leg pushing off the floor much stronger. This is valuable for fixing the stiff-legged deadlift resemblance of a trainee's deadlift technique. Do you think this is a good idea? The figure 4-22, 4-26 and 4-27 in the blue book, actually the whole chapter, this article, Active Hip 2.0,... got me thinking. Every time I read them again, I picked up something new and I really really appreciate it.
After all those learning, one day I came up with this idea to maintain my knees in the same plane with the arms in the middle of a deadlift set. My knee position in the sagittal plane changes mid-set further back many times. So I told myself to really push them out to touch the middle of the elbow pit before pulling and it worked for me. Widening the grip a bit helped me a lot because many times I touched my elbow from behind with my knees. My knees naturally wanted to stay more out and 16.5 inches of width grip doesn't allow that. My hip got higher, back angle looks like a stiff-legged deadlift one. I started with the closest grip I could manage when things were easy and did not think about changing them because you know, inertia. As the weight go up for deadlift and power clean, the longer lever arm from the back angle got in the way. I'm a snotty 21 year old kid with a bit less than 5'5 of height and 160lbs of bodyweight. I got stuck at 310x5 deadlift for a long long time and got acute pain every time I tied my shoelace before I got unstuck again and back to LP without remembering the pain. I hope this information gives you a better idea about me. Maybe I need to have the experience of pushing the floor for more than 8 seconds before I comment anything on the deadlift. But I don't want to let the idea slip out of my mind. I'd really appreciate any reply on this idea.
Huy
Using the position of the knees relative to the arms/elbows in the start position of pulls is something we've advised forever to help return a lifter to the correct position. It isn't a foolproof check, but if their relative positions move, it serves as a flag to check what else has shifted.
I must have missed it while watching and reading. Thank you so much for your reply! I’m happy. It’s one of my first posts on the forum so I probably was too excited and typed a whole lot for a much shorter question.
I will surely keep that in mind during the set and while reviewing footages.