Hip Flexors - Tight Hamstrings-Can't Touch Toes How to Deadlift?

[alphous]

Greetings from Slovakia,

I'm a 33 yrs old. 60 kg / 168cm height and 20% BF
BP: 45 kg
Squat: 45 kg
DL: 40 kg

( I know I'm pretty weak for my demographics )

I've been in and out to gym for the past 15 yrs but always follows up wrong programs.

I read your book very carefully and it's broaden my knowledge and change everything. It is my holly book I must say. Thank you for that.

As you're my master. I have very important questions to ask without boring you, that I couldn't find any decent answer for my situation.

You'd save my life if you be kind to help.

1) I can't touch my toes and laying down on my back I can't lift my leg straight up. Therefore I can't do deadlift with correct form. I do RD but only with 40 kgs. I don't know why deadlift is my weekend point. I have very weak hamstrings and hip flexors and I'm trying yoga and various exercises to make it more flexible.
Question :Should I do deadlifts? If yes ? Which one and what form?

2) I was in army in Air Force and I lost 16 kgs. I was chubby with higher fat percentage. After serving for army, I lost weight and fat, but also muscles and size. Now I'm 60 kg but I have a stubborn %20 body fat.I love SS but I want to reduce my fat. It has been 1 month I have started in SS throughly but my body fat won't go down.
Question: Can I do HITT cardio after workouts or rest days? How can I reduce my body fat?

3) 3x5 sets very less for me although I'm very faithful to program. I feel like I could do 3x10.
Question: should I stick with 3x5 as a novice ?

Overall. I know Master Rip tells I need body fat, eat and grow. But for ,t height when I get more fat my all appearance change and it's very hard for me to get rid of the body fat. Although I know according to book I have enough body fat in my body but I don't know why am I so weak for my age .

Any advises would be out on my wall for the rest of my life.

Thank you.

[chrisd]

1) You only have to reach down to the bar. In the set up, legs are kept straight "if possible".

2)Forget about your body fat, just gain muscle.

3) Just do three sets of 5 and increase the weights at each session.

You are weak because you have not done the programme.

Lift, eat, sleep, repeat.

[Brodie Butland]

Greetings from Slovakia,

I'm a 33 yrs old. 60 kg / 168cm height and 20% BF
BP: 45 kg
Squat: 45 kg
DL: 40 kg

( I know I'm pretty weak for my demographics )

The important thing is that you recognize that. So good on you for deciding to make a positive change.

As you're my master. I have very important questions to ask without boring you, that I couldn't find any decent answer for my situation.

Give the search function a try next time. There are many, many threads dealing with these exact issues.

1) I can't touch my toes and laying down on my back I can't lift my leg straight up. Therefore I can't do deadlift with correct form. I do RD but only with 40 kgs. I don't know why deadlift is my weekend point. I have very weak hamstrings and hip flexors and I'm trying yoga and various exercises to make it more flexible.
Question :Should I do deadlifts? If yes ? Which one and what form?

We routinely coach people who can't touch their toes with straight legs. We rarely find someone who cannot squat or deadlift. Just do the lifts and stop worrying about "hamstring flexibility." Unless you're part of the less than 1% of the population, you'll find that you have enough flexibility to perform the lifts, and will gain flexibility over time just by following the program. (The deadlift is a remarkable stretch in and of itself.)

2) I was in army in Air Force and I lost 16 kgs. I was chubby with higher fat percentage. After serving for army, I lost weight and fat, but also muscles and size. Now I'm 60 kg but I have a stubborn %20 body fat.I love SS but I want to reduce my fat. It has been 1 month I have started in SS throughly but my body fat won't go down.
Question: Can I do HITT cardio after workouts or rest days? How can I reduce my body fat?

I don't know how you calculated your body fat percentage, but I'm guessing it was not a reliable method. In any event, focusing on losing bodyfat while trying to increase your lifts in the novice phase is almost always a losing proposition--the only exception is really big fat guys, because they have a lot of extra energy to burn. But that's not you. Focus on building a good strength base first--you'll find that the body fat you're carrying will look a lot less obvious when you build a bigger muscular frame.

I'd recommend against HIIT for right now as well--until you prove capable of increasing the weight and eating to recover, you're risking completely sabotaging your strength gains in the novice phase by dicking around with additional cardio. Wait until you need intermediate programming to start tinkering with the program.

3) 3x5 sets very less for me although I'm very faithful to program. I feel like I could do 3x10.
Question: should I stick with 3x5 as a novice ?

You just started, and you're squatting less than 100 lbs--of course it's easy right now. Six weeks of increasing your squat worksets three times a week will remove any desire to do more reps.

Overall. I know Master Rip tells I need body fat, eat and grow. But for ,t height when I get more fat my all appearance change and it's very hard for me to get rid of the body fat. Although I know according to book I have enough body fat in my body but I don't know why am I so weak for my age .

Sometimes the answers to things are obvious...you're weak because you've never trained to get strong. Now go forth and pray to the barbell gods for a few months.

[deeprooted]

Master Rip can't and probably doesn't bother helping you if you don't even post a video of your deadlift. It's hard to see what's wrong if he can't see what's wrong.

Well and I'm not Rip but I'm gonna add my 2 cents here because these things have been discussed a lot already:

1.) You don't need to touch your toes or lift your legs straight up to be able to deadlift with correct form. I doubt Rip has mentioned this "requirement" anywhere. Have you read the book though?

2.) Use the search function on this one. In short: no. Gain some strength first. I know a girl that's doing the main lifts only for few months now (it probably wasn't even done correctly half the time) and she is already deadlifting more than 2x what you are. I can imagine how you're looking and trust me: You can lose weight without getting stronger but all that will do is make you look skinnier and weaker than you do now. Just get stronger... the amount of fat you have now won't even matter much once your legs, shoulders, chest and back get bigger. For that you need to eat.

3.) Have you read the book(s)? If you could do 3x10 it means the weight you are using is way too light. You should start with a weight that at 3x5 is not super easy but doable with perfect form. Then you increase the weights from workout to workout. There is no way you did that correctly and after 1 month of SS you could feel like still being able of 3x10. Also 1 month of SS with an increase of 2.5kg per workout means your squat should go up by 30 - 35kg in that period. So even if you started with an empty 20kg bar (which at 33 years old and 15 years of in and out of the gym you definitely shouldn't need to) that doesn't work out to the 45kg you are squatting now.

[alphous]

How caN I deadlift if I can't make it in correct for, because of my flexibility ?

The rest of the suggestions will be listened thank you .

But when I search I can't find my problem on topics. If you find it I'd be happy if you teach me and show me that exist.

I've been searching a lot before I asked.

Also I've been doing fitness for 15 years , not the first time I take the barbells, I think I couldn't make myself clear or you were skim reading .


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[deeprooted]

How caN I deadlift if I can't make it in correct for, because of my flexibility ?

The rest of the suggestions will be listened thank you .

But when I search I can't find my problem on topics. If you find it I'd be happy if you teach me and show me that exist.

I've been searching a lot before I asked.

Sure just post a video of you deadlifting and we'll see what, if anything, is wrong with your flexibility.

Also I've been doing fitness for 15 years , not the first time I take the barbells, I think I couldn't make myself clear or you were skim reading .

Yeah I think I understand that you didn't do "strength training" for 15 years... but even then at 33 years old and 15 years of "occasional fitness" you shouldn't be needing to start your squat linear progression with the empty bar / 20kg. And even then you should be at more than 45kg by now. The girl I've mentioned above squats 65kg for I don't even know for sure: 10 to 15 reps. I've thought her how to do the lift correctly not long ago but I couldn't yet get her to do sets of 5. She's received her copy of Starting Strength last week ago so I hope she will soon.

[Bill Been]

1) I can't touch my toes and laying down on my back I can't lift my leg straight up. Therefore I can't do deadlift with correct form. I do RD but only with 40 kgs. I don't know why deadlift is my weekend point. I have very weak hamstrings and hip flexors and I'm trying yoga and various exercises to make it more flexible.
Question :Should I do deadlifts? If yes ? Which one and what form?

Who told you you need to be able to touch your toes in order to deadlift?
Who told you you need to be able to lift your leg straight up in order to deadlift?

How caN I deadlift if I can't make it in correct for, because of my flexibility ?

Who told you you need to be able to touch your toes in order to deadlift?
Who told you you need to be able to lift your leg straight up in order to deadlift?

[Dag]

OP, what kind of H-D do you have?

[crabcakelover]

Just a guess, but maybe OP has been researching deadlifts on "Bodybuilding.com". Aficionados of that website are big on straight legged deadlifts and "hip-hinging", which does sound like it would require a lot of hamstring flexibility.

[alphous]

Sure just post a video of you deadlifting and we'll see what, if anything, is wrong with your flexibility.



Yeah I think I understand that you didn't do "strength training" for 15 years... but even then at 33 years old and 15 years of "occasional fitness" you shouldn't be needing to start your squat linear progression with the empty bar / 20kg. And even then you should be at more than 45kg by now. The girl I've mentioned above squats 65kg for I don't even know for sure: 10 to 15 reps. I've thought her how to do the lift correctly not long ago but I couldn't yet get her to do sets of 5. She's received her copy of Starting Strength last week ago so I hope she will soon.

Here I attach my videos as GIF while deadlifting today. I hope it'd tell you something.

Many articles I read was telling before I fix hip flexibility and hamstring I shouldn't start deadlifting to avoid possible injuries. Since my father suffered from herniated disk twice and I have a back and flexibility like a log. I didn't want to risk.

I have big respect to that girl lifting and deadlifting heavier than me.

I don't want to mess up my back you know sometimes it takes only one shot to injure.

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( uploading gifs wasn't supported I assume that's why I've added Dropbox links .