DL Form check.

[benmilano]

Reduced the weight to 135 for the past month to work on form. Still having lower back pain. Wondering if anyone could help.

The pain is usually in the left side of my lower back, and the Physical Therapist said that my hips were rotated/ uneven. Physical Therapy also isn't doing much to solve the problem.

Here's a vid, thanks in advance.

DL form check - YouTube

[Jr_Geezer]

From the sticky on posting videos:

DEADLIFT
1) Show your set-up. Show your set-up. SHOW YOUR FUCKING SET-UP.

2) Best if filmed from the side or the front quarter. We need to see where you put your feet / hands / knees, and this can be done from a high side-shot.
TomC: Make sure that your head and feet are in the frame at all times. This means you may have to back up a good way from whoever is lifting.

3) We need to see the entire bar path. That means we need to see the close end of the bar for the entire range of the rep.

4) Show your set-up.

I'm not a coach so take this with a grain of salt.
I don't see any indication of lifting the chest and tightening up the back before making the pull. Try looking a bit farther in front of you.
What's with the hitch coming down? On the way down, bend at the hips first and then when the bar is past the knees, you can bend them to put the bar the rest to the way down. As long as the bar's descent is controlled, it can be rapid.
Any other comments will have to wait for a more informative video.

-RJP

[Fiddler]

I'm no coach, but the first things that catch my eye are that on the way up, you are lifting your back before your knees are straight, and your knees are still bent as the bar goes by. On the way down, much the same in reverse; you want your knees straight until the bar goes past them.

I also wonder whether you are staying tight all the way up and down. It appears to me that you might be breathing out and relaxing on the way down. The coaches recommend that you hold your breath and stay tight -abdomen, chest and shoulders - all the way up and down, and don't breathe at the top. That hesitation on the way down surely isn't doing you any good either. A nice, smooth, fast, controlled descent seems to be optimal. A lot of heavy lifters just use a controlled drop with bumper plates.

Still - some work on the sore spots with a lacrosse ball, foam roller, or a couple of tennis balls in a sock might help. I'm old and pretty dinged up and I find myself doing that a lot - not because of muscle strains, but just because I get knots (trigger points). Find the spot that hurts and roll it for 30 seconds to a minute; it will be pretty painful, and you might want to groan or yell, but will often relieve the pain as well. I spent quite a bit of time on my lower back and hips earlier today.

[Adam Franklin]

I'm no coach, but the first things that catch my eye are that on the way up, you are lifting your back before your knees are straight, and your knees are still bent as the bar goes by. On the way down, much the same in reverse; you want your knees straight until the bar goes past them.

While your intent is correct, this is not true. Knee and hip extension in the DL occur simultaneously, not sequentially. As the lifter starts the deadlift, both knee and hip angles are opening (knee more than hip) so that the back angle remains constant until the bar is around the tibial tuberosity (+/- few inches, depending on the lifter's anthropometry). Knees are still flexed slighty, not locked out. As the bar passes this point, the hips extend more rapidly than the knees, causing back angle to also open rapidly, with both joints locking out simultaneously.

This is not how you would coach a lifter to deadlift; it is far to complicated. The above is the result of a properly executed deadlift, which can be coached via the 5 step DL setup.

All that aside, Fiddler is correct in that you are pulling the bar around your knees on the way up. You can do this because it is a relatively light weight for you. At heavier weights you will take chunks of flesh out of your shins, because the bar wants to and will go in a vertical line. Fix this by ensuring you are starting with the bar over midfoot and you are not brining your knees too far forward in your setup. Essentially, follow these steps.

1. Take your stance, feet a little closer than you think it needs to be and with your toes out more than you like. Your shins should be about one inch from the bar, no more. This places the bar over the mid-foot – the whole foot, not the mid-instep.

2. Take your grip on the bar, leaving your hips up. DO NOT MOVE THE BAR.

3. Drop your knees forward and out until your shins touch the bar. DO NOT MOVE THE BAR.

4. Hard part: squeeze your chest up as hard as you can. DO NOT MOVE THE BAR. This establishes a "wave" of extension that goes all the way down to the lumbar, and sets the back angle from the top down. DO NOT LOWER YOUR HIPS – LIFT THE CHEST TO SET THE BACK ANGLE.

5. Squeeze the bar off the floor and drag it up your legs in contact with your skin/sweats until it locks out at the top. If you have done the above sequence precisely as described, the bar will come off the ground in a perfectly vertical path. All the slack will have come out of the arms and hamstrings in step 4, the bar will not jerk off the ground, and your back will be in good extension. You will perceive that your hips are too high, but if you have completed step 4 correctly, the scapulas, bar, and mid-foot will be in vertical alignment and the pull will be perfect. The pull will seem "shorter" this way.

As others have pointed out, it is hard to verify if your are doing the above because of the angle and timing of your video.

[benmilano]

As others have pointed out, it is hard to verify if your are doing the above because of the angle and timing of your video.

I apologize about the video. I'll take a better one my next deadlift session.