Lose Weight, Build Muscle: Mastering the Deadlift

As I mentioned earlier, neglecting to work on your lower body during your workouts will rob you of a lot of potential results. Many compound exercises such as the squat will help you to lose fat and gain muscle by releasing anabolic hormones such as HGH, which steady-state cardio and isolation exercises can’t accomplish.

The deadlift is quite simply the most powerful lift possible. This exercise allows you to move more weight than any other movement. In fact, it is such an intense exercise, that most fitness experts suggest training it no more than once per week. Around here, we take this as a good sign, because deadlifts will give you one of the highest rates of return for your efforts of anything you can do in the gym!

The Basic Deadlift: Bad to the Bone

As with all lifts, it is necessary that you start with a light weight to work on your form before you try to see how much you can really lift. With a lift as heavy as this, you can easily hurt your back if you don’t keep it completely stiff throughout.

Here’s how to perform the deadlift:

1. Load up the barbell with the weight you want on the floor.
2. Stand in the middle of the bar, feet shoulder width, with your feet underneath.
3. Take a shoulder width grip, using the hook grip and/or alternate grip for bigger weights.
4. Stick your butt out and keep your back stiff and arched backwards.
5. Push with your legs until they are straight to lift the bar off the ground.
6. Lean back until your upper body is in line with your legs.
7. Reverse this movement to put the weight back on the ground.

The Sumo Deadlift High Pull

Here’s a great variation of the deadlift that will also work your shoulders and arms. This exercise can be done either with a barbell or a kettlebell due to the close grip.

Perform the sumo deadlift high pull as follows:

1. Load up the barbell with the weight you want on the floor, or if you are using a kettlebell, place it in front of you.
2. Take a wide stance and place your hands close together on the bar or handle.
3. Stick your butt out and keep your back stiff and arched.
4. Push with your legs until straight to lift the bar off the ground.
5. At full extension, use the momentum and shrug your shoulders, then pull the barbell / kettlebell up to your chin.
6. Lower the weight to the ground the reverse of how you brought it up.

Kettlebell Swings

I mentioned kettlebell swings before when we were talking about shoulder exercises. Let’s take a look at them more closely. The kettlebell is truly a “caveman” piece of exercise equipment, and I mean that in the best way possible. Basically a cannonball with a handle, it doesn’t get much more “brute force” than that.

To do a kettlebell swing:

1. Take the same feet and hand position as the kettlebell sumo deadlift high pull.
2. Instead of extending your legs and bringing the weight straight up, stand up enough to bring the kettlebell off the ground, lean forward, and bring the kettlebell between your legs.
3. At once, thrust your hips forward and lift your arms in front of you.
4. Reverse this movement to go back into a squat position between your legs.

But Wait, There’s More…

In this post I have added the lifts related to the deadlift in addition to those related to the squat that we talked about earlier. There’s one more “family” I will touch on in a future post that gives you a great lower body workout: the cleans. Have I changed your mind about the importance of working on your legs and hips? Do you think I’m totally out of line? Let me know in the comments!

Tagged as: deadlifts, kettlebells, pareto principle, weightlifting