Starting Strength

“The meet don’t start till the bar gets on the floor!” is very telling. Many big subtotals have been overcome by strong deadlifts, especially in the days before squat suits and bench shirts. The meet was often won by a lifter with a bigger deadlift than his squat. It is hard to overstate the strength of a man with an 800+ lb deadlift, a feat accomplished by only elite lifters. Nine-hundred-pound contest deadlifts are more common than they used to be, although many more lifters have done them with straps (which eliminate the grip-strength aspect of the lift).

    Figure 4-1. The deadlift, as performed by brutally strong men. (A) John Kuc, (B) Doyle Kenady, and (C) Andy Bolton.

    The deadlift is brutally hard and can therefore complicate training if improperly used. It is very easy to do wrong, and a wrong deadlift is a potentially dangerous thing. There will be a few trainees who simply cannot perform this movement safely with heavy weights, due to a previous injury or an inability to perform the movement correctly. The deadlift is also easy to overtrain; a heavy workout takes a long time to recover from, and you must keep this fact in mind when setting up your training schedule.
    For the vast majority of lifters, the deadlift should be an essential part of training. It is the primary back strength exercise, and it is an important assistance exercise for the squat and especially for the clean (for which it is an important introductory lesson in position and pulling mechanics). The deadlift also serves as a way to train the mind to do things that are hard.

    Figure 4-2. Stabilization of the spine during the deadlift is essential and is accomplished the same way as in the squat. Intra-abdominal and intrathoracic pressures increase in response to the contraction of the trunk musculature coupled with the Valsalva maneuver.

    There are two ways to perform the deadlift used in competition: the conventional, with the feet inside the grip; and the “sumo” style, with the feet outside the grip. The sumo-style wide stance produces the effect of shorter legs, thereby allowing for a more vertical back angle and a shorter moment arm along the trunk segment, thus reducing the effective load on the trunk segment ( Figure 4-3 ). This shortening is similar to the effects of a snatch grip in Olympic weightlifting, which produces artificially “shorter” arms for the purpose of reducing the distance the bar travels to lockout overhead. Since our purpose is the development of lower back strength through the effective use of exercises that work the lower back muscles, the sumo deadlift will not be used in this program.
    First, some general observations about the deadlift, in no particular order. It can be used as a leg exercise if injury prevents squatting. It is not nearly as effective as the squat for this purpose, due to the lack of hip depth used in the starting position ( Figure 4-3, A ). But this is the very reason it can be used if a knee or hip injury makes squats too difficult or painful, and at least some leg work can be done while healing takes place. A high-rep deadlift workout can provide enough work to maintain some leg conditioning, even if the injury is something – such as a groin pull or a not-too-severe quad tear – that would prevent the lifter from doing heavier, low-rep deadlifts.

    Figure 4-3. The mechanical effects of stance and grip width on the lifter’s relationship with the bar. (A) Conventional deadlift start configuration. (B) A wide (snatch) grip shortens the distance the bar has to travel overhead, but because this grip essentially produces artificially short arms, it also changes the back angle of the pull. (C) Likewise, a wide stance in the deadlift (sumo, with the grip inside the legs) produces artificially short legs.

    Tremendous leg power can be exerted in the deadlift starting position, which uses essentially a half-squat depth, so the challenge is usually to keep your back tight to break the bar off the floor. Quad strength is seldom the limiting factor in the deadlift, although the hamstring strength often is. If the bar gets past the knees with the back staying flat enough, the legs can lock out what the back can support. If the bar stays on the floor, the problem is either the grip, an injury producing sufficient pain to distract from the pull, a lack of experience with pulling a heavy weight that would rather stay where it is, or just too much weight on the bar.
    A deadlift requires