The 4 Types Of Deadlifts Everyone Should Be Doing | Mind Pump 2362

all right deadlifts everybody knows they're super effective in today's episode we're going to talk about the four styles of deadlift that everybody should be having in their workout ooh dead lifts you know we we've done a couple episodes like this and they get really people really enjoy um us communicating like the different variations of kind of these foundational human movements so it's it's natural we're going to get to deadlift this is one of the most basic foundational types of human human movement that you should train you should have at least one of the the exercise we're going to talk about today but definitely all of them at some point belong in your routine still a lot of fear around it I would say too even like promoted from Physicians and people that are have any kind of aches and pains like they're just going to avoid it entirely uh which I you know I I would love to to get in front of them and tell them the benefits and there's ways to to Really build that back up build that strength back up and and support system but it's such a valuable exercise to just dis guard it completely I feel like it's gotten so much better and I mean way more now even even uh so much that it it Garners uh an episode like this because this isn't just an episode about uh why you should deadlift it's the four you know four different variations that everyone should do and I think that that's that's a good sign that we've arrived to he right that most people especially if you listen to a podcast like this are aware of the benefits of deadlifting and know that hey this is important that I learned to do do this movement the next level to that in my opinion is understanding the differences and I think that most people and this goes for the squat and the squat variations deadli VAR many other exercises yeah that we tend to like incorporate you know one of those variations and go oh I'm cool I I do that but if they understood the value the individual value and benefits of all the variations and why uh they're so valuable then you you might be more likely to uh incorporate those into your routine more often I think that's the desired outcome of this this episode totally and you know when we say foundational human movement what we're referring to is a a a type of movement that is important especially to not lose so here's how the human body works when it comes to movement if you don't repeat a movement regularly enough or if you don't practice a movement regularly enough if you don't strengthen a movement reg Reg L enough you will actually eventually lose the ability to do that movement the human body only maintains and keeps what it thinks it needs and it get and it discards what it thinks it doesn't need uh when it comes to movement and and this is just I mean the argument is made that this is an evolutionary um you know factor in the sense that in order to conserve energy uh why would my body maintain ability to do things that I never do right it doesn't do that so if you don't deadlift if you don't practice dead head lifting over time you will actually start to slowly lose the ability to do so to the point where when I would get clients in their 50s or 60s and they hired me and these weren't totally deconditioned people but they weren't exercising they were just your average person getting them to do to do just a simple hip hinge it was like not processing in their brain I would have to like put my hands on their hip and their back and really do all these different cues just to get them to figure out how to hip hinge because it's like their body forgot how to do it because they never practiced it they never did it strengthening foundational movements uh like deadlifts and all the different variations has a ton of carryover to other um types of movement in the body so it's a huge also um bang for your buck it's a it's a small investment in terms of big systemic effect yeah the the results you get from it are huge like uh deadlifts and their variations are some of the best exercises for function uh for muscle gain they're ex excellent for muscle gain uh and of course through for fat loss so you don't want to avoid uh any kind of hip hinging deadlift type of movement and again we're going to make the argument today that you should practice at least the four um that we're going to talk about today now the muscles involved in deadlifting and its different variations really um we like to refer to them as What's called the posterior chain posterior it's the back of the body chain because they're all all connected through this movement okay so uh although all the B all the muscle on the back of the body technically could be connected to the posterior chain mainly we're talking about the hamstrings the glutes the all the muscles of the back erector span the lats the rhomboids the trapezius um those really are the main kind of muscles that that you're going to be using in these especially the glutes uh and especially uh the hamstrings well this is one of those movements um that from the traps all the way down to your Solus uh is getting worked I mean it's and we've made this argument before a long time ago we did an episode where we argued and debated uh you know the the true king of all exercises and there's a case to be made that the deadlift is the king of all exercises so I mean I could I can make a case for the squat or the deadlift because of how valuable the deadlift is and specifically to our clientele that we would train right what you what you would get with most people that you would train that would hire us uh was they neglected the posterior chain uh they did a lot of things and that's just because uh most everything that we do is in front of us and so very few jobs or Sports require a lot of the posterior chain a lot of it's anteriorly driven and so you have this overdevelopment of all the muscles in the front this underdevelopment in the muscles in the back and that causes this kind of rounding shrimp like posture which tended to be one of the the number one things that we were always combating as trainers was always working on forward head and rounded shoulders only do so many Mobility moves to try and like get you back to a proper upright posture and like you really need to strengthen these muscles to keep the balance in check and you know there's really not a lot of options uh for the posterior chain that's going to be effective like the deadlift is effective yeah and and if if you neglect um strengthening and training the posterior chain especially as a chain meaning working together okay not just isolating these specific muscles but rather having them work in unison what happens over time yes you forget your body forgets how to you how to do that movement right use it or lose it that's what that refers to but you also and this is uh the big one you start to slowly and then over time quickly increase your risk of low back pain in particular this is typically where it shows up right so if you have a weak uh in your hamstrings your glutes erector span right mid you know your your your rhomboids if you Def and also especially if you have an imbalance between them working together the weak part of the chain right the weak link tends to be the lumbar spine it tends to be the lower back so this is one of the main reasons why um low back injuries are so common it's the most common form of pain and injury and by the way most people's low back pain uh today are not the result of some major injury like a car accident or I fell it's like some minor thing chronic pain and then it's just this lingering kind of chronic issue and the reason again is that you know the human body there's an optimal way to move and then there there are less optimal ways to move and the further away you move from optimal the more likely you are to uh feel pain and again if you look at the spine the spine has got a lot of joints in it right so you got all those discs in the spine and the spine anchors at the pelvis then the pelvis attaches to the bones of the legs right the femur and so on and then all the muscles that work together well if they're not working well together if I get that pelvis and I tilt it down to the right or I tilt it forward or back excessively um or I cause the heels to come up off the floor because you even mentioned Adam the Solus that's a part of the calf muscles right or the muscles that support the spine are too weak so then the can kind of flop and move in different you're going to uh potentially and often times you will experience a back pain and back problems so one of the best ways to um bulletproof your back literally is to get really good at different kinds of deadlifts like if you get really good the different kinds of deadlifts that we're going to talk about today um you know and you have and you train the rest of the body appropriately like your back is going to be pretty damn good it's going to be hard to hurt it in fact I remember uh cuz you you mentioned this I'm like today you see a lot more people deadlifting which is true when I was training in the in the late '90s and the and then you know even the early 2000s it was you'd be hard pressed to find anybody deadlifting ever unless you went to a powerlifting gym um you just didn't see it nobody deadlifted in fact when I deadlifted as a you know 19-year-old or 20-year old general manager um I would actually have members stop me and come up to me and say you're gonna hurt your back because you never seen um that exercise before so you do see it um much more commonly today which is a a very very good thing it's a it's a great exercise to perform and get strong at and again the carryover and then from a muscle building standpoint if you are motivated for working out because you want to look better um the way that the back of your body looks especially your hips says a lot to the to other people um athletes and coaches know this like you could tell if an athlete's fast or strong often times them hips don't lie yeah you look at their hips you look at their back their midback in particular this this shows strength it shows stability for a woman obviously this this is something that is considered attractive it's healthy to have a strong posterior chain and and because it's healthy it looks really good so in terms of Aesthetics these are some of the best exercis you do 100 so this used to be you've heard us talk about this on the P if you've listened to the podcast uh for some time you've heard us talk about like one of the moves that we used to do with clients like when you take them on an assessment then and a lot of times the clients were needed to lose weight and they and they felt a certain way about themselves right and I would uh put them in in better spine alignment like I would actually move their shoulders and I'd have them look at themselves their reflection the way they were standing their posture just comfortably when they were talking to me and then I would go over and I put them on this like posture check where I'd make them get into more of a neutral spine where their chest is upright their shoulders are pulled back and then I'd have them look at themselves in the mirror like look look at a difference you look like you just lost 10 or 15 pounds look how much better your physique looks just by holding it upright and so you'd be surprised how many people aesthetically look so much better just holding their posture upright forget that they need to lose 15 or 20 pounds of body fat on them just by standing upright that's how valuable that is from an aesthetic uh perspective is like man when you have you could have the most banging body in the world but if your posture sucks your body looks that way and so it just by standing upright and that's this exercise supports that more than arguably any other exercise that I could teach a client would be the deadlift the deadlift hits all of those muscles in the back and since almost everybody is is interiorly dominant that ends up helping posture for everybody totally today's giveaway on YouTube is Maps split to enter to win leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours we drop it subscribe to this Channel and also turn on notifications if you win we'll let you know in the comments section now this episode's brought to you by sponsor seed hands down the world's best probiotic there is no probiotic on the market that's like seed they have the science they have the advanced technology with the capsule that releases the bacteria where it needs to be released and the bacteria are guaranteed to be alive if you want the benefits of probiotics that reduced inflammation better digestion better skin even a better mindset yes it's true Studies have shown it helps with anxiety in some people go with seed that's seed /m pump use the code 25m pump get 25% off your first month's order of seeds daily symbiotic also we have a sale this month Maps 15 half off the shredded summer bundle of programs half off and the bikini bundle of programs also half off if you're interested click on the link at the top of the description below all right here comes the show all right so let's start with the first uh type of deadlift known as the conventional deadlift and it's called conventional because it's I guess the most most commonly um uh you know done or expressed form of a deadlift now with the conventional deadlift the the uh the the the The Shins are inside the hands that's your grip on the barbell is probably about shoulder width or a little bit wider you are squatting down to some extent to grab the bar although it's more of a hip hinge and let's talk about that for a second if you were to stand up tall and bend over there's a couple ways you can bend over one of them is by rounding the lower back right or by uh flexing the lumbar spine the other way is to bend at the hips right to flex at the hips flexing at the hips is known as hip hinging so you want when you do this deadlift when you do especially a conventional deadlift is you don't want to bend over to pick up the bar by flexing this the the lumbar spine you want to bend over to pick up the bar by bending the knees so squatting somewhat lower and then also and more importantly hinging at the hips maintain neutral spine when you do this this is what makes the deadlift safe this is why when people look at it who don't know what a deadlift is like oh my God you're going to hurt back you won't hurt your back if you maintain a nice neutral strong tight spine and if it's the hips that are hinging if you're bending at the hips then you're okay well this is really what uh you know creates the it gets pretty technical in terms of it looks pretty simple to apply uh but when you actually go into it there's all those factors where you're you're a bit squatted but you're also hip hinging and hip hinging is something you have to learn it's a it's not a a natural inclination like like you said earlier the natural inclination is to reach forward and to kind of curl forward and back and round your back uh or it's to squat all the way down and kind of stay super upright so this is somewhere in between the two of those um and and then to be able to create that tension so now of a sudden you know I'm I'm lighting up I'm engaging all my muscles correctly so that way I'm stabilizing supported uh so a lot of that impact doesn't go to those places the weak points you mention like lower back and things like that when you pick it up and really driving through your legs the legs are pretty much the most important part of that lift another reason why this is so extremely important to learn how to hinge at the hips is that this is what's going to protect you for the rest of your life so you're most likely not going to get away with moving into your 30s 40s 50s 60s and never have to pick up a grandkid never have to pick up a bag of dog food not have to move a bag off the ground pull a weed and if you don't learn how to load the hips and to hinge and all you do is round at the back to pick over like eventually you're going to get hurt eventually you're going to throw your low back out and that's unfortunate that that's what is also what scares people from doing that movement but that's even more reason why you learn what you need to do is just regress all the way down to a really lightweight that isn't going to risk any sort of injury and learn how to hinge versus rounding at the low back because that is a skill that you need in the real world it's a skill that you need to learn how to do so you don't hurt yourself doing little mundane things around the house and it's almost always by the way how a client has gotten hurt with that that's I've trained with I've talked about this before where theyve either rotated to the left or right and and out of there doing something really easy or they didn't hinge at the hips to pick something up and they rounded their low back and they threw it out doing something stupid picking up dog food or a little baby or something that should have not thrown the client's back out but because they don't hinge at the hips properly they do that so important to learn this skill yes now when you grab the bar arms need to stay totally straight when you're doing a deadlift so the arms and hands are really just there to hold on to the weight the prime movers are the hips uh the knees to stach set the ankles but you're keeping the arms totally straight you want to lock the shoulders down and back maintain that good position Justin mentioned something that's really important rather than trying to lift the bar off the floor think that you're driving your feet through the floor it's a nice queue that'll create a nice deadlift now with the deadlift and with all of the ones we're going to talk about you can definitely do continual reps but with some of these it's better to pause at the floor reset your form and start again conventional deadlifts is one of those it's it's I I think it's far superior doesn't take anything away from the exercise if anything I think it adds but when you're when you do one rep and you put it down let it sit on the floor get in proper position get real tight then do the lift again what you don't typically want to do not that this is necessarily wrong but there isn't a ton of benefit to just touching and coming up each time I don't think it's wrong but it's the true definition of what the exercise was designed for it's a dead lift it's designed to teach you how to take something from a complete dead position and lift it yeah no momentum no bounce no rhythm completely dead position of which is what you would have to do if you walked up and helped your buddy move a couch in the house or lift something up that was in a dead position and so learning how to lift something from that position I think is important it doesn't mean that we can't build muscle in the glutes and the hamstrings doing it with a touch and go and other things but like when you when you're talking about learning the skill of the dead lift and all of the benefits that come with it at one point in your lifting career you need to learn to lift it from a dead position it keeps the intention on the bracing mechanisms and and really like keeping that tension consistent and in terms of protection so uh you know you can get into that sort of Touch and Go rhythm and what tends to happen just like when you're squatting sometimes as well you start to kind of relax a bit in terms of the bracing and then that's leaves you susceptible for injury totally now the Sumo deadlift which is the second one very similar to the conventional except your now your arms are in between your legs so your legs go out wide feet pointed out slightly and there's different variations some people could do a really wide Sumo other people more of a a kind of a a moderately wide Sumo but really the key here is that your legs are wider than they were when you're doing a conventional and instead of your hands being on the outside of your shins they're on the insides of your legs now biomechanically speaking on paper the Sumo deadlift is and it should be biomechanically advantageous now this doesn't always turn out correct in the real world in other words on paper I should be able to Sumo deadlift more weight than I can conventional that's just not true I can conventional deadlift more than I can Sumo in the sport of powerlifting both are interchangeable meaning if you do a deadlift in the competition you can pick Sumo or or or conventional I will say this though they're not in they're not the same exercise they work a lot of the same muscles but it feels very different a Sumo deadlift you get down much lower there's less hip hinging involved less stress on the erector span muscles of the back more hip emphasis is what I tend to find but they're both they're both I think you need to do them both now what for you highlights it as a a must do I can think of some reasons from an aesthetic like purpose why it's like so Sumo deadlifting um was one of my favorite go-to exercises for like glute development just because the glute me is neglected and and you got to keep your knees apart and in order to perform the Sumo deadlift really well you have to keep your knees your knees open right and and you'll feel yourself wanting to to allow the knees to collapse Inward and so the glute me has to activate and fire to keep those knees pushed out plus it is more of a squat squatted position than it is a a like a stiff-legged deadlift type of position so it has a little bit more glute involved in there so for that reason it used to be one of my go-to movements especially for my female clients that wanted to develop the glutes so for me it has always been in the rotation especially for clients that are asking things like that are there other reasons why you would say okay this has to be in our rotation of of dead lless other than just veing it up from the conventional yeah for for for me in particular in the real world when you're having to lift something off the ground you're going to be in either position conventional or Sumo and just because you're you're trained one doesn't mean the other one feels very natural in fact I went for a long time when I first started deadlift this is my own personal experience when I first started deadlifting I learned how to do it Sumo that's how I was taught I very quickly switched to Conventional fell in love with it didn't do Sumo for years and years and years until I was hit a sticking point wanted to hit a PR and I thought okay let me try these other variations my first two month mons of sumo deadlifting I was was rough like I I couldn't get near the way I could do conventional when I should be able to get at least close because I never trained it that's when I realized like okay just cuz I'm strong in one two different skills two different skills and so and I noticed when I did them both I was less prone to injury I felt more balanced everything just felt uh better it's a different position it's a different position it seems to fill some of those gaps right from conventional in terms of that stance and like which muscles to secondarily kind of help stabilize and uh so I think they're both value and interchangeable and that that aspect just like when we were talking about the squats and the front squat versus the back squat like two completely different exercises but they definitely fill the gaps of like uh each other's needs yeah now taller people tend to do better at the conventional shorter people tend to do better at the Sumo but that's not always the case our friend Lane Norton he's my height long limbs like I like me he likes to pull Sumo it's just the way he likes to pull I like to pull conventional but I like I said both you got to train them I think both by the way of all of these as we go through them uh because people are gonna ask this doesn't mean you have to give equal time to every one of these variations you can like one or two and do that uh more than the others prioritize it just don't not do the others right just do the others to the point where you don't where you're not going to get into a position like I just explained where I never do them then I go try to do it oh my God it's so awkward and strange for me because I haven't done this for you know a year or two right right next up is in my opinion uh one of the most underrated I'm glad said underperformed yet valuable variations of deadlift is a single leg deadlift yeah tremendously beneficial tremendously beneficial exercise you're still hip hinging the weight is going to be much lighter because you're only on one leg but man you want to talk about stability and balance in the hips you want to talk about ql strength and stability because you're balancing on one leg the the the the the stability of the pelvis to not twist and torque uh while you're doing this exercise like all of that all the counter rotation and counter you know kind of stabilization so revealing how immediately you want to rotate or like externally rotate and uh to to go through that with like a really slow tempo and and be very controlled with the mechanics you're applying uh that translates so well once you have both feet on the ground and now we have those mechanics that are nice and stabilized and uh perfected so there's so there's so many muscles in the The Hip complex and when we talk about people that have uh low back injuries and we have talk people people that have weakness going it's always like weakness right when you talk about we talk about mobility issues uh it's all it's always there's a weakness in an area and I found with clients that the hip complex had was probably one of the number one places where we had some sort of dysfunction that dysfunction was related to some sort of hip uh strength and and and stability in that area and the single leg deadlift it starts off as a single leg toe touch for most clients that eventually progresses to a single leg deadlift um that movement was a staple I I trained everybody in all my clients did it it it was a a and I and I've said before it was the one of the best low back protecting exercises and I've said in this podcast before I've brought it up where I given an example that there's a move that I've always told my clients the especially my Advanced age and I would teach them how to do this step up from the side right so they step up to a balance to a single leg toe touch come down which is basically what that is right so the ability to step up the ability to stabilize the ability to hinge at the hips and balance in a dead Li position and come back I would tell my clients after I taught that Movement Like if there's anything that you get from me and that you maintain for the rest of your life don't lose this skill because having that skill to be able to do that will eliminate a lot of issues that I think I've seen in most clients if you can just do that and so I'm glad you started this this uh rant on the single leg deadlift as seriously one of the most underrated I don't see enough of this I don't see enough of it in programs I don't see enough of it with people training in the gym and I know why it sucks lame it's hard yeah it took me a really long time to get to a point where I could like grab like 100 PB dumbbells and do this I had to work because your balance is all over the place really really difficult but let me tell you the and you can go far enough back I went on a kick when we were doing this podcast where I would do the when I was going on the mobility kick where that's where I stopped doing a lot of bilateral stuff where I jumped from my knees I balanced on one foot Barefoot and then I would deadlift uh dumbbells up and I was progressing that uh that's some of the best I have ever felt strengthwise Mobility wise no chronic pain in the low back and hips area like that movement is so V in fact I would argue that if you got really good and strong at the single deadlift you that all the ones you could only do just for that for the rest of your life that one you're not going to develop an imbalance you're not no it's also it's also really good for ankle and strength and foot strength you do this bare foot so that's why I do them right I do them because it I watch my foot and prevent it from collapsing in as I'm doing this movement so my foot has to stay in a good position to do this and and the carryover by the way so people watching who are like I'm into just Aesthetics or strength like a single leg I'll tell you what if you're hitting a plateau with your deadlift go do you know 3 four weeks of getting good at a single leg diff go back to your traditional deadlift Watch What Happens that's how I broke the plateau of my deadlift I was I was stuck at like 500 and I couldn't get through that and then I went to the and got to a place and I think I had to start I want to say I was like with 30 lb dumbbells was the heaviest I could do with the single leg the Barefoot like I was doing and worked my way all the way up to do 100 lb dumbbells from that position and boy I came back to death and not only did I feel stronger but I felt so much more grounded and stable I was just I felt planted I felt way better doing that movement in addition to being stronger and so yeah I would make the case if I was if we were playing this game which is what I think is the most important I would say of all the deadlift variations this to me is the most important one for sure next up is the Romanian deadlift now this called Romanian because Romanian weightlifters in the Olympics uh this was an exercise that they did that became popular because they they did pretty well uh in their their sport now Romanian deadlift is a pure hip hinging exercise your knees are bent but they stay fixed and then you bend at the hips sticking your butt out and and this is the best hamstring development exercise you could do period hands down like from an aesthetic standpoint you get good at this exercise you're going to develop nice hamstrings and nice glutes it's also a great uh glute exercise you can also get really strong at the Romanian deadlift um this is a staple in a lower body workout I mean I I have yet to write workouts for people for lower body and not include a Romania deadlift for the hamstrings I'm much more likely to put this in than a leg curl for example well I imagine both of you guys were similar to me too that this is most likely where you started a lot of clients right teaching somebody conventional deadlift is really tough to do for a lot of clients I mean obviously if I could get to you to get to a conventional de R the gates of course I would yeah but more often than not I had to start with a Romanian deadlift just to teach what hip hinging is and it was a safer more functional way for me to get them to understand that movement and how to keep the the spine rigid before I could then incorporate the kind of bending at the knee and picking the bar off the movement and staying stiff and tight at the same time so most of my training when I first started with a client would start with a Romanian deadlift for them to get that skill set down and then I would have to progress them to say like a conventional deadlift and then eventually like I would start with the like a waiter bow Romanian deadlift you know hands behind the back elbows back typ just teaching that hip hinging that's good or one of those PVC pipes on your back just to make sure you keep that nice uh engagement there in your core to keep a flat back so yeah all that stuff is super important going into uh uh when you get back to Convention yeah and as you get more advanced like I said this is a this is this could be a great aesthetic and strength exercise I mean you can get the weight up here pretty high as you get better and really develop like just really nice strong shaped glutes and hamstrings from this one exercise look if you love this episode we have a guide It's how to squat like a pro it's literally a guide that teaches you how to squat better better Mobility better types of ways of warmups types of squats it's a free guide you can find it at mind pump free.com you can also find all of us on social media Justin is on Instagram at mind pump Justin I'm on Instagram at mind pump to Stephano and Adam is on Instagram at mind pump Adam a [Music]