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You can’t escape it. There’ll come a day when
you will have to prove yourself, mentally and physically.
Fate will challenge you. There won’t be any off-center
pulleys, spring-loaded leverage machines, or padded benches
to lie down on. It will just be you, up against it. How will
you stack up? Can you cut the mustard? To find out just what
kind of person you are (before you face some life-or-death
challenge) there is a test you can take. It’s called
the deadlift.
Is there another movement you can make with a barbell that
is as guileless, as elementary, as impossible to fake? Picture
yourself on a lifting platform. No squat racks, no spotters,
no hells, no whistles. All there is, is you and whatever you
have inside you to pit against many hundreds of pounds of
cold, inert, dead weight.
It’s easy. Just bend over and stand up with it. If you
can, if you’re man or woman enough to handle it. There
are no charades when it comes to the deadlift. If you think
you can finesse that bar up, forget it. Hitch the bar up on
your thighs, lean way back and try to slide it upward —
it won’t do you any good, because the judges have seen
it all before. There are no excuses. You either are good enough
to pull the weight up, or you’re not good enough to
pull the weight up.
Imagine your life is on the line, or the life of someone you
love. And to save that life, you must drive every fiber of
muscle into and beyond total tension at the same time every
neuron of your brain is overloaded to the limits. The deadlift
is the lift that will teach you how well you can meet that
life-or-death moment, and prepare you to get more out of your
body than you ever imagined you had.
I’m going to give you a precise definition of the deadlift,
making it as simple as I can, so you have no question about
what your task is when you face a half ton or more of heartless
cast iron and heat-treated steel crystals rolled into a bar
and plates. This is what the word “deadlift”
means, straight from the rule book of the International Powerlifting
Federation:
1) The bar must be laid horizontally in front of the lifter
sleet, gripped with an optional grip in both hands, and lifted
with one continuous movement until the lifter is standing
erect.
2) The lifter shall face the front of the platform.
3) On completion of the lift, the knees shall be locked in
a straight position and the shoulders thrust back.
4) The chief Referee’s signal shall consist of a downward
movement of the hand and the audible command “Down.”
The signal will not be given until the bar is held motionless
and the lifter is in the apparent finished position.
5) Any raising of the bar or any deliberate attempt to do
so will count as an attempt.
CAUSES FOR DISQUALIFICATION OF A DEADLIFT
1) Any stopping of the bar before it reaches the final position.
2) Failure to stand erect with the shoulders thrust back.
3.) Failure to lock the knees straight at the completion of
the lift.
4) Supporting the bar on the thighs during the performance
of the lift.
5) Any lateral movement of the feet, or stepping backward
or forward.
6) Lowering the bar before receiving the Chief Referee’s
signal.
7) Allowing the bar to return to the platform without maintaining
control with both hands.
That’s all there is to the lift, but there are some
further specifications to consider, those of the bar and plates.
Again, from the rule book of the International Powerlifting
Federation:
The bar shall he straight and well knurled or grooved
and shall conform to the following dimensions.
a) Total overall length not to exceed 2.2 meters [726 feet]
h) Distance between the collar faces must not be less than
1.31 meters [4.32 feet]
c) Diameter of the bar is not to exceed 29 millimeters [1.16
inches] or be less than 28 millimeters [11.12 inches]
d) Weight of the bar and collars is to be 25 kilograms [55
pounds]
e) Diameter of the sleeve 50-52 millimeters [2-2.08 inches]
f) There shall be a diameter machine marking or the bar taped
so as to measure 81 centimeters [32.4 inches] between machining
or tape.
The weights shall conform to the following:
a) The whole size of the plate may be a maximum of 53 millimeters
[2.12 inches] to 51 millimeters [2.04 inches] minimum
b) Plates weighing over 25 kilo-grains [55 pounds] must not
exceed 6 centimeters [2.4 inches] in thickness; and/dates
weighing 20 kilograms [44 pounds] and under must not exceed
3 centimeters [11.2 inches] in thickness
c) The diameter of the largest disc shall be no more than
45 centimeters [18 inches](etc.).
Now you know what a deadlift is, at least as far as the rules
address the issue, but how do you really do it? There is no
one answer. In fact, there are at least two good answers:
two styles, one known as the conventional style and the other
as sumo style, after the stance of the elephantine Japanese
wrestlers.
Conventional style starts off like this: Place your feet so
your shins are about 2 inches from the bar, and about shoulder-width
apart. Bend at the waist and knees and grip the bar, with
the inside of each hand about 2 inches outside your shoulders,
but ‘alternate’ your grip. By this I mean pinnate
one hand and supinate the other — one palm up, the other
palm down. The reason for this is that the alternating grip
acts as a natural brake to keep the bar from rolling out of
the grip, as it will do much more readily if both hands are
facing the same way.
Assume the starting position for the lift, which requires
that you drop deep into a squat position, with your back flat
at about a 45-degree angle and your head up and eyes looking
straight ahead. You start moving the lift with a compound
action, exerting pressure on the legs as though trying to
push your feet through the floor, while striving to arch the
back upward, maintaining its flatness, and arching your neck
upward to guide the lift to completion. Naturally, your back
will round somewhat when the bar is actually off the floor,
but great deadlifters have the fortitude to fight to keep
that rigid starting position for optimum leverage. As the
hips rise and legs begin to straighten, the bar is kept in
close to the body and the upper torso starts to rotate about
the axis of the hips, rotating the shoulders backward as the
bar is pulled upward to completion, with legs straight, body
upright, head back, chest out and shoulders back.
That’s not the only way to whip a deadlift bar, but
it is the most common. The other style is more difficult to
master and often (but not always) is used by shorter lifters.
In this style, the hand grips go inside the legs instead of
outside as in the conventional manner. Yet the starting position,
descending into a deep squat position, is even more pronounced,
and the back even more upright. The key to this style is keeping
the upright back position throughout the lift, and letting
the legs do almost all the work. Of course, a wide squat stance
is assumed to put the leverage advantage right on the point
of the hips. You basically “squat” the weight
up, but without it resting on your shoulders.
That’s how you do the deadlift, but before you even
consider doing one rep, you must think through the following
admonitions with the greatest of care.
Your back is, potentially, the strongest aspect of your physical
being. Note, I said potentially. No one starts out in life
ready for a maximal battle with a deadlift bar. You must prepare
before taking on any substantial poundage. Though your back
can be developed into the strongest plate in your body armor,
it starts out as the most brittle of defenses. The muscles
and tendons of the back work at the extremes of leverage and
mechanical disadvantage. These structures are seldom stressed,
progressively, by the demands of modern life, and are almost
universally underdeveloped. The strain of a deadlift can be
most serious, even dangerous, to an untrained body. Training
routines start light and move up slowly. Over-training must
be avoided at all costs, but unfortunately adequate training
loads can seem almost negligible to the novice in his zeal
to gain all the power he can as fast as he can.
Never train the deadlift without warming up and stretching
extensively. Never train the deadlift heavy more than once
a week. Never allow the back to be excessively rounded during
an attempt. Never overexert your back. The penalties of overdoing
it are much severer than those of the squat and bench press.
Never hold your breath during a rep; slowly exhale throughout
it. Breath holding under such extreme muscular contractions
can lead to blackouts.
If strength is the essence of life, and powerlifting is the
essence of strength, then hitting a big deadlift must really
be “living.” Like life itself, it is sometimes
hard to get started, and takes a long time to reach physical
maturity, but when you’ve finally grown up into the
deadlift, there’s no telling how far your physical being
and willpower will be able to take you.
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