Was that enough of a description to catch your eye? Let’s add to the list picking up your (grand) children, learning to protect your back and spine, saving your knees, strengthening your heart and the list goes on. Personally, I like this perspective …
The best exercise for strengthening the heart — is — reaching down and lifting people up. – Ernest Blevins
If you replace “heart” with BACK and people with BARBELLS, that could be the perfect dead lift quote. (- pulled from a random T-nation forum post.)
Many of you have asked questions about dead lift variations, form and where to start in terms of weight, so Becky and I threw these videos up to demo a few ideas for you.
Remember, we primarily focus on improving total body, purposeful strength in four major movements:
- Dead Lift – picking something up
- Squat – standing up from a chair, sofa or toilet
- Push Up – pushing a door open, putting luggage in the overhead bin
- Pull Up – starting a lawn mower, pulling a vacuum sweeper, pulling yourself up off of the floor
Here are a few tips and variations of the dead lift:
Becky is here doing a few single leg dead lift variations:
And just for kicks, here are a few high light videos of Brandi, Fritz, Susie and I doing heavier Trap Bar Dead Lifts:
B Will knocking out a 165 lb Dead Lift (this is the first time she has ever performed this exercise, FYI … one Saturday morning at our Saturday Strength Club Workout.)
Fritz hitting a 255 lb pull:
Finally, here is a quick shot of me hitting around 335 lbs … and note that I am in my socks. I typically squat and dead lift (when going heavier) in my socks to “root” the floor a bit better which takes tension off of my knees, ankles and other joints. The more exercise you can do bare feet or in your socks the better …
So the point to all of these tips and videos is to work on picking heavy things up … rather, do not lose the God-given ability to pick things up. We are all born with nearly perfect squatting and dead lifting technique, (watch any 18-36 month old child pick up something from the floor) but our 21st century lifestyle is robbing us of these healthy movement patterns.
Sitting at a desk all day = bad. Maintaining enough strength, flexibility and coordination to pick things up well = awesome.
Please let me know what you think below. Thanks!!
Thanks guys … let me know what you think …
Hi, I’m a 28 yrs old female hockey player who is aspiring making my competition division in my league but I have a big question.
What’s more important:
1.Lifting really heavy but my movement (squat, dealift, bench press…) is slower.
or
2. Lifting lighter weights but my movement is faster.
Thanks
Hey Annabelle, thank you for your question … the answer is, “whatever gets your stronger”, and “both.” Three factors to consider for now to keep this short:
Type of Exercises: your athletic development training should involve faster movements: Olympic lifts, Kettlebell Swings, Plyometric Jumps, Rope Skipping, Agility Ladder Work – consider these all exercises that train your body to move faster and more athletically on the ice, and then you should do Strength & Power building exercises that also challenge your movement quality: Squats, Turkish Get Ups, Dead Lifts, Bench Presses and Rows. These exercises can be used in the same workout – for example, warm up, do some agility ladder work, medicine ball exercises and plyometrics to work on your pop, agility, explosiveness, then hit bench press, rows and squats to work on strength and finish with a few turkish get ups for total athletic durability.
What helps build or maintain your strength and explosiveness? Your goal is to maximize your strength to body weight ratio, meaning you want to be lean and mean or carry a healthy weight with enough strength to move that weight around. Journal how you respond to the different types of lifting. I have athletes who excel with mostly lighter lifting, especially at 28 years old, only mixing in some heavier lifts in the off-season. Strength, strength-endurance and sprint-power are your goals – so monitor your progress to see what is working best for you.
Finally, do not forget your durability training which is primarily emphasizing QUALITY of movement over QUANTITY of movement. To add to my (long;) answer, do not compromise full range of motion and good form with heavier weights. Whether you are training heavy or light, make sure you are getting deep on your squats, that you are consistently mobilizing your hips and upper back to do so, that you are reach high overhead with straight elbows and that your planks are rock solid and straight.
I will leave you with this … let me know if you need a video or picture to describe any of these things … I will be posting more Athletic Development videos soon and I love answering questions that allow me to focus what videos to post. Thank you for your question Annabelle and good luck with hockey!!
Wow thanks a lot for this amazing answer. I’m ready to head to the gym today and follow all thoses instructions. Thank you very much it’s so helpful.