What's your weak link --Deadlift?

 

by:Bret Contreras

But how do you determine  I’ve got a cool list for you below. Go through it and be honest with yourself – it’s the only way to address the problem and get you stronger.
You have weak glutes if you:

• Round your low back during deadlifts to make the back conduct the lift rather than the hips and legs.
• Round your upper back during deadlifts. This can be acceptable, though…many strong powerlifters do this because they can’t push their conventional deadlift max up further if they kept their upper back arched.)
• Let your hips rise first in the squat thereby turning the lift into a “squat morning”.
• Suck at locking out your deadlifts.
• Stop short or hyperextend the low back during the deadlift lockout.
• Don’t have much power out of the hole when squatting.
• Let your knees cave inward during squats or sumo deads.
• Suck at hip thrusts, glute bridges, and pull-throughs and feel them all in the low back and hamstrings.
• Have minimal glute hypertrophy.
• Never feel your glutes turn on or don’t feel soreness in them from squats or lunges.

You have weak hamstrings if you:

• Have trouble sitting back in a squat.
• Don’t have good starting strength in the deadlift, where the most difficult part is getting it off the floor.
• Suck at arched back good mornings, RDLs, back extensions, 45-degree hypers, and reverse hypers.
• Sink like a ship during Russian leg curls and find yourself cheating like crazy during glute ham raises.
• Try to “squat” the weight up when doing rack pulls rather than “stiff leg deadlifting” the weight up.
• Are much better at trap bar deadlifts than conventional deadlifts.
• Can raw squat more than you can conventional deadlift.
• Can sumo deadlift way more than you can conventional deadlift.

You have weak quads if you:

• Turn every squat into a “squat morning,” especially as the weight gets heavy (this could also be due to weak glutes and/or weak thoracic extensors).
• Suck at front squats, Olympic high bar full squats, barbell Bulgarian squats, barbell step-ups, and barbell lunges
• Can stiff leg deadlift pretty much the same weight as you can conventional deadlift.
• Can conventional deadlift way more than you can squat.

You have weak thoracic extensors if you:

• Have trouble keeping the chest up during squats and good mornings.
• Suck at thoracic extensions.
• Kick ass at movements that isolate the hips and legs, such as belt squats or hip thrusts, but suck ass when the bar is on your back or in your hands.

You have weak abdominals if you:

• Round your low back during deadlifts (this could also be weak glutes and poor hamstring flexibility).
• Experience your abs literally caving in when you deadlift heavy (which can be seen when you deadlift with your shirt off).
• Suck at ab-wheel rollouts, weighted planks, side planks, straight leg sit-ups, side bends, landmines, and hanging leg raises.
• Can squat way more when you wear a belt than when you don’t wear one.

You have weak forearms if you:

• Perform a heavy deadlift with sub-maximal acceleration because you know it will slip out of your hands if you rise too fast.
• Chalk up for every upper and lower body pulling exercise.
• Can deadlift much more when you wear wrist straps than when you don’t wear them.
• Suck at masturbating (ok, I made that one up).