How to barbell conventional deadlift? A step by step guide
- Kelvin Ng
- Mar 22, 2023
- 11 min read
Updated: May 6, 2023
What is a conventional deadlift?
The primary traits of conventional deadlift that separates from other deadlift variations are its feet position and the nature of using multiple joints to complete the lift - With both feet narrowly placed within shoulder width distance, and extending both hip joint and knee joint to the top at the same time on the lift-off stage.
It is a popular exercise that is used by bodybuilders, powerlifters, or regular “gym rats'' and it's a true test of strength. It requires almost all muscles of your entire body to complete the lift, with your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and calves as main drivers for the lower body to perform hip, knee extension, and ankle plantar flexion, the entire core muscles to stabilise the neutral position of the spine, and upper body muscles such as your lats (latissimus dorsi), chest to perform shoulder extension, and other smaller muscle groups to assist in completing the lift.
In this article, I am going to show you a step by step guide on how to perform a barbell conventional deadlift.
STEP BY STEP GUIDE - SIMPLIFIED VERSION:
If we look at the conventional deadlift in a bigger picture, it consists of 9 simple steps:
Feet position (hip width stance, mid foot in-line with barbell)
Arm shoulder width stance
Your choice of gripping technique
Bending the knees, shin touching the bar, knees out, arms vertical to ceiling
Hip hinge
Engage the lats
Brace the core
Take the slack off the bar
Leg press the world away from you
Here is a conventional deadlift checklist video:
From here onwards, we will move on to the detailed explanation of each step, including the equipment, set ups, dos and don'ts, and programming for conventional deadlift.
PHASE 1. PREPARATION
EQUIPMENT
Barbell - This is the barbell conventional deadlift, it makes sense to have a barbell. The most common barbell you see in a gym is the 7ft 20kg standard barbell, and we are going to use that. If the 20kg bar is a little bit too heavy for you, you can start with the 10kg bar, which is the 5ft bar that is commonly seen in a gym as well.
Weight plates - Preferably bumper plates, that are weights surrounded with thick rubber coating (Most of the time with colours on it). They are made to withstand the impact of dropping big weights.
Barbell clip - Helps fixating the weight plates, preventing plates from slipping out. Imagine what happens when one side of the plate slipped out.
Deadlift platform - Helps protect the floor. Not all gyms have it, but that does not mean you cannot perform a deadlift without it. Just be mindful not to drop the weight too aggressively to the floor.
"First 500kg deadlift ever done in human history by Eddie Hall in 2016. Done on a deadlift platform with specific deadlift bar and weight plates. With accessories of lifting straps, lifting belt, shin protector, and deadlift suit. Image by Giants live."
PERSONAL GEAR
Flat shoes - This is deadlifting, not jogging. You need to have your feet being so stable that it is rooted to the floor. Without a solid foundation, the building is going to fall. Hence flat shoes are crucial for deadlifting, you do not want your feet to be shaky wearing shoes with air cushions. If you do not own flat shoes, you can take your shoes off, just make sure it doesn’t cause a bad smell that affects other members if you are in a commercial gym.
Lifting belt - Most people believe putting on a lifting belt automatically puts themselves out of the risk of lower back injury. Before you have learnt to brace your core properly, and be able to deadlift your own weight, I DO NOT recommend using a belt. Unless you want to use a belt to teach yourselves how to brace the core, which is what I do with my 1on1 coaching clients occasionally, or you are at an intermediate level who would like to push your strength limit to the next level.
Lifting straps - Its role is to take away a large amount of loads from the grip, so that you can push heavier weights without worrying about failing grip. To use or not to use, is entirely depending on your preferences and purposes. Since this is a beginner's guide, I do not want to complicate things for you. I would recommend you not to use it for at least the first 6 months of deadlifting, so that you can develop that grip strength. Only use lifting straps when you want to teach your muscles to engage properly or to fix up any technique errors.
PHASE 2. THE SETUP
The most important part of the conventional deadlift. If your setup is on point, you already got 90% of the lift correct at this point. So please, pay attention to every detail I write about this part. And I mean it, DO NOT MISS A SINGLE DETAIL!!
1. SETTING UP THE BARBELL
If you are a person who has never deadlifted before, I suggest you put on a 5kg bumper plate on each side of the barbell, so that you can master the technique first, before getting into heavy lifting.
2. DO NOT MOVE THE BARBELL
Before you even start approaching the barbell, it is very important to know you must not move the barbell at any cause throughout the entire setup. That means -
NEVER ROLL THE BARBELL.
Otherwise the setup will become completely pointless, because that is how you mess up the feet, and hip position which contributes to less efficiency in power output.
3. FEET POSITION
Feet position - As you approach the bar, your midfoot should be in line with the barbell, or leaving a 1-2inch distance towards the bar. This will be the most efficient feet position to the bar, as the mid foot will be your centre of mass.
Feet stance - For most lifters, feet stances at hip width will be the most comfortable width, specially for conventional deadlift. Unless you are a giant at 6ft tall, weighing a bodyweight more than 140kg, or you are generally overweight for your height, then you may need a wider feet stance around shoulder width for a more comfortable stance.
Keep in mind it is important your feet should be so stable that it is rooted to the ground throughout the movement. If the foundation is not stable, the building is gonna fall.
4. ARM POSITION
For the conventional deadlift, think of your arms as ropes. As the rope is pulling any objects, it creates tension that causes it to be completely stiff and straight. That goes the same with the arms, you do not want to be pulling a deadlift with bent elbows.
Grip width to be shoulder width. Arms pointing straight down from the shoulder. If the gripping is too narrow, it creates instability to the barbell, ending up easier to fail the lift. It's also not a good idea to go too wide if the goal is to lift the most weight.
A wider grip puts you into a higher hip position, which leads to more posterior chain engagement, and more back strength to complete the lift.
5. GRIPPING
There are 3 ways to grip the bar for the conventional deadlift - The double overhand grip, the cross hand grip, and the hook grip.
Double overhand grip: With both palms facing you, you wrap 4 fingers to the bar, and wrap it with your thumb. This is the weakest grip amongst the 3 grips. However, it is a great variation to use if you want to improve grip strength.
Cross hand grip: Exact same gripping technique as the double overhand grip, but now with one palm facing away. A common gripping technique seen in powerlifting competitions, and it speaks for something, it is a relatively strong grip!
Hook grip: Involves wrapping your thumb to the bar first, then wrap around it with the 4 fingers. If you have never tried hookgrip before, it can be quite painful and may need some time to get used to it. Meanwhile, it is also a very strong grip!
If you are a beginner, I suggest you go for double overhand grip. During the process of mastering the deadlift, it would feel like a lot to take in, and that's completely normal. Going double overhand grip takes one thing off your plate to worry about, at the same time you can also develop grip strength.
Only when you progress to the point you feel like your grip isn't catching up to your muscles, you can then try out cross hand grip and the hook grip.
6. BENDING THE KNEES
In this step, you are going to bent your knees, until your shin touches the bar. That also sets your hip into position. The angle of your upper body should be in between 10-45 degrees depending on your build. Lifters with longer femur tend to have higher hip position (10 degrees) compared to lifters with shorter femur.
In this position, your arms should be pointing vertically to the ceiling, with your shoulder in line with the barbell. Again, imaging your arm as rope to pull something up vertically. If you find yourself having the shoulder going way forward to the bar, try to imagine there is a wall at the back and you want to sit back and stick your butt to it.
7. HIP HINGE, BACK STRAIGHT
Getting into hip hinge is important for this exercise, as it helps spread the load evenly to the entire core, and to the hamstring and other extensor muscles as well. Either an over-flexed or an over-extended spine leads to load spreading unevenly to the core, making it less efficient in generating power, and increasing the risk of overloading specific parts of the muscles, particularly the lower back area.
8. ENGAGE THE LATS
This is the step where we will invite the upper body muscles (primarily the lats) into play. And we are going to take a step back.
I want you to grab a pvc pipe or a stick in your gym, wrap the resistance band to the pvc pipe at the centre point, and attach the other end of the band to the barbell rack at the height of your top barbell position of the deadlift, with you facing the rack.
Now I want you to take 2-3 steps back, grab the pipe at shoulder width distance, chest up back straight, arm straight, and pull the pipe towards your thigh with all the muscles of your back. Most importantly, KEEP YOUR SHOULDER BLADES DOWN, DO NOT SHRUG UP. Start trying to perform a deadlift by keeping the pipe close to your body. You should feel the engagement of your lats while performing this drill.
That's how you create tension to the lats and keep the bar close to the body in the conventional deadlift.
PHASE 3. THE LIFTOFF
9. BRACE THE CORE
For the conventional deadlift, we will be using the diaphragmatic breathing technique, that means breathing the air into your stomach. From then on you want to hold the breath, and try to push the air to the abdominal wall for more core stability, only to exhale after the concentric portion of the deadlift (From floor to top) is complete.
Imagine you are wearing a tight belt, as you breathe into the stomach, you want to push your stomach against the belt as if you are trying to snap it off.
10. TAKING THE SLACK OFF THE BAR
The most important part of the conventional deadlift. Taking the slack off the bar refers to applying tension to perform the deadlift, WITHOUT actually moving the weight off the floor.
“Taking the slack off the bar, stable hip position”
The goal for this step is to pull until you hear the “Click sound” in between the weight plates and the barbell. This is an important step to prevent you messing up with your hip position.
Hips shooting up right after the lift off is one of the most common mistakes people make on the deadlift, and it's mostly due to failure of taking the slack off the bar.
“Failed to take the slack off the bar, hip shooted up, tension loss on lower back”
11. THE LIFT-OFF. LEG PRESS THE WORLD AWAY FROM YOU
Deadlift is an exercise with both components of push and pull. With the first half of the portion mainly pushing the weight off the floor with your glutes, quadriceps, and pulling the second half portion of the lift with your glutes, hamstrings, and all other posterior chain muscles.
One cue I like to use with my 1on1 coaching clients on deadlift is to “Leg press the world away from you.”
“Leg press the world away from you”
12. DROP OR NOT TO DROP
To drop or not to drop, an argument that exists since the very first deadlift was performed on this planet. You will either hear someone saying “You should drop it, otherwise the eccentric phase (lowering down portion of the lift) is going to get you injured.” or “You should not drop it, instead slow the way down and do not EGO LIFT so that you do not get hurt.”
My say to this is again, it depends. If your training block is focusing on going as heavy as possible, drop it. If your training block is focusing on building muscles, then do not drop it.
Depending on the individual, I have some of my 1on1 coaching clients to drop, and some of them not to drop, because 1 size does not fit all. However in most cases for beginners, I will get them to drop, because it is my preference as a coach to prioritise the SETUP for everyone, because it is what I believe the most important, and complicated part of the deadlift.
PHASE 4. PROGRAMMING
BEGINNER (1-12 MONTHS OF DEADLIFTING)
The no.1 priority at this stage will be mastering the technique for sure, NOT NEGOTIABLE. Again it is all about building a solid foundation, and in this case, technique is your foundation, you have to develop the muscle memories to specific positions of the lift, utilising as many muscles as you can, and to pull as efficiently as possible, while increasing the intensity gradually, maybe around 2.5kg increase per week or every other week.
At this stage, 1-2x deadlift sessions per week is best for balancing progress, learning the move, as well as recovery, with each time going very lightweight in 4-6 sets of 5-7 reps.
INTERMEDIATE (6-24 MONTHS OF DEADLIFTING)
At this point, you should have a solid understanding on how to deadlift efficiently in terms of positioning and muscle engagement, and this is a good time where you can up your intensity, challenge yourself with heavier weights. You can work up to a heavy set of 5, 3, or 1 in your training sessions.
As your training intensity is higher than the Beginner stage, you would require more recovery in general. That means, deadlifting 2x heavy per week might not be optimal for you, and might lead to overtraining. Instead, 1x heavy per week (3x5, 5x3, 3x3, 4x2, 3x1 in 70-95% 1RM), or 1x heavy + 1x dynamic lightweight(6x2 in 40-60% 1RM) sessions per week are enough to build up the strength. At this point you can also add in the accessory exercises to strengthen specific parts of the muscle, which contribute to a stronger lift.
ADVANCED (2+ YEARS OF DEADLIFTING)
If you have been consistently deadlifting and making progress for more than 2 years, you should find adding 1lb to your deadlift to be way harder than before. In order to make progress at this stage, you have to execute everything as close to perfect as possible - More specific training intensity, volume, and know your strengths and weaknesses.
You have to nitpick and re-evaluate everything you may have missed, and I am not talking about big changes, but minor fixes such as - both feet going 1 inch closer, Slight round of the upper back, hips 1 inch higher etc…
Sets and reps, volume varies from individual to individual, lighter weight trainees might benefit from higher volume training (3-5x5, 5x3), where heavier weight trainees might benefit from lower volume training (1-2x5, 3x3, 2x2). For female trainees, they generally recover a lot faster than male trainees during training sessions, so usually they are able to hit more volume as well!
As for accessory work, every exercise in your program should serve a purpose. E.g. front squat for upper and lower back strength, RDL for Hip extension at the stretched position etc… You do not want to implement an exercise in your program just for the sake of doing it.
CONCLUSION
First of all, I want to thank you so much for reading this far. The last time I wrote something as many words as this was 5 years ago when I was still in uni. I really hope you find this article helpful, whether learning the lift from scratch, or bettering the technique.
I know it can be very overwhelming at first, because there are so many aspects to focus on, even though it's only 1 lift. However, please do not give up.
It is like driving. If you drive, do you remember the very first day you learnt driving? Being overwhelmed by all the road rules, how to accelerate and brake, switching gears, signal lights, tons of things to pay attention to, you couldn’t believe you were able to do this. 5 years later, it becomes the most natural thing you do without thinking about how to do it. And it goes the same with deadlifting!!
It is only the hardest for the first few months, but after that, it becomes so natural to your body you do not have to think about how to do it!! If you have any difficulties or questions regarding the conventional deadlift, please do not hesitate to email me at kelvin@coachkelvinng.com
Hope it helps!!
Be 1% better,
Kelvin
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