Deadlift and Overhead Press - Some Lessons Learned

omg. conflicting advice. again.

if your fingers are just like hooks, I can see how that would be good for learning how to push from your hips and glutes, but how are you supposed to hold a heavy weight?

UPDATE:

Had my first personal training session today

We were working on deadlifting, but in reality, we didn't do much actual deadlifting.

First, we nailed down the fact that I have been using my back to lift the weight this entire time. Not a surprise to me at all. He said that I have programmed my body to use my back, and now we must reprogram and reverse my body.

Deadlift is an exercise where the main muscles being worked are the hamstrings (part behind your thigh), and your glutes (*kitten*). Squats use more of your quads (front of your thigh).

Now the main problem:

MY BODY DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO USE IT'S GLUTES

THIS HAS BEEN THE PROBLEM THE ENTIRE TIME

EVERYTIME I DL, I AM PULLING WITH MY BACK, AND MY BACK ONLY

We spent a long time doing exercises where he tried to get my body to activate my glutes.

I have to admit this was very difficult, as I have never ever used my glutes before! Therefore, I had no idea how to do it, or how it should feel!

This is why I recommend every newbie to get a personal trainer: everyone has their own unique weakness. Mine is not knowing how to activate my glutes. You can spend hours and hours watching youtube videos and reading articles (which is what I did) and still end up doing the exercise wrong (which is what I did)! The thing is: if you're a newbie, you have no idea what the exercise is supposed to feel like, therefore, how are you supposed to know how to do the exercise?

Anyways, I'm going to list the exercises we were doing to help me "deactivate" my back and activate my glutes; get a feel for them.

First, my trainer had me lay facing down on a mat. He then had me raise one leg USING MY GLUTES AND NOT MY BACK. Obviously, I struggled tremendously to do this. I couldn't help but use my back.

Next exercise was the hip thrust. Now, I struggled with this exercise at first as well, but by the end of the session, I was beginning to use more of my hamstrings and glutes. Pretty much what this exercise is, is you lay facing up with knees up and brought close to your body. Now the vital part: push from your heels (NOT YOUR BACK GODDAMNIT), and raise your upper body up. I could not get this the first few times, so the trainer had me lift my toes up and slant my feet away from my body so that I would only be able to push from my heels. This helped a lot, and as a result, I really got a feel for the movement.

We also worked on breathing. He had me place one hand on my chest, and one hand on my belly, and told me that the hand on my chest cannot move as I breath. I was like: "wtf?" how do I breath then? "Breath from your belly," he said. "Make yourself fat." This took some time, but eventually, I got it. I can do it now. As I sit typing this, my belly is moving in and out, in and out. The key to this is to take deep breaths, concentrating deeply on inhaling and exhaling. At first, I could only use my belly to exhale, then, after more practice, I could also inhale with it. But before all this, I was freaking out: "like omg! how do I "deactivate my chest and breath without it?" I dunno how, but after like 5 minutes of constant breathing I eventually got this "belly breathing down."

Good mornings: take a light wooden stick, treat it as an Olympic barbell, and get into position as if you are about to squat. Instead of squatting, push back with your *kitten* without bending knees. As a result, you will slowly bend forward, getting a good stretch in your hammies. This is what the descending part of DL should feel like.

So after all this "going crazy," we got to go back to the bar to practice actual deadlifting. Here are the DL steps (from what I learned today):

1. Bar over middle of foot

2. Bend over and grip the bar HARD (you will see why in a sec)

3. Suck your belly in towards the bar, move your hips towards the bar. Doing all this will cause your back to be straight. Essentially, you want to force your lower back towards the bar, as to make it straight (and not rounded). You also want to pull back and drop your shoulders.

Number 3 is the hardest step. Not because it is hard to achieve, but because achieving this position will make your entire body TENSE. Seriously, my trainer told me to hold this position while he took a picture of my back, and I was in so much pain! Not bad pain of course, but good pain

All in all, it takes a lot of effort to achieve a straight back! If your entire body is not tense and hurting before you start the lift, you are not setting up correctly!

4. FLEX YOUR LEGS A LOT. Then proceed to push from your heels, through your hips like you're falling back, WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY RAISING THE BAR WITH YOUR ARMS.

Now this is why you have a hard grip on the bar. Before today, I thought that you shouldn't be using your arms to lift the bar, but I realized that if I only use my lower body to lift the bar, IT SIMPLY WON'T HAPPEN. For example, I tried pushing just the bar (45 lbs) upwards using my lower body only, without using my arms to assist, and I couldn't do it. This made me realize that your arms must assist your lower body to get the bar up.

Also, my trainer told me not to think about it as using my arms. He said that it is your lats that are activated. Your arms have little involvement in the lift. I just said "arms" because that's what it looks like / feels like. But the trainer felt my lats during this movement, and he said that they were activated (good)!

This is also why it is so important to flex your legs. Without doing so, you aren't activating your glutes and hamstrings, and thus, are only pulling with your arms and back.