If you want to work on a joint, choose your hips. And if you want to do the best hip exercise for men, choose the deadlift.
Your hips are one of the largest stressful joints in the body. They are also the epicenter of human movement and influence everything that happens in your upper and lower body as well as in your core.
Your hips also include 21 separate muscles, including some of your body's largest and strongest. And the Deadlift she works all.
"It's a no-brainer," said Tony Gentilcore, C.S.C.S., strength trainer and owner of the CORE training studio outside of Boston. "In all hip exercises, deadlifts are at the top of the pyramid."
Why the deadlift is so effective
When it comes to training the hips, deadlifts activate all the boxes. They use one of the most basic human movement patterns, the hinge, to improve Hip strength and strength.
And by improving function and muscle balance, Gentilcore says, you reduce the risk of injury throughout the body. The main cause of many common injuries, such as B. Cruciate ligament tears is an underlying hip deficit.
"The back chain is important," says Gentilcore, noting that your glutes and hamstrings are your body's strength and performance muscles. Your increase in strength leads to improved lifting and sporting skills across the board.
An important way that deadlifts improve athletic performance is to contribute to strength and strength in athletic posture, explains Prentiss Rhodes, C.P.T., product manager at the National Academy of Sports Medicine.
"Many athletic movements begin in an athletic posture that is essentially a hinge," he says. "From this position, the athlete can sprint, jump, or perform any movement associated with their particular sport." (Think about three-point posture in football, defensive position in basketball, vertical jump, power clean.)
"You can put more strain on the deadlift than other movements," says Gentilcore, noting that this can be a greater incentive to gain strength, not just in the glutes and hamstrings, but throughout the back chain.
Although the deadlift is a hip exercise, it works on every muscle you have - and greatly strengthens your hands, shoulders, lats and core. Actually, after published in published research International sports physiotherapy magazineDeadlifts squeeze the plank while training the transverse abdominis, the deepest muscle of the core.
And if you do them right, they are not bad for your back. Deadlifts can actually relieve pain in people with back problems Journal of strength and conditioning research.
How To Get Deadlifts With Perfect Shape
The first point to go home is that there isn't a single best deadlift position or facility.
"A lot of people hear deadlifts and think conventional barbell deadlifts, I have to do that," says Gentilcore. "But nobody Outside the competition, power lifting and Olympic lifting have to take off the ground. "
And not everyone should do this because the anatomical structure of the pelvis and femur, the length of the limbs, and the flexibility of the hamstring affect which foot position and bar or weight size is best for your body.
For this reason, Gentilcore It is recommended that you take your time to determine which deadlift position and setup is right for you. However, since X-rays are unlikely to be performed on your hips to determine your individual joint structure, "it's all about trial, error, and a little experimentation," says Gentilcore.
Beth Bischoff
He recommends that you start your deadlift trials with a safety pole because the variation places your center of gravity within the pole, which means that less force is applied to the spine and less mobility is required. Simply put, it matches most people.
From there you can choose between a conventional hip-wide posture and a wider sumo posture. "Try a few sentences at a time and see how they feel," he says. Play with the foot position with every variation; Your body isn't perfectly symmetrical and your setup doesn't have to be.
Regardless of the position or positions for which you can find work, here are some universal form guidelines that will help you get maximum benefit with minimal risk of injury:
- Keep your core busy. A strained core acts like a scaffold to reduce excessive strain on the spine, says UCLA sports medic Joshua Goldman, MD. He also helps you transfer the force between your lower and upper body. Remember to use your core to line up your ribs on the floor and maintain a neutral spine at all times.
- Hinge, don't crouch. When you start moving, push your hips as far behind you as possible, says Gentilcore. Your knees should bend minimally and only move forward slightly, if at all.
- Engage your lats. If you stick your shoulder blades down and in place, you won't be able to round your shoulders, which is especially common at the end of the movement, Goldman says.
- Use your arms as ropes. Your lats and delts are isometric during the deadlift. You are not actively increasing the weights. Use your hips to drive the movement and just focus on supporting your torso, says Gentilcore.
- Stand up. Unlike lifting the weight or pushing your hips forward, you should pull the floor away from you to get up as high as possible. At the beginning of the movement, you should be in a “vertical plank,” says Rhodes.
- Keep the weight close to your body. If you're doing deadlifts with a straight bar, it should almost fly over your legs as you raise and lower the bar, Rhodes says. When using a safety rod, your hands are right next to your legs. If you prevent it from moving forward in front of you, the brunt of your lower back will take the brunt.
- Start with the concentric phase. While there is nothing technically wrong with doing the eccentric or lowering phase first, such as with an RDL, starting your deadlifts with pulling is associated with a lower risk of injury, says Gentilcore. It prohibits “cheating” the deadlift with momentum.
How to integrate the deadlift into your training routine
Do the exercise at least twice a week to really improve and benefit from the deadlift. You can choose to do the same variation every day or switch between setups when more work for you. Depending on your training plan, you can integrate it into full body, lower body or back chain days.
Whatever you choose, deadlifts are generally best done at the start of training and shortly after your warm-up and activation exercises, says Gentilcore. The deadlift is a highly technical movement that worsens when the muscles and central nervous system are exhausted.
This is especially true if you reach high values for high repetitions. Gentilcore recommends that you usually cut sets of around 6 reps to reduce the risk of shape disorders. For example, consider performing 4 sets of 6 reps or 5 sets of 5 reps. When you finish each set with little to nothing in the tank, rest for 2 to 3 minutes between sets.
It is about ensuring the quality of movement. The best deadlift for your hips is the one you do with impeccable shape.
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