Deadlift: Can't keep lower back straight

Alright lads, I'm 6'8 and Deadlifting is just not working for me. Squat form is perfect, Bench etc. everything is perfect minus Deadlift. If I raise the bar 2-3inches, I have a perfect flat back and can lift fine, as soon as it goes down, the only thing that moves is my lower back as I can't arch my lower back any more, literally max it can be straight is just 2-3 inches higher.

I'm fairly flexible however, I will do flexibility work if it does actually help, I used to do quite a lot of static stretching and then dynamic before my workout but even then I'm adamant my back was still the exact same and I'm fairly sure at this point it's just max range of motion flexibility wise before bone in the way.

Semi sumo and sumo are fine, I can get my back straight easy and my hips lower. When I'm pulling deadlift, due to my long femurs, it's almost like setting up for a Pendlay Row, my back is practically parallel.

I know I can just do semi/sumo or just raise the bar a few inches and my back will be fine but I just wanna be able to do a conventional deadlift.

Every time I see people my height, Brian Shaw or Hafthor Bjornsonn, even some people shorter, they never have a conventional deadlift, it's always more of a Squat start.

Sorry for repeating myself but I'm beyond frustrated of having a sore back when I come home.

>Is flexibility work a meme?
>How the fuck do I deadlift conventionally?!
>Just to reiterate, every other compound movement is perfect, RDL's I do as well to supplement with.

Just interested to hear input whether there's something I'm missing or if I should just start pulling from a 2-3inch block/plate under the bar. I do Starting Strength Deadlift technique and have read it numerous times over and I've coached people on how to do a Deadlift and they do it fine but I can't myself..

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/GoYWLualcmc
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

alright I'm just 6'4" but I've had similar problems starting out. the way I got around it was simply from using a lower weight and maintaining a straight back, and then progressively increasing the weight while maintaining that good form. since basic biology/physics is against us, consider pulling like the other tall guys do. I stick to conventional because it works for me, though. my wingspan is like 6'9".

if you keep having back issues, consider the sumo or simply the hexbar dl

Cheers for the reply. I can't even get my back straight from the get go, it's literally just the lower back and if I'm 2-3inches higher then my back is straight like it physically won't let me keep it straight and it's infuriating.

I would just hexbar but we don't have one in my gym, last time I used one I could pull 355 first time using it for reps yet I can't even get my back properly straight with 40kg (10kg plates are the same size as 25kg plates etc. in my gym, bumper plates).

Feel like giving up but I just wanna see if there's something I'm missing. I've read plenty of places that foam rolling/peanut rolling and static stretches are generally just not useful in particular for hamstring flexibility. I religiously used to do them for my glutes, hip flexors etc. and I haven't done them for well over a month now and my flexibility is the exact same. Squat is perfect etc. I only do dynamic stretches, maybe foam roll my upper back if I feel like I wanna crack it but even then I just hang off a pull up bar.

Thank you for your reply though I really appreciate it

Post vid. It doesn't have to be autistacly straight

find a hex bar with high handles
it's just as good and wont send you to giant snap city

>Alright lads
>I'm 6'8
Does it get cold up there?

the fuck

Brian Shaw is 6'8" and he typically spreads his feet out further to make deadlifting more comfortable. Not quite a sumo deadlift or anything but more spread out than the conventional method. He talks about it here if you're interested youtu.be/GoYWLualcmc

Don't have the video anymore and phone is dead, I have a snapshot from the start of the pull, you see my lower back, don't get me wrong it's a little bit of love handle but soon as I raise the bar a tiny bit, that roundness instantly goes. This is also 2 months old this picture and I keep my head straight now and it still looks the exact same.

I keep getting back aches (not spinal erector) and it's just putting me off entirely and interfering with my Squats. If I put my feet semi sumo/sumo then I can get my hips slightly lower and back straight which is why I'm thinking this is a bone issue not letting me get any straighter (like hip/femur socket?).

Yeah that's what I was talking about in my OP, it's like the weirdest setup like his arms are almost in a snatch grip position and he squeezes his legs inside. Kinda looks like an ACL tear waiting to happen as well.

Man fuck, yano when you see about the people saying "they can't do it" and it's an excuse, I feel like that right now but I know I'm squeezing my damndest to try get my lower back arch.

RDL is perfect and all but the last 2 inches is before bone seems to interfere.

Yeah I would just pull sumo then man. other than playing around with stance I think that your height interferes with conventional

Thanks for your input, don't want to be that "special snowflake" but I think I might just be that person.

That being being said like in my OP, I've never seen a person my height or even 6'5+ deadlift conventionally. Think it was the Rippletits mentality to of not wanting to drop conventional pulls because I can't be the minority who can't pull conventional. Although he pretty much accepts nobody can not Deadlift and the rest of the "coaches" there.

well, uh, you're not supposed to be that high. you're supposed to bend your knees and drop down much further. are you unable to do so?

Yeah but look at his leverages, if he dropped his hips he'd turn it into a squat and lose strength

I can but regardless of where you start, the bar doesn't leave the floor until it's over your mid foot, so I set up with it mid foot. If I set it out further infront, I can get my back straight but it ends up my hips shooting up before the bar even leaves the floor (my back will still stay straight).

It's like if you watch Brian Shaw on the vid above or other strongmen, they all Squat into the Deadlift basically but you'll see the bar never leaves the floor until the hips are where they should be, so you may as well start with the hips in that position to begin with.

I suppose I could just sit my hips down further and see how it looks but from what I could remember it would just shoot them up and then move.

what you said, it pushes the bar out infront of me and I have to use the first 0.5seconds basically pulling it back and exerting energy. Also makes it a pain to reset the weight and do it again.

Sorry about this lads but I'm at my wits end.

Say fug it and do what Konstantinovs does, narrow feet, shoulder width grip, straight lower back but let the upper round

lean back on your heels and pull your shoulders back i used to have the same problem

the issue is my lower back in the first place though mate, couldn't give a fuck about my upper back it can do as it pleases but the lower back doesn't co-operate. I can squat down further but the hips just shoot up but at least my back stays straight.

I don't know, maybe I should do that, I'm trying to follow textbook SS form but it isn't happening no matter how hard I've tried. If I can Squat way below parallel and perform RDL's, I can't see how it's a flexibility issue and I've watched so many videos and re-read SS deadlift section so many times and it's no use.

>tfw thin man in your squad

>I'm at my wits end
You shouldn't need to be. There's plenty of other exercises for the posterior chain that you can do. I would just use pads and/or sumo if I were you

I'll give it a try but I've tried mid foot and heel before, only way it gets fixed is like mentioned above. I get my hips lower but they just shoot up when the weight starts moving because my hips are stronger higher. I guess I'll never have that textbook looking deadlift so as long as my lower back stays flat and I'm pulling big weights, that's all that matters.

I'm pulling 110kg in the above picture and it's not remotely heavy. 95% of the strain in the lift is me trying to straighten something that isn't going to with my hips that high.

Cheers for the comforting words. Might just elevate the bar, I feel better that I've at least sought help and vented and other people can clearly see it's not just me being a retard. I've been trying to fix this for months and it's not going anywhere and I've hurt my back 3 times, doesn't matter whether its 40 or 110kg it doesn't ever change my back.

Much love man.

this + a wider stance + pointing my feet out more has helped me stabilize during dls. much easier to keep the back straight.

I have my toes out about 20 degrees, almost similar to my Squat and it helps knees caving in. If I widen to semi sumo everything is grand, only issue I have then is the bar has no knurling on the part where I can put my hands, all smooth.

Seconding this

granted I'm only a 6'2" beta lanklet and I bow to your superior tallness but I had a similar problem with DLs (hips want to shoot up) and "leaning back" into my posterior chain and onto my heels solved the problem.

What kind of squats do you do, if you don't mind me asking. High bar? Low bar?

this is completely false

its not a squat retard

Haha, nothing to bow to my friend. That picture doesn't do me justice of setting up for deadlift but I'll always feel forever dyel mode until I'm 250+. I'm actually cutting at the moment to get rid of my skinnyfat belly before I bulk and staying between 10-15% body fat then. I was originally going to all out it and just keep bulking to 220-230lbs but the stomach was getting too much.

I'm gonna really focus tomorrow on getting onto my heels and seeing if that helps. I'll be updating either this thread or making a new one tomorrow and hopefully be sorted. Either way if that doesn't work I'm gonna start lifting off a plate or do semi-sumo. When I do semi-sumo though my bar is still quite leaned over but I guess it'll just take a bit of technique tampering.

I do high bar, not completely on top of traps but just below. I have a small clip of doing 1 rep to just record my bar path after doing 3x5 100kg then 3x8 80kg drop sets if you're interested or I can just post a screencap of depth. Took a lot of flexibility work back in the day to get my ankles freed up and hips.

dropping further than in that picture doesn't make it a squat, friend. please stay nice in this comfy thread

I'm 6'5 and I've had the same issues as you. I've corrected my form by simply lowering the weight and bringing my ass lower. You look too skinny to be deadlifting that much anyway, I bet you half squat also. The other thing that helps to know is that when looking geometrically at the bar height with the average manlet is that it is much higher up their shins compared to ours. The solution to your height problems with dead lifting would be do rack pulls on the lowest safety notch. That would correct the bar height relative to your physical height accordingly.

i'm in a simillar boat lads only been diddlying for a month now but i always feel somethings up and my lower back rounds.

Should i just do rack pulls for a bit and come back to dl later?

I'm and cheers. you seem like a great person.
if you were to visit Sweden in the near future I'd invite you to a tall-guy retarded-deadlift lfiting session

>Took a lot of flexibility work back in the day to get my ankles freed up and hips.

Fuck man I know that feel, I had a lot of trouble getting my own squat to a comfortable place and it also ended up all being in my hips and ankles. Had to do a lot of stretching and flexibility exercises before I realize the tension was in my ankles, weird as fuck. Have you heard of "celtic hips"? For a while I was confused, turns out people of different European lineages just have different hipbone development. This is why slavs are always squatting like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe it's this way for all lifters but I feel like especially as you get on the taller side your form needs to be absurdly precise, the increased ROM makes everything difficult. Anyway good talking to you breh, good luck on your gains.

I'll bring my ass a bit lower but it's like I mentioned above, it always shoots back up before the bar leaves the floor which is a sign your hips want to be higher as it's the more powerful place for them to be, I used to deadlift that way and I never had back pain but it just looked kinda sloppy cause of it, never really textbook looking form.

Also I'm not really skinny, sure I'm not jacked but that angle is actually a little unflattering and 110kg isn't heavy to me, it's 5+ reps work.

False on the Squat assumption to. Pic related.

I have indeed. Stuart McGill goes over it in one of his seminars, I'm assuming that's where you heard of it too.

You're correct I think there's a lot more snappy time if you fuck up slightly with your form, I've had back problems from bad Squatting in the past and haven't had a problem for a long while now since I just worked hard on form.

Thanks man you take care and may the gains come plentiful!

Hey thanks man, I like to think I'm pretty swell. I actually held off posting in fit for a while cause of the cancerous verbal abuse I thought I'd get for "not being 6'8" or a "lanklet" but this thread turned out quite nice. I guess the kids have went to bed.

I might take you up on that offer! If I visit a gym in Sweden and you notice someone with a distinctive plague doctor tattoo, you'll know it's me!

I would recommend if you aren't already, do Romanian Deadlifts, also get a PDF somewhere of Starting Strength and go to the Deadlift chapter. Or watch Alan Thrall or Mark Rippetoe's video tutorial on how to Deadlift, it's actually super helpful and I've taught a fair few people how to Deadlift and they all have impeccable form minus the person teaching them, how ironic!

I'm OP btw.

(just to clarify this is the 3x8 80kg drop set work I was doing after 100kg 3x5, felt really good Squatting that day after doing some static stretching earlier in the day.)

Check the starting strength 5 step deadlift method. I thing alan thrall has many videos on this.

With all due respect I'm assuming you didn't read my posts thoroughly enough. I've read time and time over and watched both Alan and Mark Rippetoe coaching and it's 0 use. Everythings perfect til the last 2-3 inches and then I have no more flexibility to go off, it's just hip bone.

I can't tell in that pic, but are your heels flat on the ground? It almost looks like you are lacking in ankle mobility because the relative positions in your limbs look unbalanced. But like I've said, bring that ass lower. When lifting the bar off the ground you should give yourself cues to lean back and pull diagonally instead of moving the bar straight up, that helped out with my lower back curve as well. It feels like you're off balanced at first but once the weight is moving there is a world of difference.

Alright lads, I'm gonna be getting off in a few minutes. If I don't reply, thank you all for the contributions.

I'll take the heel and drop hips a little more into affect tomorrow and then draw the line there if no success and just start deadlifting off a 2-3inch elevation or semi-sumo pulling.

Thanks again for the advice and not generally being rude, very un-Veeky Forums like!

My feet are flat, 3 points of contact, I have very good ankle flexibility and wear oly shoes, my bar path in the video is ever so slightly forward and I've considered recently going low bar as again, I'm not really built for high bar and staying upright like that with the bar on my back at least but I have to come forward a tiny bit.

You know, that might actually help as I'm so focused on straight bar path that I might just try and almost 60/40 heel to foot ratio the weight, either way the bar is going to come straight up against my legs. I'll give this a try tomorrow and appreciate the help with that and see if it works.

I'll sink these hips a little lower and even if they shoot up, as long as my back is in a good spot I don't see the issue unless you're min-maxing someones form, again though I've never seen a 6'5+ person deadlift conventionally, even Vince Urbank doesn't particularly and when he has I've seen a rounded lower back to.

Another thing that helps is to focus mainly on rack pulls from the lowest pins, and supplement with other lower back exercises. Being 6'5 with a herniated disc from a motorcycle accident, I can tell you that it's not worth doing full conventional deadlifts weekly. Doing the other exercises did bring up my raw deadlifts though.

How often do you do DL's? I'm no doubt gonna do it, even if I deadlift off a 2-3inch block/plate, I do RDL's as well so I'm hitting everything I need no doubt. Same if I choose to do Semi-Sumo stance, I'm excited for later on now to see if miraculously this focusing more on being back on my heels and getting my hips a little lower helps but I'm also not holding my breath on it. I just feel like it's the way my hips are built, having a narrow stance limits me and gives me that "butt wink" effect cause there's nowhere else to go.

If you're the guy above, here's the only other example I can get of my flexibility, third world Squatting wtih a flat back basically.

I am the same guy, I do heavy low volume rack pulls on back days and high volume lower back work. I only do off the ground deadlifts for singles with good form to test my progress every 2 weeks. Don't use those shoes when deadlifting tho, they're counterproductive to your form. And when squating down like your pic it looks like we have similar proportions, hopefully my advice helps you.

>Semi sumo and sumo are fine
just fucking pull sumo then, conventional isn't ideal for everyone