Written by: Erin Murray, PRO Personal Trainer
I deadlift with 90 percent of my clients. Unless there’s a very specific reason not to, I believe that deadlifting is one of the most valuable exercises you can have in your workout routine.
Here is why it’s my favorite lift.
Injury Prevention
So many of my clients intuitively think that deadlifting creates a high risk of causing injury. However, in a society where so many of us experience low back pain, this movement can actually help prevent low back pain by strengthening otherwise neglected muscles.
Think about it: is your back more likely to hurt if it’s weak and unsupported, or strong and healthy?
Deadlifting strengthens the spinal erectors, abdominals, glutes, and hamstrings – all of which help to stabilize the spine and pelvis, which is crucial to reducing low back pain.
Of course, injury can happen if you try to lift too much too soon. This applies to deadlifting as an exercise, but it also applies to life. What happens if you pick up a heavy object and those muscles haven’t been trained to handle that load? Strengthening those muscles is also important to preventing injury in your daily life.
Added Bonus: Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are one of the most common major injuries among young athletes. One predictor of increased injury risk is the strength imbalance between the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes.
Because the deadlift can be a challenging movement to teach, coaches of young athletes often avoid this movement and opt for strengthening exercises that emphasize quadricep strength instead. Deadlifts challenge the hamstrings and glutes, and can help correct this imbalance.
Get the Most Out of Your Workout
This one movement targets so many muscles at once – primarily upper and lower back, core, glutes, and hamstrings. Those are some big muscles, and big muscles need a lot of energy to work. This is good news if your goal is weight loss. More energy required equals more calories burned. And if your goal is to put on some muscle, deadlifting allows you to train multiple muscle groups at once, allowing you to load them much more than you could with any isolated exercise. Big stimulus equals big results!
Compound movements like the deadlift are also a huge benefit if you’re short on time. Instead of doing four or five different exercises, you can work all the same muscle groups with one single exercise.
Added Bonus: Deadlifting works your glutes way more than squatting does.
Deadlift? Yes, you should!
Schedule a session with a PRO Personal trainer to learn how to deadlift correctly and add this exercise to your fitness routine.
After dabbling in several sports throughout her youth, Erin found her true passion when she started powerlifting after high school. Since then, she has broken state and national powerlifting and strongman records. Erin is a firm believer that the secret to fitness success is finding something you enjoy, and she’s determined to help others find their fitness passion.
