Pros and cons of deadlift

Deadlift destroys your hands and shins, has a relatively high risk of back injury, and is exhaustive as hell! But the rewards are too great: a powerful posterior chain, increased muscle mass, and improved grip strength which will help in other pull exercises.

Introduction

You've probably heard of deadlifting and squats being the king of exercises. But unfortunately, as you may have noticed, deadlifting doesn't give you that immediate 'pump' you get after a chest day (or after working out your arms).

But still, it's almost common knowledge that you should incorporate deadlifts into your workout routine.

In this article, I will discuss the pros and cons of deadlifts so you know why you should implement this great exercise in your routine. Where applicable, references to scientific articles are made with links backing the statements, while some pros and cons are based on my own experience with deadlifts.

Pros of deadlift

1. Compound exercise

Deadlifting is excellent if you want to build mass, as it's a compound exercise, meaning that multiple joints are involved in the movement. This means that multiple muscle groups are activated when you're deadlifting.

Think of your hamstrings, your lower back muscles, your quads, and your trapezius muscle. Even your forearms are proven to be activated while deadlifting.

2. Great glute activation

For the ladies, if you want to increase the size of your glutes, then you must start doing deadlifts!

Deadlifting is found to have a very high level of gluteus maximus activation, together with squats, lunges, and hip thrusts.

If you really want your glutes to explode, you can implement specific deadlift variations into your workouts that focus more on your hamstrings and glutes than your quads. A great deadlift variation for this purpose is the stiff-legged deadlift or the Romanian deadlift.

3. Builds general strength

Deadlifting is, along with squats and bench press, the ultimate exercise to build general strength as it's a multi-joint exercise and, therefore, multiple muscle groups are activated.

The strength you'll develop with deadlifting translates well to lots of other exercises, such as (barbell or dumbbell) rows, back extensions, lat pulldowns, and any other pull exercise, as well as exercises that benefit from a strong grip.

4. Increases grip power

It's no wonder that you'll improve your grip power with deadlifting. The heavier the barbell is loaded, the stronger your grip is needed if you want to keep holding it while lifting it.

Of course, initially, it'll be painful and very hard to firmly grip the barbell without letting it slip out of your hands.

How much you'll develop your grip strength depends on which grip you use to grab the barbell.

There are multiple grips to choose from:

• Overhand grip.
• Overhand/underhand grip.
• Hook grip.

Overhand grip

The overhand grip is when you grab the barbell with the palms of both of your hands facing back (i.e., pointing to the back). This grip is the weakest type, as all grip strength comes from your forearms. As a consequence, using this grip is the best way if you want to increase your forearms strength and grip power.

Overhand/underhand grip

The overhand/underhand grip is when you grab the barbell with the palm of one hand facing back while the palm of the other hand faces forward. If your palm is facing forward (i.e., underhand grip), your hand is in a supinated position, and if your palm is facing back ( i.e., overhand grip), then it's also called a pronated position.

With this grip, the barbell is much less likely to roll and slide out of your hands, as your hands will interlock with the barbell.

The power in this grip comes less from your forearms and more from how this grip works interlocking. As such, if you're prime focus is to increase your grip strength, you'd be better off using the overhand grip instead. But if you primarily want to focus on the deadlift and lift as much weight as possible, then the overhand/underhand grip more easily allows you to do just that.

Hook grip

Finally, we have the hook grip, where you hold the barbell while bending your thumb so your fingers wrap around your thumb and pull it against the barbell.

This is, of course, pretty painful on your thumb if you're not used to this grip. Still, with practice, your thumb will develop calculus and become stronger, to the point that it won't be painful anymore.

The hook grip is very powerful, allowing you to pull heavy loads with both hands in an overhand grip. You can even combine the hook grip with the overhand/underhand grip, but I find it's not as comfortable in the underhand grip as in the overhand grip.

The hook grip is particularly useful in Olympic lifts, but you can, of course, use it with regular deadlifting as well.

Cons of deadlift

1. Easy to learn, hard to master

Although deadlifting isn't that complex in design (it's just lifting off weight from the floor... how difficult can that be?), actually mastering it, especially at heavier weights, isn't as easy as it looks.

And that's because there are many little mistakes you can make while deadlifting which you need to look out for.

You need to use the proper foot positioning, watch out how wide you grab the barbell, position the barbell at the right place over your feet, bend your knees sufficiently, keep your back straight, grip the barbell correctly, making sure your shoulder blades are retracted, keep your head positioned well, use the correct bracing technique, use proper breathing technique, etc., etc.

These aspects aren't challenging if you focus on them separately, but making sure everything is correct during a heavy deadlift is often more difficult than you think. As such, starting with deadlifting as a beginner is easy, but mastering all aspects of the exercise during heavier weights takes a longer time.

2. Risk of injury

Lower back pain

Deadlifting is an exercise with a high risk of injury if you don't use the correct technique and load up the barbell beyond your limits.

Lower back pain after deadlifting is a common thing among inexperienced gym goers.. You'll see this often with beginners who, after a few months of training, think they've completely mastered the deadlift and go too heavy too soon.

They end up rounding their back while trying to lift a load too heavy, which can cause pain or even injury in their spine (if you're really unlucky, it can even lead to a herniated disk!).

Bicep tears

Another less frequent (but not less severe!) injury is a biceps tear.

A biceps tear is an injury where the tendons of your biceps literally tear off due to a heavy load. A biceps tear can occur if you deadlift too heavy and grab the barbell with a supinated grip (i.e., the underhand grip, where your palm is facing forward).

You can decrease the risk of a bicep tear during deadlifting by holding the barbell with both hands in an overhand or pronated grip and using lifting straps.

3. Uncomfortable and painful

Deadlifting is one of the hardest exercises on your hands and shins. Grabbing a heavily loaded barbell and trying to lift all the weight up will leave your hands sore, especially inside your hand under your knuckles.

Calluses on your hands

Don't be surprised that after a time calluses will develop from deadlifting!

Calluses develop on your hands from the immense pressure of the barbell while you're holding and lifting the weight. Initially, it'll be very painful, but over time your skin will get thicker and act as cushioning for the severe pressure for the barbell, making it less painful to do the exercise.

Skin off your shins

Another place of discomfort is your shins. When deadlifting, you need to make sure the barbell is as close to your body as possible if you want to use the correct technique and have the proper posture. As such, you often end up dragging the barbell against your shins as you lift the weight up.

As barbells have knurlings, and depending on how aggressive the knurling is, the result is it will literally scrape off your skin from your shins.

4. Exhausting

What I find a big disadvantage of deadlifting is how exhausting it is compared to other lifts, as it's a compound exercise that activates lots of muscles.

Requires planning and being well-rested

Don't get me wrong, deadlifting is a terrific exercise that you should implement in your workouts if you're serious about your fitness goals, but if you have a full-time job or even a family to take care of, planning your week around heavy lifts is more crucial than ever if you want to make the best out of it.

You need to ensure you're well-rested on days when you're going to deadlift. It's already a heavy and energy-demanding exercise that leaves you all exhausted, and the last thing you want is to be tired before you even start!

Deadlifting at the start or end of your workout?

As it's so exhausting, you also need to plan the exercise within your workout accordingly. You can start your workout with deadlifting when you're still fresh and have high energy levels, but the consequence is that afterward, you don't have as much energy left to do other exercises with maximum intensity.

On the other hand, if you start your workout with other (accessory) exercises so you can do those with maximum intensity and focus and leave the deadlift for the end of your workout, then you don't have enough energy left to do deadlifting with full power.

Hence, you need to have your priorities and goals set to make the best out of your workouts.

If your goal is to increase your strength, I'd suggest starting with deadlifting at the beginning of your workout (after a thorough warming up, of course). In case your goal is hypertrophy training, you may want to do your deadlifts in the middle or at the end of your workout so you have more energy for other exercises.

5. Time-consuming

As you've noticed by now, deadlifting is an exhausting and energy-demanding exercise. That's a sign that it's a great exercise!

With anything that requires too much energy, the result is that you want to take longer rest periods between your sets when you're doing heavy sets or sets with a high number of reps.

Usually, I take about 45-60 seconds of rest between my sets when doing hypertrophy training. But when I'm deadlifting, I typically take 2 to 3 minutes of rest between my heavy sets.

This means that you spend more time doing this exercise than other, less demanding exercises, which ends up in your workouts taking longer to complete.

6. Requires long recovery-time

A final thing about the energy demands and exhaustion after deadlifting is that your body requires more recovery time after you've deadlifted than other less demanding exercises.

I found that deadlifting is more exhaustive than squatting for me. Whenever I go heavy at squats, I need 2 days to fully recover.

With deadlifting, on the other hand, after the 2nd day, I still feel exhausted and as if my muscles are still too tired. It usually takes 1 day longer for me to fully recover and have my energy levels up (and yes, I did make sure I slept well and ate enough).

Deadlift and injury

The problem with deadlifting is that ego lifting is a constant threat that looms to take over. There are days you feel all good and strong, and you do all your sets of deadlifting with a low rating of perceived exertion. So you decide to go for a new PR and load up the barbell with even more weights and end up lifting the barbell with subpar form.

Although you may have lifted the weight, going above your limits with improper form means you're at risk of injuring your lower back, especially when deadlifting.

You need to control your urges to go heavier every workout and really take your time (getting stronger takes patience!).

If you can control your ego and deadlift with proper form every time, you'll get stronger automatically over time with minimum risk of injury.

Conclusion

As you see, deadlifting is excellent if you want to build your posterior chain and become stronger (and bigger!) in general, but you need to take special care to prevent injury.

If you lift responsibly, though (which you should anyway!), the benefits of deadlifting far outweigh the risk of injury.

What do you think of deadlifting? Let me know!