This 1 Minute Routine Makes Your Deadlift Instantly Stronger

One minute. One habit. A huge difference in how your deadlift feels and performs. Try this before your next pull—you’ll feel it immediately. Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers explains.

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

The Deadlift: Sock it to Me, Baby

effective . . . and stylish

(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 05/28/21)

Want an easy way to improve your deadlift?

Wear long socks. Seriously. When you deadlift, wear socks that go over your calves and up to a point just below your knees. Of course, sweatpants or leggings will work as well, but for pure fashion - and I’m an expert on this topic - I recommend the classic, old-school tube sock with the horizontal stripes.

Why long socks? Two reasons:

First, you’ll keep the bar closer. Remember, step 5 in the deadlift setup is “drag” - i.e., drag the bar up your legs. This keeps the bar close to your body, over the middle of your foot, and it makes for the most efficient pull. Have you ever tried holding a jug of milk out at arm’s length? It’s a lot easier when you keep it close to your body, and the deadlift is no different. Lifters will automatically keep the barbell closer to their legs when they’re not worried about scraping their shins, which brings us to . . .

Second, you’ll prevent yourself from having bloody shins when you actually succeed in keeping the bar close. You don’t want bloody shins - once they bleed, it’s amazingly easy to break those scabs back open again in successive workouts - and we don’t want your DNA on the bar.

Now, if you’ve never let a deadlift drift away from your shins, and if you’ve never had bloody shins when pulling, then feel free to ignore this advice, but your day will come too, my friend, and when it does, you’ll wish you had a pair of those sweet socks.

As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

2 Clues to SPOT Your Terrible Deadlift EARLY!

If you've got a deadlift that's drifting away from you as you pull, that's a problem.

Let’s fix it.

Why Does This Happen?
This problem is often caused by accidentally “getting forward” during the setup process. In other words, during the five-step setup for the deadlift, you accidentally allow your balance to shift forward, and this almost always happens during either step two or step three of the setup process. 

I would strongly recommend watching the short video below to see these errors and their solutions demonstrated.

A brief recap of the five-step setup for the deadlift:

1. Stance: Take a relatively narrow stance wherein your vertical shins are one inch from the barbell.

2. Grip: Bend over to grab the bar, but do not move the bar, and don’t touch the bar with your shins (keep the shins vertical) just yet.

3. Shins: Bend you knees slightly until your shins touch the bar.

4. Chest: Squeeze your chest up (without dropping your hips) and set your back in flat, rigid extension.

5. Pull: Drag the bar up your legs.

Problem During Step 2
Remember that midfoot balance is assumed, i.e., you want to be balanced on the middle of your foot and not on either the balls of your feet or on your heels. However, people often allow their balance to shift forward to the balls of their feet when - during step 2 - they bend over to take their grip.

step 2: Taking the grip incorrectly with balance forward (left) and taking the grip correctly with balance over midfoot (right)

If you find yourself doing this, simply cue yourself “midfoot,” or you can even overcue yourself “heels.” We don’t actually want to be balanced on our heels, but this type of overcue can be useful to prevent ourselves from rocking forward.

Problem During Step 3
During step 3, you should bend your knees slightly (i.e., drop your hips slightly) until your shins touch the barbell, but people will sometimes accidentally rock forward to bring their shins to the bar instead.

step 3: bringing the shins to the bar incorrectly by rocking forward (left) and bringing the shins to the bar correctly by bending the knees (right)

If you are committing this error, use the cue “hips drop slightly” or simply “bend your knees” to ensure that you’re bringing your shins to the bar by bending the knees and not by shifting your balance forward.

After that, squeeze your chest up and pull as usual, dragging the bar up your legs.

As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

How NOT to Deadlift (they got it ALL WRONG)

Strong pulls start with solid technique. Don’t let this common deadlift error hold you back—watch this before your next training session. Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers explains.

Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

WORST Deadlift Ever?! | How to Set Your Back for the Deadlift: Part 5

Got an awful looking back when you deadlift? Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers helps you fix it fast in Part 5 of this Saturday Shorts series.

(A Blast from the Past video originally published on 01/21/23)

Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

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• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

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• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

BEST Strategy for a Stronger, Smoother Deadlift (6 Simple Tips)

Quit trying to yank or jerk your deadlifts off the floor.

Heavy weights cannot be yanked off the floor. Light weights can, of course, but in doing so, you’re accidentally practicing something that won’t work when things get heavy.

With this in mind, let’s cover six ways to fix this problem along with a bonus tip at the end to tie it all together.

The Mistake
The error of trying to yank the bar off the floor is usually caused by poor execution of step four in the five-step deadlift setup process. Here’s a quick recap of that process, and you can watch the video below for a more in depth treatment:

1. Stance - shins one inch from the barbell

2. Grip - bend over and grab the bar (don’t move the bar)

3. Shins - bend your knees slightly (i.e., drop the hips slightly) until your shins lightly touch the bar

4. Chest - squeeze your chest up to set your back

5. Pull - drag the bar up your legs as you stand up

When you squeeze your chest up in step four, you should be putting a significant amount of tension on the bar, and lifters who don’t do this tend to then yank the bar off the floor when they try to execute step five (i.e., pull).

Here are six cues to ensure you put tension on the barbell when you set your back.

Cue #1: Bend the bar.
With this cue, you are reminding yourself that when you squeeze your chest up with long, straight arms, there should be enough tension on the bar at this point that the bar starts to bend upward in the middle. In other words, you create a bit of a hill with the bar. 

Figure 1: The difference in bar shape between no tension (left) and tension (right) is very noticeable, and it’s even more noticeable when watching it in person or on video.

Cue #2: Bend it before you break it.
The same concept applies here, but this is a bit catchier. It’s the “try it before you buy it” cue of smooth pulls.

This cue also has the benefit of illustrating the timing needed - you bend the bar before you break it off the floor. You don’t bend the bar and try to break it off the floor at the same time.

Think “set the back, pause, then pull.”

Cue #3: Flex the bar.
This is another cue that emphasizes the change in the shape of the bar that should happen when you set your back. You should see and feel the bar flex upward when you squeeze your chest up to set your back.

Witness the noticeable difference in bar shape (between tension and no tension) at the 1:02 mark in the video below.

Cue #4: Pull the slack out of the bar.
Every bar has some slop (i.e, some gap or distance) between the shaft and the collars, and you also have slop between the sleeve of the bar and the plates themselves. When you squeeze your chest up - applying tension to the bar - you should make this slop disappear.

You can see this happen on video, so watch the video below at the 1:55 mark.

Cue #5: Pull the click out of the bar.
This is the same idea as cue #4, but you’re focusing on the audible aspect instead of the visual aspect. When you put tension on the bar, you’ll hear the barbell click as the shaft moves upward against the collar of the bar, and you’ll also hear some noise as the plates rattle a bit.

Make some noise when you set your back (you can hear this at the 2:29 mark of the video above).

Cue #6: Heavy in the hands
Before you squeeze your chest up and consciously apply tension to the bar, you probably aren’t supporting much of the weight of the bar in your hands. You shouldn’t be resting on the bar, but you’re not pulling upward much either.

However, when you squeeze your chest up to set your back, you should absolutely be supporting a significant portion of the bar’s weight in your hands. If it’s a 400 lb deadlift, you might now be applying 100 lb, 200 lb, maybe 300 lb of upward pull at this point. The specific numbers aren’t important (and they’re made up in this example, anyway) - the point is that you should feel significant weight in your hands because your hands are now supporting that weight (and correspondingly, the floor is supporting less of that weight).

Bonus Tip: Squeeze the bar off the floor.
Some lifters will do a good job of setting their backs with proper tension on the bar, and then they’ll make the mistake of slightly releasing that tension and then trying to yank the bar off the floor. This is usually a subconscious effort to get a bit of “down-up” movement out of the lift akin to the bounce you see at the bottom of the squat.

However, the floor prevents this movement as the bar can’t actually go downward, and as a result, slack is created in the arms, which then is “yanked” back out again as the lifter tries to jerk the bar off the floor.

Cue yourself to squeeze the bar off the floor.

As you squeeze something hard, you grip it tightly, then tighter, then tighter yet.

Likewise, this reminds you to pull harder, then harder, then harder yet as you pull the bar smoothly off the floor. An efficient start to your pull is analog - not digital. It’s not a switch, but rather a dial. You turn that dial up when you set your back with tension, and then you smoothly turn it up further to start the pull.

As always, we hope these tips help you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

• Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

• Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

• Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

• Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

• Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?