Are You Finishing Your Deadlift Wrong?
/
Figure 1: A correctly finished deadlift
(If you like, you can scroll down to the end of this article and watch a video related to this topic.)
A common problem in the deadlift is a misunderstanding of what finishing the lift should look and feel like. This typically results in one of two situations - a lifter who doesn’t completely open the hips and therefore doesn’t actually complete the rep or a lifter who overdoes it and ends up finishing the lift with the back in overextension. One of these is insufficient, and the other is unnecessary. Both of them look ridiculous, so we’re going to try and fix this.
Figure 2: An unfinished deadlift - don’t be like this fool.
A finished deadlift (Figure 1) will have the knees fully extended, the hips fully extended, the chest up, and the shoulders back. In other words, the knees will be straight, the hips will be straight, and the shoulders will be behind the bar. In even simpler terms, the lifter simply stands all the way up.
If you find that you’re not finishing your deadlift, i.e., if your hips don’t open all the way and you look like you’re leaning over the bar like the fool in Figure 2, simply cue yourself to “Stand up” or “Stand up tall.”
Figure 3: An “overdone” deadlift - don’t be like this fool, either.