How to do a conventional deadlift

There are two common deadlift stances. The conventional deadlift is the most common, the most athletic and — in my opinion — the most functional. The other is the sumo deadlift, used mostly by powerlifters to shorten the range of motion and move the most weight possible.

This article is the conventional pull. Narrow to shoulder-width stance, as opposed to a wide one. The stance and torso position differ between the two, but the cues for executing the lift are virtually identical, so most of what follows applies either way.

Done properly, the deadlift builds your glutes and your hamstrings and it builds serious core strength. There is almost nothing else that trains that much of you at once.

Deadlifts don't hurt backs. Bad deadlifts hurt backs.

Let's deal with the reputation first, because it's the reason most people never learn this lift.

Badly performed deadlifts hurt backs. The weight isn't the problem — poor technique and poor mechanics will hurt you at light loads too, and plenty of people have proved it with an empty bar.

That's true of every lift, and nobody applies the same logic to the others. Bad squats cause knee and back pain. Bad shoulder presses and bad bench cause shoulder injuries. Nobody concludes that the bench press is dangerous.

The set-up

The deadlift is won or lost before the bar moves. Everything below happens while the weight is still on the floor.

1. Stance narrow to shoulder-width. That's what makes it conventional. Wider is a different lift with a different name.
2. Choose your grip. Hook grip for light to moderate weight, mixed grip for heavy loads. Hook grip is uncomfortable for the first few weeks and then it isn't — it's worth pushing through, because it keeps both shoulders square in a way mixed grip doesn't.
3. Don't let your knees travel too far forward. If they drift over the bar you've turned the pull into a squat, and the bar now has to travel around your knees instead of up your legs.
4. Pack your arms. Like you're trying to pop balloons with your armpits. This engages the lats and keeps the bar locked in against your body — it's the same job that pulling the bar into your back does in a squat.
5. Build the wedge. Pull the slack out of your arms and build full-body tension before anything leaves the ground. You should feel the bar load against your hands and your whole body go tight while the plates are still down. Most missed pulls are missed here.
6. Brace. Set the pressure with your hips down and your back already in the position you intend to keep. Bracing after the bar leaves the floor is too late — the moment you most need the pressure is the moment it breaks the floor.

If bracing isn't a concrete thing you can do on command yet, stop here and read how to brace your core first. There's a ten-second belt test in it that tells you whether you're actually doing it or just thinking about it.

The pull

Two rules, and they hold from the floor to lockout.

• Never bend your arms. Not at any point, not even slightly. Your arms are hooks. A bent arm under a heavy bar is how biceps tears happen, and they happen to strong people.
• Keep the bar close to you the whole way. Dragging up the legs, not swinging out in front. Every inch the bar drifts forward is leverage working against you and load moving onto your lower back.

That second one holds on touch and go reps too. When the plates tap the floor and come straight back up, the bar still has to be in the same place it started — most people's second rep is worse than their first because they let it drift on the way down.

The lockout

Finish with hips and legs fully extended and locked out. Standing tall, nothing left to straighten.

You don't need to lean back at the top, and you shouldn't. Hyperextending at lockout adds nothing to the lift and puts your lower back in the one position it has no business being in under load. Stand up. That's the whole finish.

Conventional vs sumo deadlift

	Conventional	Sumo
Stance	Narrow to shoulder-width	Wide
Hands	Outside the knees	Inside the knees
Torso	More bent over	More upright
Range of motion	Longer	Shorter
Best for	Athleticism, carryover to life	Moving the most weight

Sumo isn't cheating and it isn't easier — it's a different distribution of work, and plenty of strong people pull more that way. But the shorter range of motion is the reason powerlifters choose it, and if your goal isn't a number on a platform, that reason doesn't apply to you.

For most people learning to lift, conventional is the one I'd teach. It looks like what you already do when you pick something up, which is the entire point.

Watch it

Reading a movement only gets you so far. Here's the whole lift, taught:

Why this lift matters beyond the barbell

The deadlift lives inside other lifts, which is what makes it a critical piece of strength and athletic training rather than one exercise among many.

It's the first half of both the snatch and the clean and jerk in olympic weightlifting — every one of those lifts starts as a deadlift and then becomes something else. You can also pull with dumbbells, kettlebells and sandbags, and the pattern transfers to all of them.

Learn it once and you've learned the foundation of a dozen other things.

Then go and use it

Brace, then technique, then load — that order is most of what keeps lifting safe. The deadlift is one of three lifts worth learning properly; the squat write-up is here, and both videos are up free on learn the lifts, no signup.

To see where the pull sits in an actual training week — sets, reps, percentages, rest — there's a full routine written out. And if you're coming to the barbell later than most people do, start with strength training for women over 50.

This article is general information about exercise and health. It isn't medical advice. If you have current back pain or a diagnosis affecting your spine, see a professional who can examine you before loading a barbell.