I was in the gym the other day teaching one of my very favourite exercises of all time – an exercise I have practised and honed for many years and even, at times, somewhat boldly entered competitions contesting its performance.

It is one of the heaviest exercises we practise in the gym, or at least the exercise that allows us to handle the most weight. It is a member of the holy trinity of training, or the royal family of fitness I like to call the king, queen and prince of all exercises. If the squat is king and the bench press prince, then the queen is, without doubt, the deadlift.

The deadlift is somewhat of a master of functional lifting. Few exercises can rival it in terms of actual usefulness in everyday life.

Simply put, to deadlift means to pick something up off the floor. The lifter picks the weight up and extends the body, standing up straight with the weight hanging from the arms at about upper-thigh level. This is something natural we do far more often than most other movements we practise in the gym, whether it’s lifting shopping bags, boxes or indeed anything else lying about on the floor that needs picking up. Grab that weight and just stand up.

Of course I use the word just loosely, because the beauty of the deadlift in the gym context, where brawny men and athletic women congregate amid concentrations of testosterone, is that very heavy weights can be hoisted. It is the ultimate test of hamstring, gluteal and back strength.

It also severely challenges grip strength and shoulder stability as the trapezius muscles running all the way down from the neck to the top of the shoulders must work hard to support the shoulder girdle which, in turn, supports the arms and, ultimately, all the weight they are holding. In international competitive powerlifting, the deadlift event has assumed insane proportions, with world-class athletes now lifting close to 500 kilos.

So what was so different about my latest flirtations with this exercise? After spending considerable time discussing torso inclination, weight distribution, bar path, back management and all the other little things those interested in lifting heavy stuff off the floor might be concerned with, this particular client was exhibiting some pretty fine lifting technique, if I may say so myself.

When he completed all the repetitions, he proceeded to place the bar back on the floor but his form fell apart, simply because he wasn’t thinking about deadlifting anymore, but rather about simply placing something back down on the floor.

When he started the next set, the same thing happened in reverse; he picked up the weight in the wrong form and then proceeded with perfect deadlift technique from the second repetition onwards.

It occurred to me this wasn’t the first time I had made this correction. It appeared the point had been missed. Deadlifting is nothing more than picking stuff up off the floor and possibly lowering it again in a safe and effective manner. Picking up the weight to begin, and placing it back down again afterwards are perhaps the most important repetitions of all, because in real life we might pick up an object, walk some distance with it and then place it back down again. So if we can’t use the great technique we’ve learnt in the deadlift for this precise purpose, then when are we ever going to use it and what good is it to us?

So in the spirit of functional fitness for all, let’s take it from the experts just how we should be lifting up stuff properly, whether it’s a box of papers at the office, a six-pack of water at the grocery store or even a 100-kilo barbell at the gym, if that’s your sort of thing.

Rule one: bend the hips and knees not the back. Think of a cat getting the fright of its life or engaged in a tense stand-off with a rival.

If you can picture the rounded back, this is precisely what you want to avoid. The human back was never meant to be in that position while handling heavy loads, yet this is precisely what we often tend to do. Instead, stick your chest out, keep your back straight and bend those knees and hips.

We should be lifting up stuff properly, whether it’s a box of papers at the office, a six-pack of water at the grocery store or even a 100-kilo barbell at the gym

Rule two: keep your weight predominantly over your heels. There’s a simple way of determining this – just wiggle your toes. If you can wiggle your toes throughout the movement, then your weight is on your heels.

Staying on your heels means more stability and engagement of the large muscles of the hips and thighs that can really help you. If you’re on the balls of your feet, chances are you’re straining your knees and delegating most of the work exclusively to the front part of your thighs.

Rule three: keep it close. Whatever the object, try to keep it as close in towards your body while you lift it as possible. This simple action increases your leverage. The further away it is from you, the heavier it will be, just like one of those huge construction cranes.

The further away the weight is from the pivot point, the less load the crane is able to handle. If it’s right in, close to that pivot point, however, the crane is at its strongest; the human body works in the same way, with the hips acting as the major pivot point.

matthew.muscat.inglott@mcast.edu.mt