All threads
54
Form Checkquads_mcgee·

Deadlift: lower back gets pumped, hamstrings feel nothing. What am I doing wrong

Conventional, 140kg for 3-5 reps, 85kg bodyweight. Every session my lower back is pumped like crazy after and my hamstrings feel like they did nothing. No pain, just pump. Glutes maybe a little.

Setup: bar over midfoot, shins touch bar, grip just outside legs, pull slack out, drive.

Filmed from the side and my hips shoot up first and then my back finishes it. So I think I know what is happening, I just do not know how to fix it. Cues that actually worked for you?

5 comments

Sign in to reply.

43
oldschoolpete·

Hips shooting up means your legs are stronger than your back position, so your body skips the leg drive and turns it into a stiff-leg. Two things:

  1. Drop to 110-115 and do 5x3 where the ONLY goal is chest and hips rising together. Film every set. Add weight only when it looks right.
  2. Think "push the floor away" not "pull the bar up". You said you drive, but if the hips shoot the drive is not happening.

Also your back is pumped because it is doing a lot of isometric work. That is not automatically wrong, but at 140 it means it is doing more than its share.

12
quads_mcgeeOP·

Dropping to 110 is going to hurt my ego but you are right that I have been adding weight on a lift that does not look right.

29
kate.lifts·

Romanian deadlifts 3x8 as an accessory. If you have never felt hamstrings on a deadlift it is usually because you have never trained the hinge slowly enough to feel it. RDLs taught me where my hamstrings were. Then the conventional got better on its own.

16
grzegorz·

Check where the bar is when it leaves the floor. If it drifts forward even 2cm your hips will shoot to get back over it. Lats tight, bar dragged up the shins. Chalk on your shins if you want proof.

11
coachraf·

Everyone above is right. One more: pause 2cm off the floor for a count of one. 100kg, 3x3. You cannot cheat a paused deadlift with your back, it forces the position. Do this for 4 weeks and your 140 will look different.