Unfortunately I have seen multiple young deadlift phenoms bomb out at the national championships because they made a few simple mistakes. These were athletes who could have set world records, won their weight class, and/or won best lifter overall at nationals, but instead they went 0/3 on deadlift and went home without a total, had any records they set on squat and bench disqualified, and missed out on thousands of dollars of prize money. Here are six tips so you can learn from their mistakes and avoid having your own deadlift disaster.
1) Don’t try to pull your opener fast
It is very common for lifters to try and pull their opener really quickly, to show everyone how easy it was and how strong they are. However, this drastically increases the likelihood of making some sort of technical error and getting red lights: maybe your knees go soft at lockout because you were trying to be too explosive, the whip of the bar catches up with you at the top and causes downward motion, the whip causes the bar to slip out of your hands at lockout, or you get off balance and can’t hold it long enough to get the down command.
So instead, show everyone how strong you are by lifting the heaviest third attempt you can, not by moving your opener fast. Simply securing a good lift to get you on the board with your opener sets you up to do this, because then you can safely start making big jumps without having to worry about bombing out. Whereas if you get called for some technical problem and get red lights on your opener, you are stuck either repeating it to get on the board or going up and risking bombing out if you can’t get a good lift at the heavier weight.
2) Don’t go up after missing your opener
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone miss their opener, either because they got red lights or because they lost their grip, and still say, “It moved easy though, so I’m going up!” This inevitably ends up with them bombing out.
If you miss your opener, do not go up. There are almost no exceptions to this. It doesn’t matter if you only missed because of technicality or grip – repeat it, get a successful attempt on the board, and then you can go up on your third.
3) Don’t drop your deadlift - fix your grip
First and foremost, holding on to the bar is part of the skill of deadlifting, so it needs to be treated that way. You shouldn’t be using straps for your deadlifts in the gym and just hoping that you can hold on to the bar at the meet. If grip is limiting how heavy you can go in the gym, so be it – grip will limit how heavy you can go at the meet too, so stick to lifting without straps and learn to hold on to the bar better.
I say learn to hold on to the bar better because there is a skill to it. If you pull hook grip, you can change the angle at which and how deeply you tuck your thumb under the bar, how many fingers you put on top of your thumb, and how much pressure you squeeze with. Similarly, for mixed grip you can change how high or low you start the bar in the hand, how hard you squeeze, which hand grips under vs over, and warmup drills to ensure you can fully supinate the under hand.
Holding the bar too high in your hands is one of the most common sources of problems. Whether hook or mixed grip, you want the bar to be in the lowest point of your hand. The reason for this is because if the bar starts too high, it will roll down until it is at the lowest point. Rolling is bad for two reasons: first, it gives the bar momentum and a chance to pry your fingers open that it wouldn’t have if it simply started lower, and second, movement in the hand is what causes hand/skin tears.
Imagine you are lying on your back on the concrete. That wouldn’t tear up the skin on your back… unless someone came along and started dragging you by your ankles. That goes to show that pressure/weight isn’t what causes skin to tear, it is movement that does, because movement causes friction. The same goes for your hands during deadlift. If your hands get torn up from deadlifts, it is because the bar is moving, not because of the weight/pressure, and the bar is moving because you started it too high in your hand.
The other common technique problem that makes grip issues worse is specific to sumo deadlifters. Many sumo pullers will try to use a grip width that is too narrow. I believe the idea behind using a narrow grip is that it will cause more whip in the bar and therefore shorten the range of motion; however, this miniscule reduction in range of motion is not worth the downsides. Gripping inside shoulder width makes locking out much harder because your shoulders are internally rotated. Powerlifting rulebooks stipulate that “the knees, hips, and shoulders shall be locked in a straight position and the lifter is standing erect.” So the shoulders are also part of being locked out – you can’t stay rounded over and have it count.
Also, this harder lockout means more time struggling toward the top, which often exacerbates any existing grip problems because you have to hold on to the bar for longer. The bar may even be dragging on your thighs too, to make things worse.
Gripping super narrow can also sometimes mean that the lifter has their hands on the smooth rather than on the knurling. The knurling makes the bar much easier to hold on to, so gripping on the smooth may further contribute to grip issues.
Lifters should stick to gripping the bar straight down from their shoulders, or slightly wider if necessary to be on the knurling, NOT inside shoulder width.
4) Don’t lean back - stand tall
Many lifters think that they need to lean back at the top to help their lockout. However, this is incorrect and causes other problems. It is very common for leaning back at lockout to result in the knees going soft and unlocking, which will get you red lights. Also, the intent to lean back often makes lifters heel heavy by shifting their weight backwards, which reduces their ability to push into the floor with their quads and can limit their ability to express their true strength. In some extreme cases, it can even result in the lifter falling over.
Trying to make your lockout easier by leaning back will only cause other problems. What you should think instead is “stand tall.” Your deadlift lockout should be upright, head to the ceiling. This ensures that your knees and hips are both locked out and that you are balanced.
5) Don’t open too heavy
Many good deadlifters are also unfortunately very aggressive and ambitious with their attempt selection and open too heavy. There are multiple problems with this. First, it puts you at a much higher risk of going 0/3 and bombing out. But also, it kills your ability to hit big weights. Most strong deadlifters tend to gas out after 1-2 really heavy pulls, especially after having already done squat and bench. By opening with something that is already heavy, you are only shooting yourself in the foot for your third attempt. Instead, you should open light, make bigger jumps, and therefore have less fatigue and a better shot at getting that big third deadlift.
Treat your opener more like a final warmup. Your second and third attempts should be the heavy, challenging ones.
Your opener should be something that you have done for a triple. Notice I said “have done,” not “could probably theoretically do.” Another way to think about it is that your opener should be a weight that you could hit if you had the flu, you didn’t sleep last night, and your dog died that morning. Aka, no matter how rough of a day you’re having, you know you can still hit that weight.
There are also percentages that you can use to help choose your opener based on what a realistic third attempt may be. You should stick to a 10-13% total increase from opener to third attempt. That should generally look like a 5-8% increase from first to second, and then a 4-6% increase from second to third. The jump first to second is bigger than second to third so that you can open lighter and save energy, but also this increases predictability. You want to choose a third attempt weight that is right at the max you can do without missing, so by narrowing down the last jump slightly, you have a better ability to predict what weight is possible on that day based on how the second attempt went.
6) Don’t get too hyped up
Being more hyped up isn’t always better. In fact, past a certain point it becomes detrimental.
Arousal is the term that psychologists use for the heightened state of attention that lifters would generally call “hype.” Arousal includes both excitement and anxiety, which are essentially two sides of the same coin (one is positive/seeking whereas the other is negative/avoiding).
The inverted-U model of arousal, also known as the Yerkes-Dodson law, is a psychological concept that applies to everyone and to a wide range of tasks. It states that there is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle where optimal performance happens. Either too little or too much arousal and you’ll start to see performance decrease. See the figure below.
Being aroused/hyped enough aids performance because it helps you focus and it gets the nervous system ready for maximal weights. However, being too aroused hurts performance because you may start to forget steps in your setup that you would normally do, or your technique may start to break down. It can also lead to postural changes, like a greater anterior tilt, ribcage flair, and trap/neck tension. These are not the positions we want for deadlifting – we want ribs down, a pelvis that’s stacked underneath the ribcage (to allow for good bracing), and depressed shoulders (to keep our arms long and minimize range of motion). Being too aroused can also cause rapid breathing. I have seen lifters miss heavy deadlifts because they pass out at the top. It is possible that the changes in breathing and posture from being over aroused caused or at least contributed to them passing out during the lift.
I think there are two common causes for lifters getting over aroused. First is simply a lack of awareness that more hype isn’t always better. They know some is good, so they assume more must be better.
The second is that they fail to factor in the environment in which they’re lifting. Like I mentioned earlier, anxiety is a part of arousal. Lifters are generally more anxious when lifting on the platform at a big meet like the National Championship than on a typical Tuesday at their home gym. Also, powerlifting meets are a very stimulative environment. There are lots of people watching and yelling at you. Both of these things can shift your baseline over to the right compared to your default or a typical day at the gym. Therefore, you may not need to consciously hype yourself up as much as you would in a less exciting environment.
This is often compounded upon by other people. For example, if you are 0/2 going into your last deadlift and you need this one to not bomb out of the meet, there will be lots of people trying to support you. However, they may do this by getting in your space, yelling, slapping you, or otherwise trying to hype you up. Often this is counterproductive though, because the pressure of that situation is probably all the hype you need already, and adding more will just over arouse you. So the best solution for this situation is to try and bring yourself back down rather than further excite yourself. Rather than listening to really heavy music and thinking to yourself about how you need this lift or trying to be aggressive, maybe you pick something a little more groovy and chill and think to yourself “This is just like what I do in the gym.”
Also, don’t be afraid to tell people to get lost. While they are well intentioned, they aren’t helping. So if someone is talking to you or touching you (like back slaps) in a way that isn’t helping, you need to tell them to stop (or have your coach/handler divert people from doing this).
Conclusion
The vast majority of bomb outs at a meet are very preventable. Hopefully you can learn from others’ mistakes, implement these six tips, and prevent yourself from ever experiencing that frustrating and embarrassing experience.
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If you want an additional resource about deadlifts, you can click this link to download Switching Stances: Your Guide to Transitioning from Conventional to Sumo Deadlift, my free guide to sumo deadlifts.
Best,
Michael Elrod-Erickson
Founder and Head Coach, Premier Power & Performance
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