Conventional Deadlift With Laura Phelps-Sweatt - Mistakes and Setup Tips

[musclebeauty]

Great article

Time to cover the conventional deadlift. We will cover some of the common mistakes that people make.

Stance Width. In a conventional deadlift, a lot of times people put their feet too wide. They tend to go more towards a clean and jerk stance. A lot of people pull inspiration and thought from Olympic lifting. But an Olympic lifter has to worry about a second pull.

In powerlifting, you do not have a second pull. You only have one pull. Instead of a wider stance, we go with a little bit more narrow of a stance.

Grip Width. Next, we look at our grip. Most people use a clean and jerk grip which will be a little bit wider. But when the grip is wider it pulls you on to the ball of your feet and your toes; chest over the bar too much.

To correct this we bring the grip in narrow. We want the grip right to our sides. Some people will try to pull narrower but they'll end up getting caught on their lats, and they can't lock the weight out at the top.

The only people that would go wider than that would be really big, muscular guys with wide backs. They might want their hands a little wider.

Essentially you want the hands to go straight down. The arms are supposed to be hooks and as long as possible to get the optimal leverage for the lift.
 

 

Powerlifter Laura Phelps-Sweatt demonstartes proper conventional deadlift form.

Regarding the Feet. When we're pulling on a deadlift, we don't want to be on the balls of our feet or the toes. We want to be on the heels.

One of the tricks we recommend for people who are pulling on the balls of their feet is to pick their big toe off the ground when they pull. This tends to get them to lean back, on to their heels. It will put pressure through their heels