Deadlifts : good or bad?

I have been told that frontal forward flexion leads to lower back pain and it seems to me that deadlifts are exactly that? I am currently doing the leg challenge and it calls for deadlifts and I am wondering how potential hazardous it is. I do not have a particularly strong upperbody. As a cyclist I have a very disproportionatly strong lower body.

I am doing deadlifts, but they can be risky. I know someone that tore a bicep doing them, but he's in the 600 pound range for reps.

Also, someone else claims to have lost 1/2" height by doing them, sounds pretty drastic but I suppose its possible. I would say though that the bicep is what seems the most dangerous, keep your head up while doing them and I think most people will be fine.

I also know someone else with back problems from doing deadlifts, he says that his spinal column is out of alignment, squished a couple discs sideways.

I hurt my back doing them once... my legs could take the weight I was doing but my back obviously couldn't. Felt like someone hit my tailbone with a sledge hammer.

All I can tell ya is don't push yourself on the weight and be careful. If you're careful then I don't think 4 weeks of deadlifts will result in any long term ill effects.

One thing I'll add, make sure your abs are up for the job! When I was only doing abs one set a week (boy is that lazy) I was folding in half litterally towards the end of heavy deads, no bueno.

Some people do deads only once every other week, instead of every back workout.

I've been doing deadlifts for about 15 years now, weekly except for breaks from working out, and have only one minor injury from them. And it wasn't so much the exercise as it was from not paying attention to what I was doing.

Deadlift: What Not To Do!


Do not round your back in any deadlifting movement. This will make your back vulnerable to injury if you do so. Concentrate on keeping the back arch, chest up and chin up, and eyes focused looking straight ahead.
Do not jerk the bar up your thigh. The movement should be smooth from top to bottom.
Do not tip forward or move your feet during this lift. If you do you could be risking a serious back injury. Push your feet through the floor and keep the weight as close to your center of gravity as possible.
Do not hitch the bar. This means do not jerk the bar up and down in the middle of the movement in order to lock it out at the top.
Do not let your knees bow in and out during this lift. Lateral movement is dangerous for the knees.
Do not go heavy at first.

Deadlifts...the pros and cons....okay, provided that you utilize good form there are no cons. So here are the pros:

The hamstrings (biceps femoris, semimembrinosis, semitendonosis) are long fusiform muscles wich cross two joints, the hip and the knee. So that means that they contribute to knee extension as well as hip extension. If you are doing deadlifts the muscle movement will be hip extension and knee extension. If you are doing stiff leg dead lifts it will be just hip extension becuase the kness, although slightly bent, are in a fixed state and not straitening to contribute to the conncentric portion of the exercise. So this exercise is good becuase by doing both knee and hip extension you are fully lengthening the hamstring musclulature. Typically people only do leg curls for their hams and the problem with that is, just as stated before, the hams cross two different joints. If you are doing hamstring curls you are not completely lengthening the hamstrings at the hip so they will be weaker up there. These are the people that typicaly (not always) end up pulling their hamstring muscle up closer to their glutes instead of down at the knee. Those that do both deadlifts and leg curls usually have less of a chance of pulling their hams and also have less of a chance of an ACL tear becuase the hams can not only strengthen the ACL but can act AS an ACL for those that have toren theirs. this is demostrated in a number of professional atheletes that are ACL defficient (they have no ACL) and are still playing.

Hope that helps a bit

the deadlift is an awesome excercise that not enough people utilize. The problem with this lift is that it can be a blessing or a curse. Just as was said above, be careful. I see too many people slappin on weight that they can't lift b/c it looks cool. Moreso than many other llifts, you want to take the deadlift step by step and get strong before you jump into lifting heavy weight with it. Listen to your body and get in deadlifting shape before you try anything foolish. It is a great lift if you are careful with it. Powerlifts are a great way to push yourself, put you must also pace yourself so you don't throw your back out.

I can't add much more to this but say since I have added deads to my training, my other lifts for back have increased. Maybe it's just me or maybe is a psychological thing, don't know.

I do not do traditional deadlifts very often, I do SLDLs once in awhile though.

I have hurt my back twice doing them, but I sill love them. It was nothing serious, one it was a pulled muscle and the other one I don???t know, I never went to the doctor. But it sure wasn???t fun, the only time my back would fell better was when I either stud up or went to bed. But it???s all good always came back to get even stronger at them. Just make sure to warm up and use proper form something that I didn???t do

I have not had any problem so far. May be because I do not go too heavy. I will be very careful with all the information above.

I love deds. I finish almost every back day with at least 3 heavy sets. This may sound odd but I feel as if heavy deadlifting isn't as much about targeting specific muscle groups as it is about kicking the body into anabolic overload. It feels like every devastating rep is just triggering the brain to pump out more testosterone and growth hormone. Follow that with a good 8 or 9 hours of deep sleep and you might just grow all over the place.

But deds are also the scariest exercise, you can just sense the word 'injury' throughout the entire motion.
What i do is immediately follow every back workout with 5 to 10 minutes hanging upside down in gravity boots. This decompresses the spine and lets the spinal fluids flow through.
plus it feels nice.

This is a good thread. Good views and info.

Thanks.