In a deadlift, the arms are like ropes and the hands are like hooks. If the elbow flexes, the weight will eventually pull it straight, putting the lifter at risk of a bicep tear.
My flimsy arms know better than to attempt to curl a deadlift. But, some people’s biceps are convinced that they can handle it.
Here are some ideas as to why this could be happening, and potential ways to keep it in check.
First, Try Not Bending Your Arm
Thanks, Captain Obvious.
Flex the tricep, lock the arm, or whatever sounds most appealing.
For some people, it might be as simple as that. Once they figure it out, they just need to drill it in.
Others know exactly how the lift should go, but the bicep still flinches. They can’t even seem to feel it happening.
If the cueing of the arm isn’t helping, the root of the problem might go a little deeper.
A few areas to explore:
Quad Dominance
Eric Cressey recently posted on his blog about quad dominance being a possible root cause of elbow flexion on the deadlift. It can indicate that the lifter is trying to squat the weight up using quads, with nary a glute nor a hamstring to be seen.
They dropped their hips so low that their arms went on slack. The flexed elbows become an energy leak as the force from the floor is lost on its way to the bar.
Cressey suggests getting the hips a bit higher while maintaining the neutral spine position.
If you need a little bit more ‘knees forward’ than the average bear on your pulls, check that you are actually hinging to the bar first, then bringing knees toward the bar in order to reach it.
Round Back Pulling Style
Russian powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko says that deadlift curlers should avoid the round-back pulling style.
In Pavel’s Power to the People Professional, Sheiko says that the pose that you are most familiar with makes the biceps stronger in the round back deadlift, and the rounded position tempts the arms to bend even more.
I don’t think that he is saying that round back lifting causes the arms to bend (for everyone). Just that it might encourage it if it is something you are inclined to do already.
This bit is obviously intended for more advanced lifters who pull with a rounded back as a choice, having built up resilience in this style.
Keeping it real – a style change such as this will almost certainly knock a good chunk of weight off of a deadlift. I’d love to say that the flat back lift will eventually catch up to the rounded, but I think we all know the possibilities there. Round backed lifters will have to decide for themselves what is best.
Lack of Tension
Bar yanking, deadlift jerking, hips shooting, shoulders rolling around at the top of the lift, and sometimes a mini-shrug, too…
If any extra ‘flair’ was able to be added, the lift was most likely had some loose ends somewhere.
You’ve probably heard about the pull before the pull.
In other words – take the slack out of the bar.
Along with that, take the slack out of yourself, too. Spine biomechanist Dr. Stuart McGill advocates for a deadlift setup technique called a lifter’s wedge.
Here is how to pretension the bar (and yourself):
- Use the bar as a counterbalance to pull your chest up and push your hips forward.
- As you wedge yourself in tight between the bar and the floor, give the bar a little mini-pull, a rattle, or shake the daylights out of it if you’d like.
- You should be rewarded with a little clicking noise as the bar aligns itself to the tops of the plate holes.
- Think of the floor and ceiling closing in on you at the same time. Use your body to pry them apart. It should feel as though the bar is jumping into your hands, the entire body is tight, slack is out of the bar, slack is out of you, and by default, your arms should be be more inclined to be straight.
It’s like hammering a stake into the ground. You take that first whack to get the thing centered and stuck in there, then start hammering in deeper.
This seemingly small detail is the equivalent of wrestling a tranquilized alligator as opposed to a live one.
Conclusion
As mentioned, this can be more of a full body tension issue than an isolated arm issue.
If you are struggling with bent elbows in the deadlift and simple arm cueing is not helping, consider that you might need to address your degree of full body tensioning as well as your technique as a whole, rather than focusing solely on what the arms are doing.