Why I don't deadlift any of my clients.
I wrote a newsletter last week about why I don't squat any of my clients. It got quite a big reaction.
Interestingly the biggest response didn't come from strangers. It came from my own clients. Three men commented - three men currently in my programme, who are getting strong, becoming injury-free, and solving their old niggles without doing these lifts.
Once again, to be clear - I am not against deadlifting. I have done it my whole life and I have programmed more of them than most coaches have ever attempted. But this is why I don't use it with my clients.
And if you read to the end, I'll tell you what I think you need to add if you remove it - because this is different to squatting.
I actually love a deadlift.
When we talk about full body exercises, squatting is often seen as the ultimate. But I believe the deadlift wins - because your upper body is properly working in a way it simply isn't in a squat.
That's partly what makes it so effective.
It's also partly what makes it a problem.
I'm fully online as a coach now. I used to work in person at Pure Sports Medicine, and as you can imagine with that client base - men in their 40s who wanted to stay strong and compete - a lot of them wanted to deadlift. Building technique was a huge part of my sessions.
But even then, in person, I'd say approximately 10% of them could do it safely.
That's reason one - there's a significant technique issue, and I'm not in the gym with my clients to address it properly.
Reason two is simpler. In my experience, the deadlift is the lift most likely to put someone's back out. People will argue with that. But I've been training people a long time, and it's the one I see go wrong most consistently.
So let's look at why.
The lower body chain.
To lift a heavy weight off the floor, everything in the lower body needs to be contributing.
Your calves. Your hamstrings. Your quads. Your glutes. Each one plays its part.
If any one of those things isn't functioning well - through old injury, weakness, or years of compensation - something else takes the slack.
And that something else is almost always the lower back.
The upper body chain. The part nobody talks about.
Here's where most coaches stop thinking. And it's where the real answers usually are.
The deadlift is not just a lower body exercise. To hold and move a heavy barbell, your entire upper body has to be working:
Your grip. Your forearms. Your biceps and triceps. Your shoulders. Your upper back. And your serratus anterior - the muscle that runs along your ribcage and keeps your shoulder blade pinned to your back.
Every single one of those needs to be doing its job.
If anything in that chain drops off, the compensation goes somewhere. And just like the lower body - it almost always ends up in the lower back.
Here's what I've found specifically with the men I work with.
A significant number of them have boxed, played rugby, or done contact sport at some point in their lives. Years of impact around the ribcage leaves the serratus anterior underactive. It stops contributing. The upper back follows. And the lower back steps in to do the work.
When I have a client who has a history of deadlift back problems and we've already looked at the hips and hamstrings - I always go to the upper body next. More often than not, that's where the answer is, especially with contact athletes.
The difference between replacing a squat and replacing a deadlift.
With squatting, the replacement is easy. Single leg lifts produce equal or greater per-leg stimulus with significantly less risk - last week's newsletter covered this in detail.
Deadlifting is more complicated.
You can replace the posterior chain leg work relatively easily. But the heavy loading through the glutes and upper back that a conventional deadlift produces is genuinely hard to replicate. You just don't get that amount of weight through those specific areas in most other exercises.
So here's what I use instead.
Trap bar deadlift. Simpler technique, similar loading potential (if not more). This is my first port of call, but often I wont even use this.. I very much depends on the clients story.
Hip thrust. I like a hip thrust machine. It's safe, it loads the glutes hard, and it works consistently for my clients.
Romanian deadlift and single leg RDL. Using the unilateral loading principles from last week, these produce real posterior chain development, and there are great variations of the RDL that can develop the back (traditional/snatch grip to name a couple).
Upper back work - and plenty of it. This is non-negotiable if you're removing the deadlift. Single arm rows, Pendlay rows, cheat rows from the floor. The upper back needs to be specifically and deliberately trained to offset what you've taken away.
I think a strong upper back sets the frame for an athletic physique. It may be a slightly biased view - I have very little chest and a decent back - but if you have a well-developed upper back, it does more for how you look than almost anything else.
In a world of big chests, a big back is a real rarity!!
If you are desperate to deadlift.
Solve your old injuries properly first.
A sore knee going in means reduced output from the quads and hamstrings - the back takes the difference. A shoulder issue means the upper chain drops off - same result. An old rib injury from sport means the serratus isn't contributing - and once again, the back picks it up.
My advice is simple: go into it injury free. Know that the chain is working before you load it.
Most of my clients, when they start the programme, aren't anywhere near ready to deadlift. They're managing old injuries and don't yet feel confident in their body.
The paradox is that once they've done the work to get there - once they're strong, injury-free, and competing at things they didn't think were possible - they don't ask to deadlift.
They don't need to.
If you've been training the same way since your twenties and you know you need a change, or you know you can do more. I have one space opening up shortly as a client finishes up.
No sales pitch. No obligation. Just a 30-minute call to talk through what's going on and what needs to change.
Link below
Calendlyoming injury-free, and solving their old niggles without doing these lifts.
Once again, to be clear - I am not against deadlifting. I have done it my whole life and I have programmed more of them than most coaches have ever attempted. But this is why I don't use it with my clients.
And if you read to the end, I'll tell you what I think you need to add if you remove it - because this is different to squatting.
I actually love a deadlift.
When we talk about full body exercises, squatting is often seen as the ultimate. But I believe the deadlift wins - because your upper body is properly working in a way it simply isn't in a squat.
That's partly what makes it so effective.
It's also partly what makes it a problem.
I'm fully online as a coach now. I used to work in person at Pure Sports Medicine, and as you can imagine with that client base - men in their 40s who wanted to stay strong and compete - a lot of them wanted to deadlift. Building technique was a huge part of my sessions.
But even then, in person, I'd say approximately 10% of them could do it safely.
That's reason one - there's a significant technique issue, and I'm not in the gym with my clients to address it properly.
Reason two is simpler. In my experience, the deadlift is the lift most likely to put someone's back out. People will argue with that. But I've been training people a long time, and it's the one I see go wrong most consistently.
So let's look at why.
The lower body chain.
To lift a heavy weight off the floor, everything in the lower body needs to be contributing.
Your calves. Your hamstrings. Your quads. Your glutes. Each one plays its part.
If any one of those things isn't functioning well - through old injury, weakness, or years of compensation - something else takes the slack.
And that something else is almost always the lower back.
The upper body chain. The part nobody talks about.
Here's where most coaches stop thinking. And it's where the real answers usually are.
The deadlift is not just a lower body exercise. To hold and move a heavy barbell, your entire upper body has to be working:
Your grip. Your forearms. Your biceps and triceps. Your shoulders. Your upper back. And your serratus anterior - the muscle that runs along your ribcage and keeps your shoulder blade pinned to your back.
Every single one of those needs to be doing its job.
If anything in that chain drops off, the compensation goes somewhere. And just like the lower body - it almost always ends up in the lower back.
Here's what I've found specifically with the men I work with.
A significant number of them have boxed, played rugby, or done contact sport at some point in their lives. Years of impact around the ribcage leaves the serratus anterior underactive. It stops contributing. The upper back follows. And the lower back steps in to do the work.
When I have a client who has a history of deadlift back problems and we've already looked at the hips and hamstrings - I always go to the upper body next. More often than not, that's where the answer is, especially with contact athletes.
The difference between replacing a squat and replacing a deadlift.
With squatting, the replacement is easy. Single leg lifts produce equal or greater per-leg stimulus with significantly less risk - last week's newsletter covered this in detail.
Deadlifting is more complicated.
You can replace the posterior chain leg work relatively easily. But the heavy loading through the glutes and upper back that a conventional deadlift produces is genuinely hard to replicate. You just don't get that amount of weight through those specific areas in most other exercises.
So here's what I use instead.
Trap bar deadlift. Simpler technique, similar loading potential (if not more). This is my first port of call, but often I wont even use this.. I very much depends on the clients story.
Hip thrust. I like a hip thrust machine. It's safe, it loads the glutes hard, and it works consistently for my clients.
Romanian deadlift and single leg RDL. Using the unilateral loading principles from last week, these produce real posterior chain development, and there are great variations of the RDL that can develop the back (traditional/snatch grip to name a couple).
Upper back work - and plenty of it. This is non-negotiable if you're removing the deadlift. Single arm rows, Pendlay rows, cheat rows from the floor. The upper back needs to be specifically and deliberately trained to offset what you've taken away.
I think a strong upper back sets the frame for an athletic physique. It may be a slightly biased view - I have very little chest and a decent back - but if you have a well-developed upper back, it does more for how you look than almost anything else.
In a world of big chests, a big back is a real rarity!!
If you are desperate to deadlift.
Solve your old injuries properly first.
A sore knee going in means reduced output from the quads and hamstrings - the back takes the difference. A shoulder issue means the upper chain drops off - same result. An old rib injury from sport means the serratus isn't contributing - and once again, the back picks it up.
My advice is simple: go into it injury free. Know that the chain is working before you load it.
Most of my clients, when they start the programme, aren't anywhere near ready to deadlift. They're managing old injuries and don't yet feel confident in their body.
The paradox is that once they've done the work to get there - once they're strong, injury-free, and competing at things they didn't think were possible - they don't ask to deadlift.
They don't need to.
If you've been training the same way since your twenties and you know you need a change, or you know you can do more. I have one space opening up shortly as a client finishes up.
No sales pitch. No obligation. Just a 30-minute call to talk through what's going on and what needs to change.
Link below
Andy Reay
Andy is the founder of Razor Performance, an online strength, conditioning and rehab service for athletic dads who want to get back to their best.
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