 Today, we're going to talk about why shoulder position matters in the deadlift. Coming up next. So, a lot of people don't think about shoulder position in the deadlift because they're like, well, the shoulders aren't really doing anything in the deadlift. The prime movers of the deadlift are the muscles around the hips, the glutes, the hamstrings, the erectors of the lower back for an isometric contraction. But if you think about it, the bar is connected to the body at the shoulder, like through the shoulder, down to the hands, in the hands. So what the hips are actually trying to extend is the shoulder, right? So where that shoulder is during the deadlift actually makes a massive difference. And what we'll see is we want the shoulder to be ever so slightly in front of the barbell when we deadlift. So we're here and the shoulder's going to be ever so slightly on my midfoot. If I'm too far forward, I'm going to be on my toes and it's going to be much harder to get the shoulders back over the barbell and eventually behind the barbell. Oddly enough, what a lot of people do is they swing the pendulum too far the other way. And when they set up their deadlift, they get their shoulders behind the barbell first. And the weight is heavy enough that their hips pop up and their shoulders blurt forward and they end up still straight leg deadlifting the weight. So we actually want to show what that looks like with the shoulders in different positions so we can show like, this is correct. This is too far forward. This is too far back. And if it's too far back, it's going to still throw you forward. This pendulum swing is going to occur. So let's set up the deadlift like you normally would. We're going to do this one correctly. One inch from the bar, good grip, midfoot, chest up, and you're going to make sure your shoulders are just ever so slightly in front of the bar just like that and drag the bar up your legs. That's perfect. Just do one more just like that. Same thing, chest up and drag. Good. Now down. Now this time, I want you to keep the bar forward a little bit. Slide the bar forward. Perfect. Shins forward. Shoulders forward. Like that. Chest up. Now still try to deadlift as best you can. Don't try to do it wrong, but we've just set up in a bad position. So chest is up and you're still going to do the best thing you can. You can see the shoulders are now like six inches in front of the barbell. So she's going to have to try to get the barbell back. Ready? Chest up. And go. Deadlift, right? So that's still a pretty good deadlift, but you had to get everything moving backwards before it got to moving up, right? Now let's do the opposite and let's actually set your chest up. Squeeze your chest up. Rock back on your heels. That's right. Get your... You can see the butt drops too far down. It's like a squat. Now deadlift. Just like that. Now the weight is light enough that you can still do it at 135, right? So what we're going to do is we're going to load a little bit more weight on and show what happens when we actually have too much weight on the bar and we get too much weight behind the bar, what's going to happen is your butt's going to pop up, your shoulders are going to lurch forward, and you're still going to straight leg deadlift it. So even if you start too far forward, which is the same thing you're on your toes, you sort of end up straight leg deadlifting the weight. But also if you swing the pendulum too far the other way and you get back on your heels, you sit down too much, you try to squat the weight up. The first thing that's going to happen is your butt's going to pop up, shoulders are going to lurch forward, and you're still going to be in a straight leg deadlift position. The only way to do this right is to stay balanced on the foot with the shoulders in the correct position, which is just maybe an inch or two in front of the barbell, not five or six inches in front of the barbell, and also not behind the barbell, so just one or two inches in front. Let's load a little weight on and see what happens to your deadlift. All right, so we've thrown a little more weight on now, heavy enough to kind of potentially pull you forward. You're going to set up, you're going to try to rock back more than you should, squat down a little more than you should, shoulders behind the bar a little more than you should, and let's just see what happens. Let's see if it throws you forward. Don't try to let it, just try to do the best you can. Go ahead and set up your deadlift, shins, knees, squat way back, way back, and pull, and there. Right, you can see now it throws her shoulders forward. Let's do another one, set up, rock it, roll it in, chest up, rock way back behind shoulders behind the bar, pull, and there, it throws her forward, right, that's the problem. Now take a second, step back, step forward, and I know it's pretty heavy, let's do one rep perfectly. Don't over rock back, now just do it right. Squeeze your chest up, let your shoulders be one or two inches in front of the bar, and watch how she stays balanced on mid-foot and leg presses the floor away. Perfect, right, it's so much easier than the last one. So you can over rock back. So just in the same way that people can get too far forward if you see all the time, which usually comes from the bar, being too far forward of their mid-foot. You can also get set up, and what people are trying to do is they're trying to get their back like really flat, and so they're trying to get their back flat and get really vertical like this, and when they do the knees go forward, the shoulders come behind the bar, and they start to pull, and as soon as they start to pull, the butt comes up and the shoulders go forward, and that's what happened there with you. If we went even more weight, and you can double quite a bit more weight than this, that would just get more exaggerated as we added more weight to the bar, right? So the key is the shoulder position matters. You want to set up in a position where your shoulders are just one to two inches in front of the barbell, and then you want to think about the cue here as you deadlift is to hold your shoulders in the same position. Don't let them lurch forward. Do not let them lurch forward. Set up in the right position, get ready to pull, and as soon as the weight comes off the ground, you're actually going to actively try to get your shoulders back. What you have to avoid is that shoulders lurching forward. That will keep you off your toes. That'll keep that extra unnecessary moment force from coming in. You stay nice and balanced on midfoot, and the key is you can throw the hips and open up the hips well, just like you did on that last rep. That was really, really good. So shoulder position matters in the deadlift. So for more deadlift accessories, sort of like tiny technique changes, as well as overarching how to do the deadlift, you can check out the link right up here.