 Let's talk about mobility for deadlifting. So You need a certain amount of mobility to get down to the bar safely. So if the bar is, you know, maybe 10 inches off the ground, I should probably know this measurement It's half a plate off the ground Then I need to have a certain amount of hip mobility to get down there And so that's the the primary joint We're gonna talk about with the squat. You have a lot more dorsiflexion. You have a lot more ankle motion that you need when you come on down With a deadlift, it's it's less of an issue, but you do the mistakes or the the deficits that you have in hip mobility kind of get amplified as you go through this so Big thing is first one. I need hip flexion mobility I need to be able to bend at my hip so that my back doesn't bend like this Okay, primarily what we see with Spinal health research is that when the spine flexes and it's or flexes and extends It wears down the discs a little bit more and so what, you know, even just anecdotally The people that you see who are really strong usually don't deadlift with broke-looking backs Because they don't last right they can't train for long periods of time Even people who have really good technique as as you get really heavy that will start to wear you down But the best people will have a pretty normal curve They'll have a little bit of rounding in their upper back. They'll have a pretty neutral Maybe a slightly upward gaze in their neck and their low back will be about flat Maybe have a slight still lordosis curve to it most to just for further edification Most are not lifting like this and then picking the bar up like this Okay, if you want more on that watch my previous series that we talked about Deadlifting safely without hurting your back. So we went through a lot of different faults and fixes throughout that hip mobility wise, okay Hip flexion big deal, right But we also need hip extension at the top and so those are our primary Movers when we're doing our primary Motions that we need when we're doing a normal deadlift a two leg deadlift But what I kind of want to talk about is that it's it's not just that simple I mean I can I can measure things by hip extension mobility and I do want that and I can say Hey, do you feel your glute muscles turn on at the top of this deadlift? And you can say yeah, and I can be happier. You can say no and I can be a little concerned Um, but to get that hip extension sometimes I need to start worrying about some other exercises or some other movements And what I'm talking about here is a frontal plane and transverse plane movements. So if I Deadlift and I always screw my my hips way out like this or I screw my knees way out like this And they kind of splay apart I start to restrict the mobility in the back of my pelvis here my si joints And so if you're struggling with tension back there and it feels like it's getting really really tight Some of that's okay during a deadlift But if it's persistent throughout the day and it never goes away Then we have to start to look at why is that happening? Why am I losing all of this and generally what we see is that The tension back here ramps up and the tension down here just plummets And so for these people you may want a little bit more Adductor even though it's not a huge mover during this movement. I'm not really bringing my knees in a whole lot No, but it's it's it's kind of counter intuitive But I can use those muscles and they will position my pelvic bones So that when I come up to the top of this deadlift I can really feel both Both glute muscles and not so much back tone Okay, so if I'm if I'm seeing let's start at the bottom if I don't have the position here I'm usually just going to try to cue it and so if I'm bending my knees too much That could be one thing that I need to fix if I fall forward onto my toes That could be another thing that I want to fix If I have a big belly And I try to keep my knees pretty close sometimes that belly will get in the way There's too much pressure there. And so what you'll see is when you come to get the weight then You have to round your back because your belly is pushing your back out Okay, so for someone like this there's two options either. I'm not going to have you go all the way down Or I'm going to say take a little wider stance and I want you to sit down in between your knees Right, we need to turn it into more of a squat maybe more of a sumo deadlift kind of thing So consider that not everybody type is Works well with the same variations And that's you know, that's kind of like the key principle that we keep going over is I need you to have options I want you to understand that sometimes some people aren't going to lift like you Some people aren't as short as I am and they have trouble squatting, you know Some people aren't as mobile as I am and they have trouble getting down Into a deadlift position safely So they might need to elevate the bar up off the ground or the kettlebell up off the ground Or maybe they just work from the top Down But they don't go all the way down or maybe they do go all the way down But they have to start at the top because they can't find the tension that they need, okay All of these little possibilities can play into this. So Getting that hip mobility at the bottom We talked about you know the gut thing it can get in the way a big other thing Is I forgot what I was going to say I'm going to look it up Oh, yeah, it's like squatting so I can use the squat to actually train the position that I want down there So if I need this and you know, maybe my back hurts a little bit and I'm afraid the deadlift Well, I can start to prepare myself for it by training the squat And then I learn how to do these frontal and transverse these weird this adductor stuff I can learn how to get all of that and get that hip mobility So that it will allow me to get down into my deadlifting position safely Awesome. I do like that tying in. I didn't plan that out. That's good So Next thing so we talked about the bottom. I want to talk about the top again. So if I am having trouble Finding a top locked out position without leaning my back I need to learn how to keep my hips underneath me. And so there's there's tons of different Cues that I might give you. I like to say tuck your tail between your legs I also like to say pretend you're wearing a belt to bring your belt buckle into your belly button I also like to say try to push your stomach into your low back All of those might work and if they don't then we need to try some other thing Lots of people are pretty locked up. It's a little bit worse as you're more stressed out It's a little bit worse if you don't sleep very well And so maybe I need to kind of hold your hand a little bit So I might lay someone down on the ground and teach that motion independent Of the rest of this deadlift. I'm going to lay you down. So you don't have to oppose gravity so much You take some of that You know cognitive stress away And then we just say okay, all we're doing is pelvis stuff here I want you to pick your tailbone up off the ground and push your low back into the ground And so if I try to snake my hand under here, I can feel that my low back is pushing into the ground I know I'm doing it well And then I might do a couple reps. I might even then lift my hips allow my low back to come up off the ground And I'll keep going. I'll try to keep tension on there and I'll try to find and feel my hamstrings And my glutes there at the top. That's perfect So this is the lockout of a deadlift. You see It's a little bit more difficult from a mobility standpoint But it's a little bit easier from a motor control standpoint Difficult from a mobility standpoint meaning my hip flexors my quads here are a little bit longer And so there's more tension to overcome But easier in a motor control standpoint meaning I'm laying on the ground. I'm not standing up Right and so I can take this and I can say yes, that's a really good position Now I want you to do that at the top of your deadlift And so then I can start to use that exercising between my sets of deadlifts to repattern My deadlift and to find that hip mobility that hip extension that I'm looking for If None of this seems to be working. You probably need a coach I can try to help you if you email me. I do some online coaching Other otherwise Coaching in person you got to kind of ask hey, you know, when you join a when you join a gym I'm really particular about Deadlifts I want to learn them But I don't feel like I ever do them correctly. I'm really concerned about my technique Can you help me and wait till they prove that they can help you and then You know, you're good to go Online coaching in person coaching other thing you can just do something else. You don't have to deadlift per se It's really cool and I like it and that is kind of my own little bias But there are plenty of other things you can do instead of a full-on deadlift like We talked about the when you got the belly, right? If your feet are close and you can't get down there Moving your feet out is a little modification. It's a little alternative Other things I could not come down quite as low I could pick one foot up and do a single leg variation Single leg romanian deadlift maybe even a whole single leg deadlift off the ground That stuff is really difficult I could start to train Other single leg stuff I could stick with more squatting patterns like this maybe a split squat Maybe I bend over in my split squat a little bit more try to load my glute I feel it already try to load my glute and my hamstring a little bit more While I'm doing this and maybe I don't even have to come over that far Maybe I keep my feet closer Maybe I keep both feet on the ground but put more weight on one leg And then I bend over and I try to get this staggered stance throughout my single leg RDL Maybe my back is all messed up today that I just want to Train my upper body. Okay, plenty of different alternatives. You can do those are just a few I challenge you to be creative and come up with your own So I hope that helps we talked about hip mobility for deadlifting We talked about getting hip mobility at the bottom keeping hip mobility at the top We talked about some alternative exercises muscle groups types of motion that you need talked about How you might need to modify if you got a little belly in the way there All sorts of stuff if you have any other questions about hip mobility, please leave them in the comments below