 Ladies and gentlemen, Salah Mike back with another video and today we are going to talk about the recent episode of Joe Rogan who had a guy known for a very long time, Robert Oberst, world's strongest man, competitor, insane athlete, insane presser, insane strongman, and they chatted about a variety of topics, but the one of course that pertains to us, that absolutely went viral, is that Robert in the video says, you should not do deadless. He basically says that if your goal is to get better at the deadlift and you're deadlifting for deadlift's sake, go ahead and then he talks about his experience playing college football, obviously being world's strongest man, competitor, and coaching football at the highest level, strength and conditioning. Coaches and athletes across the board, and he mostly just said football will do a hand clean, power clean, and no deadlifts will be found. Basically saying that the risk to reward of the deadlift, and I believe he mentions the lower back injury rate, is too high to get the benefit, or again the risk reward is just not worth it for you. And of course we got a hot take. You know, a bunch of things come to my mind. You know, I've deadlifted for a very long time to get better at deadlift, and I've also deadlifted for a little bit shorter amount of time in my early 20s just to get better at basketball. Squatting, deadlifting, doing a bunch of strength training in hopes to go back and play college basketball again as a base of my strength training routine. And there are some things that are true with everything we do. Anything in the gym, any athletic sport, strongman, especially basketball, football, the risk to reward may just not be there in general. You know, there's a high injury rate in all team sports, any contact sports, any lateral sports, and there's also a decent injury rate in all strength sports. Powerlifting actually being the least, if I'm not incorrect, we just recently had Eric Helms on 50% of facts, and he said there's a study done on the injury rates from weightlifting, strongman, powerlifting, as well as team sports and bodybuilding. And the lowest is bodybuilding, and then I believe next is powerlifting, which is like 2% or something of that nature, or 2 out of 1000, don't quote me. And then the higher rates were actually strongman and weightlifting. So to say in just blanket statement anything is just, I guess, what bugs me, because the truth is once you gather enough knowledge, enough experience in multiple categories that there is just no black and white in this, and we've talked about that a lot with technique, nutrition. There are some rules with everything we do, but there's no fine line drawn in the sand with everything we do, because the example that deadlifts are wrist reward, not good enough for your back. And then showing the example of power cleans and a hang clean, which is obviously, yes, the load is less, but the hip hinge is still there, the explosive movement, plus the rack position. There's just as many injuries, if not more, that are possible doing those movements. Second week of me doing power cleans, I jammed my wrist so bad, I couldn't sleep at night, it was hurting. And is that an injury? No, it was just hurt. But just that one sample for what you guys, the examples I'm bringing out. The other main thing that pops in my head is at every college, one, I don't know because I haven't been to everyone, but I'd imagine they're doing some kind of press, a squat, a barbell back squat, and then the hang clean or power clean for the majority of team athletes. And we could easily point to the squat being just as potentially dangerous as the deadlift in a variety of factors, obviously the low back, legs, knees, ankles, especially with the deadlift, the squat, the power clean, these more complex movements that you load heavier. If they're not taught properly with proper technique, proper supervision, as well as proper programming, then of course the injury rate is going to go up for any athlete. And of course maybe the risk to reward is not there because we want you sacking the quarterback if you're a linebacker running the football, if you're running back and if you're injured from lifting, that's not going to help. What we want is everything in the gym to be an accessory, to supplement your athleticism, your strength, and maybe some injury prevention or lower the risk of injury by getting a little bit stronger, a little bit more mobile in the gym so that you can have a longer, more high-performing career on the field, on the court, on the baseball diamond, etc. Now I think the biggest factor in all of it is proper loading, proper technique, and also proper supervision. Having a good coach to cue you the right things. When you have good form, yes, you can still get hurt with hypothetically the most perfect technique in all these lifts, but the rate does go down. And from my experience, I've talked to some really, really good strength coaches. Shout out to Joe Ken, who's, you know, NFL strength performance coach of the year for the North Carolina Panthers. And as a variety of other ones, my boy Ramsey at the Sacramento Kings who are very, very high level, very intelligent, very well-thought-out planned coaches. And I've also seen and talked to some that maybe aren't as well-thought-out experienced or knowledgeable in the case. And they may have, you know, some of their athletes with improper technique, no real guidelines or programming, so they're just maxing out all the time. And of course the risk is going to go up there. The last factor that I want to talk about is variations. We just blanket statement deadlift and blanket statement squat and blanket statement press, but the thing is with athletes, depending on the athlete, depending on the sport, depending on their build or mobility, their injury, their past injuries, et cetera, et cetera, we have so many different variations and I think that every athlete does need to do some kind of squat, some kind of hip hinge or deadlift, if you want to call it, and then some kind of press. And what those might be and what they may look like are different, but there's a million variations, you know, with a really taller athlete or less mobile athlete. Maybe we do something from a block. Maybe we're doing some sumo. Maybe we're doing a trap bar elevated. Maybe we're loading with bands, a little bit more band weight than straight weight to allow them to have a safer, safer, more comfortable, better technique starting position while the load is lighter and then the load will obviously get progressively heavier as you pull on the band. There's a lot of variations and I can't say exactly which, obviously, because I would need to know what athlete or an example that I'm talking about. So I'm just throwing out ideas of ways that someone would still hip hinge or deadlift and still make a lot of progress with the triple extension. My argument, which I've talked about many times in this video, too, would actually be counter to that, where I think the weightlifting movements, which are arguably the most technical strength and conditioning movements, the clean and jerk, power clean, whatever you want to say and snatch, the power clean in particular or the hang clean are the most popular among a lot of strength and conditioning coaches or just old school football players, I think are so highly technical and can easily be replaced with a loaded throw, a kettlebell swing, even just like a clean pull or a snatch pull where you don't have to worry about the upper body mobility or the sheer force of snatching and grabbing a bar over your head where, again, they're not trying to be weightlifters, they're just trying to get better at their sport and you can get triple extension from a clean pull, a proper clean pull or a snatch pull holding onto the bar and obviously load it pretty dang heavy or a loaded throw, plyos, et cetera, and obviously all of these periodized and layered well would be optimal for most, but not all athletes are capable of doing every movement in the gym, so that's where coaching, strength and conditioning, adjustments come into play. Now, is deadlifting for everyone? I think for the average person, a deadlift is a great idea. We've been talking about athletes and things of that nature, the risk to reward and I think, obviously, the risk for a professional athlete and things that obviously goes higher because if you can't play your sport, you get injured or you're tweaked or you're not performing at a high level, you don't get paid and so your job's out and who knows the responsibilities you have with that? No income. For the average person, I think the deadlift is top of the food chain of what we need to focus on. When you talk about functionality, don't love that word but you're training a large group of muscles, you're training movements that you may do in regular life and I'm not the guy to say like, you have to deadlift 225 pounds so you can pick up your three-year-old. Is that correct? Kind of, but not really. But just moving in a hip hinge and a squat and a press, a couple variations of a row for the average person will, I believe, be the overall best for athleticism, the best for everyday life and the best in terms of longevity and the best in terms of aesthetics if you get a proper program and nutrition and start going down that road. Are there a risk to everything we do? There's a risk to everything we do. Riding a bicycle, I fell the other day, jammed up my wrist. Are you going to tell me the risk to a reward of riding my bicycle to the gym or around town running errands is not worth it? That's on an individual basis, I believe. I think that it is worth it for me and I think it is worth it for many to start to ride a bicycle, to get some cardiovascular conditioning, to get outside, to see nature rather than driving your car 10, 15 minutes away. And I believe the similar is with the deadlift but the average gen pop. Talking about people trying to get stronger, trying to feel good in the gym, trying to build a little bit of muscle and also functionality in their life that may turn into the weekend warrior sport. It may just turn into being a mom. It may just be you going straight to the couch afterwards but you got in that work and trained a large muscle group. Those are my thoughts on the deadlifts and why everyone should a deadlift. If you guys like this type of video, comment below what topic you want me to cover next. New vlogs, training vlogs all on the way. Until Mike, I'm out of here.