August 9, 2022

What Muscles do Deadlifts Work? Here’s An In-Depth Guide

Have you ever heard of the word deadlift? The deadlift is a weight training exercise in which the weight is lifted above the ground to the level of the hips or perpendicular to the ground. This is one of the weight-lifting exercises. This weight lifting above the ground is called a deadlift. It is because the weight is immovable on the floor. Deadlifts work on various muscles. What muscles do deadlifts work?

This is a great exercise to improve your posture. It also increases core strength and core stability. What to do in this exercise? One should come near a barbell with weights. And then stand straight, keeping your back straight. Then bend your upper body downwards. Hold the rod and try to lift the rod along with the weight.

Holding the barbell, stand straight for 10 seconds. Then, returns to the starting position with slow movement. Repeat this exercise in 3 sets with 12 reps. This is also known as a barbell deadlift.

This muscle helps to strengthen many muscle groups at a time. As you lift the weight with shoulder muscles, the shoulder muscles get strengthened.

As the weight starts moving upwards, the lower body muscles get stretched. You can feel stretch and pain in glute muscles, calves, inner thigh, hamstrings, and outer thigh. You should lift the weight with the spine straight. Holding it for 10 seconds will make your core stable and strengthened. Then return to your standing position.

1. Deadlift Variations

In the deadlift, the shoulder and legs are straight and wide apart. Targeted muscles in deadlift are abdominal muscles and upper back muscles. Then slightly bend the knee and hold the grip of the barbell. Pushing the floor with feet will lift the weight above.

All variations take place in a standing position. The amount of weight added to the barbell depends on the weightlifter’s weight. Hence, the lifter lifts the weight according to his weight. This is the standard deadlift.

Slight variation in this standard deadlift will result in deadlift variation. There are different types and variations of deadlifts. Some of them are listed below.

1.1. Sumo Deadlift

In this sumo deadlift, the legs are wide apart than normal. And then the rod was placed between the legs. Lift the rod along with the weight. This is safer for your lower back muscles.

In this glute muscles targeting one are Maximus and minimus. This is a shorter range of motion in which you can lift heavier weights. This is the basic technique of learning a deadlift and sumo-style deadlift.

1.2. Conventional Deadlift

In this conventional deadlift, the legs are slightly wide apart. And then the rod is placed outside the legs. Lift the rod along with the weight. This is safer for your hips, this will be moving your hips forward and stretching them accurately.

In this, quads are targeted for a better and bigger range of motion. This is an advanced technique of learning called conventional style deadlifts.

The rack pulls are a variation on conventional deadlifts. In which the focus is on improving drag strength, hip extension, and back development. Muscles worked in these are back muscles, hips, and hamstring.

1.3. Romanian Deadlift

In the Romanian deadlift, the legs are not bent when the rod goes down. The target muscle is the hamstring and glute muscles of both legs. The spine remains straight during the movements.

This is used to develop the strength of the posterior chain muscles. That consists of the erector spinae, gluteus maximus, hamstrings along with adductors. In this, you need to ensure that the knees are not moving forward but instead maintaining a slight bend in the knee.

1.4. Deficit Deadlift

Your feet should be kept on an elevated floor or surface in the deficit deadlift. And the rest is the same as before, legs wide apart along with overhand grip tight.

In this variation, your will feel more stretch in the back muscles and glute as compared to a basic deadlift. This will also increase your strength and speed. This deficit deadlift is harder than a conventional deadlift.

1.5. Traditional Deadlift

In the traditional deadlift, the way of doing is simple. You stand straight with your legs and shoulder width apart and the rod with the weight in front of you. Broaden your chest and slightly bend forward your legs.

Take a tight hold of the rod with the back straight and start lifting. This can lift heavier weights than the other deadlifts would.

1.6. Trap Bar Deadlift

In the trap bar deadlift, there is a hex weight carrying a set of bumper plates. You have to stand inside the hex and bend down to hold the handles on each side of the hex. Then lift it just like a deadlift.

Trap bar deadlift will strengthen your glutes, hamstrings, and back muscles. This can be great for people who have a back problem. This trap bar deadlift helps these people to exert less stress on erector spinae.

Many muscle groups of erector spinae are called erector spinae muscles. Some people have problem in these muscles as a result they can’t able to do deadlifts. For them, this deadlift is best recommended.

1.7. Snatch Grip Deadlift

In the snatch grip deadlift, the legs and shoulder are wide apart. The hold of the barbell is tight to lift the weights. The hand’s grip on the rod is so tight that it seems like it has been snatched.

This deadlift work on the hamstrings, glutes, upper back, hips, and core. It is best to learn this snatch grip deadlift with a lighter weight. The snatch grip deadlift is the best posterior chain dominant movement for a sportsperson.

1.8. Stiff Leg Deadlift

The stiff leg deadlift includes less bending of the knees, and it increases the work of glutes and hamstrings. You can do this deadlift variation along with a pair of dumbells. You don’t need to hold a barbell only. For this variation, bend your hips forward.

Lower the barbell or pair of dumbells until you feel the stretch on your leg muscles, including hamstrings and glutes. If you will use dumbells, it will increase your range of motion. When your legs are bent forward, they are stiffed, which gives it the stiff-legged deadlift name.

2. Warm Up Before Lifting

Deadlift builds muscle, strength, and power throughout your body. Before doing the deadlift and exercise, you should loosen your hips, core, and lats. Perform some stretches for muscles.

You must focus on your leg muscles since these provide stability as you perform deadlifts. Performing deadlifts will provide you with improved mobility, improved strength, and better muscle development.

3. Deadlifts Work on Multiple Muscle Groups

The deadlift is a compound exercise. Compound exercises are exercises that work on multiple muscle groups at the same time. For example, squatting is a compound exercise. Squat focuses on the glutes, inner thighs, calves, and quad muscles.

Just like squatting deadlift is also a compound exercise. Deadlift focuses on many muscles like back muscles, grip strength, calves, gluteus Maximus, and inner thigh. What muscles do deadlifts work? The muscles targeted are as follows-

3.1 Below the Abdomen Muscles

3.1.1 Hamstrings

Deadlift exercises like Romanian deadlifts, deficit deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts and snatch grip deadlifts stretch out the hamstring.

3.1.2 Glutes

Deadlift exercises work on hip flexors and glutes too. Hip flexors are a group of muscles in front of the hips, and glutes are the muscles present in the hips, including maximus and minimus.

Like Romanian deadlifts, sumo, traditional, conventional, and all other deadlifts, these are the primary hip extension deadlifts that target on gluteus maximus.

For hip extension, there are other exercises like donkey kick, hip thrust, and many more. Hip extension is for opening your hip muscle groups. Try to increase your angle between the hips. Therefore, the gluteus gets stretched.

3.1.3 Quad Muscles

Quad muscles include the inner thigh and outer thigh. Types of a deadlift like the conventional deadlift focuses on the quads or the thigh muscles. But for quads, squats are better than deadlift variations.

3.1.4 Calves

Mostly the calves are targeted during a deadlift exercise. Calves are the muscles present at the back of your leg muscles.

These deadlift exercises help in lifting, strengthening, and toning the calves. Building this muscle will increase mobility when walking or running and improves holistic movement.

3.2. Upper Body Muscles

Deadlifts like sumo deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, conventional deadlifts, trap bar deadlifts, and all the above-mentioned deadlifts work the upper muscles. All these include stretching muscles like erector spinae muscles, shoulder muscles, and finger muscles that include overhand grip and grip strength.

3.2.2 Erector Spinae

This muscle is present in the spinal cord. If you will not do the deadlifts in proper form under a personal trainer. Then this may result in some injury.

When lifting the weight, you should keep in mind that you should be upright. An upright position will keep your spinal erectors in the correct position.

3.2.3 Shoulder Muscles

In all types of deadlifts, these are the always stretched muscle. The strength of your muscles lifts the weight. The muscles start stretching from starting position to the ending position.

3.2.4 Overhand Grip

The finger and palm muscles make a tight grip for the barbell deadlift as the grip is tight from the starting position to the end.

Hand muscles and spinal erectors lift the weight up, stretching the abdominal muscles. As the weight goes down again, the abdominal muscles stretch. This is how deadlift muscles work.

4. Proper Form

There are some measures to perform deadlift exercises. These are some of the forms for safer deadlifts as mentioned below-

Your knees are to be bent forward at 30 degrees to avoid injury.

2. Bend your body slowly towards your feet.

3. Create a curvature at your lower back, as it should not be flat.

4. Your spine should align with your head.

5. Deadlift Muscles Worked

Deadlifts target almost all muscles, as mentioned above. How many muscles are targeted in a deadlift? Targeted deadlifts like sumo deadlift, Romanian deadlift, conventional deadlift, trap bar deadlift, traditional deadlift and snatch bar deadlift, and stiff leg deadlift target all the muscle groups except chest muscles and abs.

A deficit deadlift works on your hamstring. As an individual’s body is on an elevated surface, it feels more stretched compared to a normal deadlift. Above mentioned are a few deadlift variations that differ from each other but result in more or the same.

In coordination with each, all the deadlift muscles work together to lift the weight, increasing your range of motion to a higher level than normal. The same muscles work together repeatedly to strengthen the weak muscles into strong and flexible muscles.

6. Precautions

During this compound exercise, people often perform some of the common deadlift mistakes. Always try to deadlift safely to avoid the risk of injury.

As it can hurt you if not done in a proper form and under a trainer. Muscles worked in these deadlifts are major muscles on which our entire body is dependent for movement.

Ensure these measures for better muscle mass. Measures to be taken into account are as follows-

You should be standing, with your legs straight parallel to your shoulders. Straight legs with the appropriate amount of distance in between.

2. Always install the same weight on either side of the rod or barbell.

3. Always keep your back straight. Try to keep your erector spinae straight.

4. Always bend forward, keeping your spinal erectors straight, and hold the barbell tight.

5. Always lift the weight slowly and keep it down slowly.

7. Challenging Exercise

The deadlift can become a challenging exercise if an individual wants to complete a predetermined number of repetitions (reps) of the deadlift in a particular period. You can do as little as one rep to get used to the feeling for the first time.

What is one rep max? One rep max is the maximum weight you can lift in one attempt. When you start, one rep max is enough. But eventually, you will have to add more reps and sets.

8. Workout Routine

Before starting the exercises, the entire body remains stiff. As we go for a workout, we should start with stretching of deadlift muscles or the exercise targeted muscles. The workout routine starts as follows-

Start with your stretching. Try to stretch your hips forward and backward. Stretching your hips forward and backward will increase your mobility and range of motion during exercise.

2. Then try to stretch your quads, hamstring, and calves.

3. Then stretch your shoulder, back, and overhand grip muscles.

4. Start with the lower intensity exercises and move towards the higher intensity workout, like deadlifts or types of deadlifts.

Deadlift muscles work in coordination with each other to build strength and mobility and improve the flexibility of deadlift muscles.

9. Common Deadlift Mistakes

Above mentioned are some of the precautions. If not kept in mind, that may result in some common mistakes. And if done properly, they will result in a higher deadlift strength. Some of the common errors are as follows-

1. Before starting with the deadlift try to do an appropriate warm-up. Try to exercise that increases mobility and activates the deadlift muscles. Running or walking on a treadmill is not enough.

2. People often join their feet as a starting position. This is the most usual mistake made by people. So wide apart your legs parallel to shoulder. Try to avoid the bad feet position.

3. People often bend forward and cannot keep their backs straight. Therefore bending the back is also o and most common mistake. Keep your chest straight and proud, and try to lift the weight, focusing on the strength of your legs.

4. Learn from your trainer how to position yourself with barbells in deadlifts like the Romanian deadlift. Different deadlifts have different positions to stand with barbells.

5. Your grip should be tight. Grab the rod/bar outside the hip width; your feet should be in the correct position.

6. Keep your hip in the correct position. Try to keep your hip not too low.

7. Many times shoulder gets contracted unconsciously. It can become dangerous if the focus from the leg muscle shifts to the shoulder. Try to create a maximum force to perform the deadlift on the legs.

10. Benefits of Deadlift

The deadlift has many benefits, some of which are listed below-

Builds your mass and strength and simultaneously builds different muscles.

2. Deadlifting builds your core stability and gripping strength and develops high-intensity cardio function.

3. Deadlifts increase the functional strength of the lower body muscles.

It also builds muscle groups, and the deadlift muscles work on different core muscles like-

10.1. Back

This includes spinal erectors and lats.

10.2. Hips

This includes glutes.

10.3. Legs

This includes quads, hamstrings, and calves.

10.4. Arms

This includes finger muscles and biceps.

10.5. Shoulders

This includes rotator cuff muscles.

Therefore, all these muscles simultaneously work with each other and help in a high-fat loss level by burning many calories.

11. Diet with a Deadlift

As mentioned above, a proper diet helps in a high level of fat loss. The powerlifter diet consists of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in appropriate amounts. Protein is always given priority due to its muscle-building capabilities. As mentioned below-

11.1. Carbs

5-8gm per kg body weight of carbohydrates.

11.2. Proteins

1.4-2gm per kg body weight of the protein.

11.3. Fats

30% of total calories from fat per day.

12. Calorie Intake for Powerlifters

Calorie count should also be there for powerlifters for competitive reasons and physical strength. For competition –

Muscle gain should be there.

2. Lose or gain weight to a targeted weight

3. Maintenance of weight till the competition day.

For the above-mentioned criteria, the food to be intaken should contain a balanced diet with carbs, protein, and fats. With this food, powerlifters should also intake powerlifting implementation.

You should keep a calorie check after asking a gym trainer for a particular weight and how many calories in a day you can take.

13. How Many Sets of Deadlifts Should You Do?

After completing your squats and leg press on your leg day, try to incorporate a deadlift into your daily routine. The number of sets should be according to the aim of growing muscles.

13.1 Beginners

If you are a beginner, do a higher amount of reps at a lower weight to practice the forms and avoid injury. This is training for beginners with a lower weight than your body at an early stage. Do one to two sets if it seems very difficult.

13.2 Intermediate

After a lot of practice, the beginner slowly starts becoming proficient in deadlifts. Gradually, after vigorous practice, you start lifting more heavy weights than your weight. Aim to do three sets every time and a possible fourth.

13.3 Advanced

After practice of heavy weight lifting, you should use weightlifting belts. When you lift heavy weights, it is important to use a belt. The belt helps stabilize your core and back when performing heavy weightlifting. Try to add more heavy weights and have someone spot your sets.

14. Deadlift vs. Squat

Deadlift concentrates on hamstrings (back muscles of thighs), and squats concentrate on the quads. Both exercises are effective for gaining lower body strength.

The deadlift is an exercise in which your hips and hamstrings pick up a weighted barbell or kettlebell from the floor. It helps you to strengthen and gain your muscles in the back, glutes, and hamstrings.

The squats help in the movement of the lower thighs keeping the chest in an upright position. It helps you to strengthen your glutes and quads. The squat is a functional exercise that can be used in daily movements.

The squat is among the best and most fundamental exercises ever. This is because it concentrates on the largest muscles in the body, strengthening them, making easy movement, and preventing injuries.

Last Updated on August 12, 2023 by riyaspeaks

Author

Deeksha nagar