My deadlift form is probably really bad. I would be able to tell if I had any idea what I was doing.

Main problem is that I cannot tell if I am engaging my hamstrings and glutes properly or at all. I do feel a little bit of exertion in my thighs so that is a res flag.

There are a million videos about this on YouTube but it creates a choice paralysis situation for me. Plus the “trainers” at my gym are unqualified and terrible. They have given me advice like “the barbell should touch the nipples during bench press” and “the eyes should be looking down during deadlift”.

  • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlOPEnglish
    1·
    12 hours ago

    Alright this picture is the first time I am noticing this gaze. To be completely honest it looks fine. But the trainer wanted me to look at the same point on the ground throughout which was roughly where this guy is looking at the moment the picture is taken.

    When fully extended I think it is natural to look straight ahead rather than downwards.

    Maybe I am dissing him too much but my gut tells me to not trust him. The main problem is that the trainers do not deadlift themselves. Almost no one does the regular barbell deadlifts in Indian gyms ever. It is a strange phoenomenon because barring the risk of injury, something that can be mitigated by caution and expertise, it is an excellent exercise.

    • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
      1·
      11 hours ago

      It’s sort of the basic beginner tips for people just getting into it, I received them as well and imo they’re helpful in that you want to focus on so many things the first time you’re lifting that it helps take away some of the doubts. Don’t worry about what your head is doing, just look down etc. Of course advice should be suited to one’s own level of progress.

      Your head should follow the curvature of the spine but because our eyes have a tendency to linger on specific points (this is actually how they work), you might subconsciously start to fixate on a point and try to keep your head in line with that point (this is also how our vision works, we move our head towards the thing we look at so that we can center our eye on it). I actually do that with squats, look up at the speaker at my gym and stay on it because on the downward path it helps me keep my posture.

      Ideally your cervicals follow your spine and your head itself always looks to the perpendicular. Roughly:

      You have a 90° angle between the torso and the gaze. But that’s in ideal conditions of course. It’s just a rough model to illustrate how your head should naturally move during the lift. With experience it becomes easier to let your eyes naturally do their thing (your eyes dictate where your head moves) and not focus on them.

      edit: If I make a quick edit of the spine model, “incorrect” head positioning looks like this:

      The red line shows how the spine should naturally fall, in a straight or mostly straight line. But in this case with an upward head tilt we can see the cervicals (the green line) are not at all in line with the spine.