The Trap Bar Deadlift

by Adam Vogel – 1/24/2012

Of all the bizarre looking pieces of equipment that inhabit the weight-room floor, none draw as many confused looks from new clients as the trap bar. The sometimes hexagonal, sometimes diamond-shaped bar has been described as a cross between a car chassis and a tenth-grade geometry problem.

But despite the awkward appearance, the trap bar (also known as a Hex Bar) might just be the greatest innovation in strength-training equipment in the last thirty years.

The trap bar was originally patented in 1985 by a powerlifting aficionado named Al Gerard, who was trying to find a way to train around a recurring lower back injury. It has since gained widespread support among many coaches as a back-friendly alternative to both traditional straight-bar deadlifts and squats.

This article will examine the use of the trap bar deadlift in modern strength programs, not only as a means of working around injury, but as a stand-alone exercise whose benefits may surpass that of the traditional straight bar deadlift.

As others have pointed out, the biggest drawback of both the straight bar deadlift and the barbell back squat is the amount of harmful stress it puts on the lumbar spine. Both exercises require the weight to be some distance away from the axis of rotation where the work is being performed (i.e., the hip), thus relying on the back to act like a crowbar to move the weight.

As a result, your training weights are limited to the capabilities of your back extensors to resist flexion as much, if not more, than your legs' ability to produce maximum force. And as you might expect, when things don't go strictly according to plan, it's your spine that's stuck paying the bill.

Since the trap bar configuration allows you to step inside it rather than behind it, the long lever is shortened along a horizontal axis, thus significantly reducing the amount of sheer force on the spine.

Earlier this year, research by Swinton et al. on the biomechanics of the hex bar deadlift versus the straight bar deadlift confirmed what many coaches had theorized for years – that the hex deadlift produced lower peak moments on both the lumbar spine and hips, moving it several notches to the right on the risk-reward spectrum.

Here's where the Swinton study gets interesting. Not only was the trap bar deadlift a safer exercise than the straight bar version, it was also a more effective exercise for building maximum power.

According to the authors, significantly greater levels of peak force, velocity, and power were produced with the trap bar compared to the straight bar across a range of submaximal loads. Since power is a measure of an object's force times its velocity, this means the hex deadlift allows you to lift more weight, over a greater distance, faster.

The authors go on to explain that the peak power values measured with the trap bar deadlift were on par with those captured in other studies that looked at Olympic weightlifting exercises like the power clean. This, of course, is a critical piece of information for coaches looking for a high-benefit, low-cost (in both time and potential for injury) exercise for increasing maximum power.

Why is this the first time we're seeing such high power outputs with a deadlift?

Simple – we've always measured these quantities with a straight barbell. And unless you've completely abandoned all prospects of having children in the future, chances are you spent as much time decelerating the bar as it sped its way toward your nether regions, as you did accelerating it off the ground.

This is obviously a lot less of a problem with the trap bar. Since there is no pelvis-cracking impact at the top of the movement, there's no reason to start pumping the breaks early.

Most beginner-level trainees deadlift with about the same level of skill that a chef at the Olive Garden prepares authentic northern Italian cuisine, which is to say, not very much at all.

For the majority of the population, getting into a good deadlift position with a straight bar is a huge challenge requiring a lot of upfront coaching and a generous helping of mobility work. This is especially true among the desk-jockey demographic who spend eight hours a day practicing lumbar flexion and posterior pelvic tilt.

Sure, there's that occasional outlier who comes walking into the gym – back arched, abdominals braced, shoulder blades retracted, looking for something heavy to lift off the floor with perfect form – but these people are rare.

That's where the trap bar comes in so handy. Its configuration leads to a much more upright torso position, allowing you to "sit" into the movement with far fewer technical requirements than a traditional straight bar deadlift. It also allows the knees to move more forward and the hips to sit lower than normal, avoiding the bar scraping your shins at the bottom of the movement.

The only potential drawback some coaches have with the trap bar setup has to do with the final stage of hip extension or lockout at the top of the movement. In the straight bar deadlift, you essentially lock your hips into place against the bar, preventing your back from overextending, whereas with the trap bar there's no such stopping mechanism. However, this problem can be easily coached away.

To setup for the trap bar deadlift, first step inside the perimeter of the bar, making sure your feet are positioned equidistant between the front and back of the bar.

Grip the handles tightly on either side so that your middle finger is in horizontal alignment with the front of your shin, while rotating the insides of your elbows forward. This will help to pick up any slack at the shoulder capsule.

Squat your hips down with an arch in your back.

Once in position, stand up by driving your feet into the ground, straightening your legs, and thrusting your hips forward. As you approach the top of the movement, squeeze your glutes together and brace your abdominals to finish the movement.

Here's a video to help you out.

Your ability to achieve maximal force and acceleration during a lift is in large part limited by the need to decelerate the weight at the end of the movement. That's why Olympic lifts, plyometric jumps, and medicine ball drills are all so effective at increasing power – they're all gas, no brakes – and why traditional resistance training exercises are good for building strength, but not that great for increasing power.

While the trap bar goes a long way toward fixing the problem of deceleration, it still requires some deceleration as you reach the top. About thirteen percent of the total range of motion is devoted to it, which might not be a huge leak, but a leak nonetheless.

That's where the use of resistance bands comes in handy, as they force you to work as close to maximum power output as possible throughout the range of motion.

Simply loop a stretch band around both ends of the trap bar and anchor it to either side of the bottom of a squat rack or a pair of heavy dumbbells. As you approach the top of the movement, the increasing pull of the band will do the deceleration for you so you can focus on increasing terminal velocity throughout.

For decades lifters have used plyometrics as a part of their lower body training programs, with one exception. Unlike the squat, lunge, step-up, and running stride, the biomechanics of the deadlift don't lend themselves easily to plyometric modifications (at least not without a good pair of shin pads and a heavy supply of topical ointments).

The trap bar deadlift changes this equation, allowing you to take advantage of both the elastic component of your muscles, as well as the stretch-shortening cycle that defines plyometric training.

These are an advanced version of the exercise that should only be attempted after mastering the feet-on-the-ground trap bar dead. Limit yourself to 3-6 reps, and try to use rubber plates on the bar rather than metal ones for a better rebound.

One criticism of the trap bar is that the handles on most bars are too high off the ground. This might be a blessing if you're lacking in the mobility department, but can be something of a liability if maximal muscular activation is your priority. The good news is that it's easily fixed.

Simply place a 1-3 inch step (or Olympic plate) under your feet before the lift to get a lower start on the weight. Make sure to take a slightly wider than normal stance so your hips have plenty of room to drop into the movement. Resist the urge to cheat the bottom range of motion by flexing the lumbar spine and curling your shoulders forward.

It depends on the goal. If you're concerned about the risk of lower back injury, the trap bar is definitely the safer choice. However, if you're trying to achieve maximum back extensor and hamstring recruitment, then the straight bar is the better option.

Keep in mind that the hamstring's primary role will always be to bend your knee and extend your hip when you're bent forward. While this does occur during the trap bar deadlift, it's to a lesser degree than during the straight bar version, which keeps most of the load on the hip joint, rather than the knee and ankle joints.

Another great thing about the trap bar dead is its versatility. Here are a few of the ways I have used it in my programming:

As the primary, knee-dominant exercise of the day, in place of squats, especially for those with back or shoulder injuries.As the primary, hip-dominant exercise of the day, in place of traditional deads, especially for those with a history of back problems.As a hybrid hip-knee exercise to use as a stand-alone on days where I'm not performing squats or traditional deadlifts.As an assistance exercise on days where squats or deadlifts are the core lifts of the day.As an assistance exercise on dynamic effort days where speed and power generation is the primary focus.

The important thing to remember is that if you're going to truly "replace" the traditional deadlift, plan on adding a bunch of other hip-dominant exercises like glute/ham raises, kettlebell swings, hip thrusts, etc., to your program.

Whether you're a beginner, a seasoned veteran, someone trying to train around an injury, or just hoping to corner the market on being able to lift a crap-ton of weight, the trap bar deadlift may be for you.

While 2011 might have been the year for single-leg training, in 2012, trap bar deadlifts are the new black. You heard it here first.

Swinton, PA, Stewart, A, Agouris, I, Keogh, JWL, and Lloyd, R. A biomechanical analysis of straight and hexagonal barbell deadlifts using submaximal loads. J Strength Cond Res 25(7): 2000-2009, 2011

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3 Tips to Maintaining a Good Muscle Building Routine

The assumption that we have a muscle building routine to maintain is that you have decided what your goals and objectives are, you know how much time you can devote to the activity, and you actually got started with the program. You are now getting into the flow, so the question is now what can we do to keep the momentum rolling and maintain our muscle building routine strategy and approach.

Record Your Workout Results

The first thing we can do is always record the information from your workouts. If you have maintained your workout schedule for 1,2,3,4 weeks in a row, following some goals and progressions, what this recording of information does is it lets you see how well you are doing in reaching those goals and objectives. If you had set a goal that in one month's time you wanted to increase your bench press weight by 10 lbs, or increase the number of reps that you do in one set, recording that information is essential to keep the momentum of your muscle building routine and fine tune it as necessary. Recording the info is a critical part.

Build In Adequate Recovery Time Between Workouts

The next aspect of maintaining a good muscle building routine is incorporating the right amount of rest between the exercise sessions. One tendency of people who get involved in a muscle building routine is that they get such good results out of the initial exercise that they think "if I just double the amount of exercise, I'll get twice the results". Unfortunately, in muscle building, that is not a good approach. If you are increasing the amount of weight you are lifting or the amount of reps per set, you are increasing the amount of fatigue in the muscles. While you do need to exhaust the muscles in order to trigger the growth condition you want, if you do not provide sufficient recovery time for that growth to happen, you could see a loss of muscle size or strength due to overstrain or overstress to the muscles. In order to keep your muscle gains moving forward, make sure that you allow yourself sufficient recovery time in between each of your workouts.

Find A Partner To Join Your Workout

The third important aspect of maintaining a good muscle building routine is having a buddy or partner, someone that you are essentially accountable to. Many people, when they are working on a plan to accomplish something independently, and they are not reporting regularly on their progress, and no one is actively monitoring your work, you can actually begin to falter a little bit.

This usually starts as rationalization, like "Well, I had a pretty good workout today, I don't think I need to press so hard, I can skip this one". In time this becomes a habit. If you had a three day a week routine, you may end up slipping to a two day a week routine. If you needed to have the muscle stimulation of a three day a week routine, and you are only exercising two days a week, then you might not be able to even maintain the gains you have accomplished. So, having someone to coach you, be a spotter for your exercises, or even just be a sounding board for you, would be a very effective way of helping you maintain your muscle building routine.

Follow these three tips to make your muscle building routine effective, and keep the momentum once you have started one!

AJ Sylvester is a muscle building enthusiast. For more great tips and info developing or maintaining a muscle building routine, visit http://muscle-building-1.com.

10 Core Training Tips to Strengthen Your Core Muscles

Core training has become popular as a fitness philosophy because it is a great way to build a strong foundation. Here are 10 Core Exercise Tips.

Tip #1: Activate Your Abdominal Muscles

The abdominal muscles play a significant role in core stability. The deep abdominal muscles contract to stabilize the spine before the arms and legs can move. The drawing-in maneuver and the plank are great exercises to activate the deep abdominal muscles.

Tip #2: Strengthen Your Lower Back Muscles

The lower back muscles often get neglected in fitness programs, probably in part because of vanity. I've never heard someone say, "Do you know any good exercises to get ripped lower back muscles?" In fitness many people are focused on getting 6 pack abs and a flat stomach, and they are neglecting their back.

The back muscles are just as important as the abdominal muscles. If you want to have a strong core, you must have both strong abs and strong back muscles.

Tip #3: Learn to Engage the Pelvic Floor

The Pelvic Floor muscles are most popular when discussing sexual dysfunction or bladder control issues, but they are really important for stabilizing the pelvis lumbar spine. They actually work with the abdominals and back muscles. To engage the pelvic floor muscles you have to contract as if you were preventing yourself from going to the bathroom.

Tip #4: Do Balance Exercises

Balance Exercises are any exercise when you're standing on 1 leg or when you are standing on an unstable surface. Your center of gravity shifts when you stand on one leg, so your core muscles must work harder to maintain your alignment. Balance Exercises are an important part of a core workout routine.

Tip #5: Strengthen your Scapular Muscles and Rotator Cuff

Your core is more than just your spine. Your core is your entire trunk and consists of the shoulder and scapular stabilizers. When your scapula is stable, you will be less likely to get shoulder injuries and you will perform at a higher level. Your core workout should include scapular and rotator cuff exercises.

Tip #6: Strengthen your Gluteus Maximus

The hip stabilizers are also part of the core. The glutes attach to the pelvis and control the position of the hips. When the glutes are weak or inefficient you will have a decrease in pelvic stability and hip stability. Bridges are a great exercise to strengthen the glutes an improve core stability.

Tip #7: Train for Stabilization and Endurance First

Core stabilization exercises are exercises in which there is little to no movement around the spine. When you begin a core program, it is important to first build a solid foundation of stability. If you focus on stability first, you'll make greater improvements in strength and speed. The Plank is a great core stabilization exercise.

Tip #8: Train for Strength Second

Once you have a good base of stability, shift to building strength. Strength exercises challenge your abdominal and back muscles through a large range of motion. Crunches on a Swiss Ball and lower back extension on a machine are good strength exercises.

Tip #9: Train for Power and Speed Third

Once you have a base of stability and strength, you can more efficiently develop your speed. In addition, if you have a strong foundation, you will be less likely to get injured and your performance will improve more quickly. Power exercises are done in a fast and explosive way. Medicine ball throws and jumping exercises help to develop the power of your core muscles.

Tip #10: Play with Different Core Exercise Equipment

There are many tools that can enhance your core workout. The Exercise Ball, Reebok Core Board, and the Bosu Ball are all great tools that can challenge your coordination and balance. When you exercise on less stable surfaces, your core muscles work even harder to stabilize your body.
Well, I hope those tips help to give you some ideas about how to improve your core workout.

Charles Inniss is a Physical Therapist and Personal Trainer. Visit his website for more core workout tips, and also learn tons of core exercises.

Why You Should Take Systemic Enzymes

Welcome newcomers! If you want to build muscle, lose fat, boost your performance and improve your health you're in the right place. To make sure you don't miss out on any new updates you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed and sign up for my newsletter list. Thanks for visiting!

Today I have a guest post from Dr. William Wong about one of my favorite, secret supplements for fighting inflammation; systemic enzymes. You never really hear about these which is a shame because they’re awesome for anyone over 35 or those guys who are beat up from years of athletics, heavy training, etc.

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What have the years of pounding your knees, grinding your shoulders and pushing all of the other joints of your body done to that smooth sponge like gliding surface?

The hyaline was formed early in life from something called mucopolysaccharides. Your body stopped making the stuff somewhere during or after puberty. Now, the inside of the joint has no blood supply. The articulating surfaces are fed directly by the mucous synovial fluid which gets it’s supply of nutrients through the joint capsule membrane from the blood supply on it’s outside. If we still made these mucopolysaccharides our joints hardly ever wear. But we don’t so they do.

Dr.Max Wolf M.D. and Ph.D. times 7 of Columbia University is widely acknowledged as the father of systemic oral enzyme therapy. (1). Wolf found that as we age or are under stress our bodies own production of enzymes is depleted. Age related changes he said are directly attributable to depletion of enzymes. Systemic enzymes differ from digestive enzymes in that the tablets are taken in between meals so that the constituents can be absorbed into the blood stream and do their work there instead of expending their action on digesting food.

With 40 years of use and over 160 peer reviewed verifying studies behind it, systemic enzymes are the second best selling over the counter preparation in Germany. When a joint or any soft tissue is injured or infirm the body creates irritants called Circulating Immune Complexes. It’s these complexes that cause the inflammation of joint capsules, bursae, tendons, muscles, blood vessels, internal organs etc. These complexes also are responsible for autoimmune diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus. In those conditions a large build up of the complexes attack the joints or muscles, respectively thinking these to be foreign invaders. Enzymes eat Circulating Immune Complexes. (2).

In eating away at the substances that cause inflammation, its pain, swelling and redness are reduced. As a consequence pain is relieved. But for athletes the other actions of systemic enzymes are just as important. These enzymes are anti-fibrotic. “Over expression” of Fibrin and Fibrinogen create the matrix in the blood vessels for arteriosclerotic plaque.  Systemic enzymes control this over expression and eat away slowly at established plaque. Systemic Enzymes are also used in Europe to fight thrombosis, blood clots deep in the veins. (3). Isn’t cardiovascular health why most of us started exercising in the first place?

Now science has found that a little critter called a C- reactive protein is the cause of inflammation in blood vessels and can possibly lead to heart disease. Two things destroy C-reactive proteins: aspirin and systemic enzymes. Aspirin use has side effects; the natural enzymes do not.(4).  According to the Wall Street Journal, April 20 1999, 20,000 Americans die from aspirin, ibuprofen and that whole class of Non Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs. That means that more Americans die every year from aspirin and its related drugs than die from AIDS!

The enzymes are also a great blood cleaner. In eating away at Circulating Immune Complexes, necrotic derbies and fibrin in the blood these actions reduce the viscosity of blood by removing the gunk. This is a different mechanism for reducing blood viscosity than aspirin. (5)  To anyone who exercises or plays a sport, thinner blood means improved circulation to working muscles and increased micro circulation. Most folks walk around with blood that’s as thick as catsup! (6). Folks who exercise make that worse by the dehydration they suffer. Many endurance athletes make things worse still by taking the drug EPO which in order to have greater numbers of red blood cells to move oxygen around with. EPO was invented for cancer therapy patients suffering from extreme anemia. It was never meant to augment the hemoglobin count of athletes.  Mainly triathloners, tennis players and cyclists use this drug. They have also been dying of blood clots caused from using this stuff!

Systemic Enzymes help the body to recover faster from exercise, preventing micro trauma from becoming macro trauma. In cases of injury, systemic enzymes are used by pro-athletes to reduce the effects of injury and speed healing. European sport physicians have found that recovery times are cut dramatically. (8).

Now we come to something that over exercisers and endurance athletes are seriously lacking in – an immune system. It is common knowledge in exercise physiology that for each day of heavy training there are two to three days of immune suppression to follow.  If you tag too many workout days together, as we manic compulsive boomers tend to do, then in time the immune system becomes completely trashed. There are numerous cases of marathoners coming down with chronic reoccurring infections because they don’t have anything in their bodies to fight bugs for them. Systemic Enzymes to the rescue!
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This is a supplement that I take regularly during periods of heavy training or increased volume, or really any time I have any aches and pains I want to get rid of. I also have many of my clients on them. If it sounds like something you want to try click HERE now and use the coupon code “JASONFE” at checkout for a 15% discount.

Tags: Autoimmune Diseases, Blood Stream, Blood Supply, Columbia University, D Times, Digesting Food, Digestive Enzymes, Dr Max, Dr William, Immune Complexes, Internal Organs, Max Wolf, Oral Enzyme Therapy, Production Of Enzymes, Puberty, Soft Tissue, Synovial Fluid, Systemic Enzymes, Tendons, William Wong

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Are You Ignorant When it Comes to the Deadlift?

by Mark Rippetoe – 12/06/2011

It's not always apparent, and is often poorly understood. Stated succinctly, stupid is not your fault – you were born that way. You're just dumb. You can't learn.

Ignorance means you just don't know. Ignorance probably is your fault, because you've failed to inform yourself. This is especially true since the advent of the internet has enabled the most universal and thorough dissemination of information in the history of human communication.

The obvious problem is that 95% of that information is wrong, which follows my popular maxim: 95% of all the shit that occurs everywhere is completely fucked up. The internet is no different.

But you can, with a little diligence, tease out the facts if you want to. If you're interested in a subject, it eventually falls upon you to distill the truth from the bullshit.

This you'll do gladly, if you're interested enough to devote significant amounts of time and effort to it, because an intelligent person realizes that bullshit is a waste of time. A stupid person might not appreciate this, and therefore continue to be ignorant of the truth of a matter.

Take the deadlift, for example. It's the most basic, obvious movement in barbell training, the one with the most carryover to everyday tasks and the easiest to learn of all the basic exercises.

You just step up to the bar with a vertical-jump stance width, with toes out and your shins about an inch from the bar, grab it just outside your stance with your knees still straight, then bend your knees forward and out a little bit until your shins touch the bar, squeeze your chest up until your back is flat, take a big breath, and drag the bar up your legs until you're standing up straight.

See? One (admittedly run-on) sentence describes the whole thing.

But just because a task can be described simply doesn't mean that there aren't any important details. Fortunately, they can be built into the instructions, if the instructor is clever. Our one-sentence deadlift instruction carries a lot of important information, and if it's followed correctly and intelligently, it'll result in a perfect deadlift every time.

Let's take it a step at a time and see what we can learn from this simple approach to an uncomplicated movement.

The stance width of a vertical jump is narrower than most novices' deadlift, but it shouldn't be. A push into the floor should have the mid-foot directly under the hip joint, and this is the stance width that allows you to push the floor without losing force to any shear that will develop along a laterally-angled leg (the sumo stance intentionally widens the stance to artificially shorten the legs, and trades the benefit of a more vertical back for the inefficiency of the angled legs – but we're not sumo-ing right now).

Most people jump with toes pointed slightly out, and this toes-out stance is very helpful for the deadlift. It gets the thighs out of the way of the belly, which helps set your back flatter and it gets the groin muscles and the external rotators involved in the pull. Konstantinovs demonstrates this when he pulls, as have many great deadlifters through the history of powerlifting.

Placing the bar about an inch from your shins puts the bar directly over your mid-foot, precisely where the bar wants to be anyway, because that's the point over which the load balances.

When you stand up straight with your feet even, where are you in balance? On your toes? On your heels? Bad idea. In either of these positions, you have to exert more effort to stand than when balanced in the middle. The mid-foot is the place that's furthest away from both those positions of imbalance. This also applies to the deadlift.

An intelligent person will verify this by watching YouTube videos of heavy deadlifts where he'll see that every heavy deadlift travels up in a vertical path, sliding up the shins from a fairly vertical shin angle. Even if the lifter starts with the bar forward of this position, the bar will roll back to the mid-foot before it leaves the ground.

Likewise, this same intelligent person will notice that the bar locks out at the top directly over the mid-foot. Why would you intentionally pull the bar from a position that's horizontally different from the one you're pulling it to? Well, you wouldn't unless you're stupid, so that's where the bar starts.

Your grip should be designed to make the bar travel the shortest possible distance to lockout, and this means that the arms will hang parallel to each other when you grip the bar. This is accomplished by taking the narrowest grip you can without your hands rubbing your legs on the way up. So your grip will be where your hands line up with the widest point of your stance.

Most novices take too wide a stance, and therefore too wide a grip. Most elite lifters take a close grip. Verify this for yourself. If your stance is correct, your arms will hang straight down when seen from the front and you'll have pulled the bar the shortest distance it can travel to lockout.

During the process of taking the grip you do not move the bar, because you just intentionally put it exactly where it needs to be, over the mid-foot.

You haven't bent your legs yet, but now you need to drop your knees forward until your shins touch the bar. This motion places the shins at a slight forward angle that leaves the bar over the mid-foot while in contact with the shins.

If you drop your hips, your knees will travel forward and shove the bar forward of the mid-foot. So don't drop your hips.

Remember, don't move the bar. That would be stupid.

Just after you touch the bar with your shins, push your knees out very slightly. This keeps your thighs lined up with your slightly pointed-out toes and allows your groin muscles and lateral hip muscles to engage during the pull.

If you're a bigger guy, you'll immediately notice that it's easier to get in position over the bar if your thighs are out of the way of your gut, as mentioned earlier. The knees-out motion takes full advantage of the toes-out stance, the smartest thing to do as you prepare to pull.

Now comes the most important part of the procedure. Squeeze your chest up to set your back. Don't drop your hips like everybody else does, and like you've been doing, too. Just leave your ass where it is after your shins touch the bar and set your back from the top down by squeezing your chest up into thoracic extension and letting that wave of extension carry itself down to your low back.

Watch Brad Gillingham do his 881-pound deadlift and you'll see that it can be done quite effectively without a drop of the hips. It's hard, because your back is fighting with your hamstrings for control of your pelvis and your back has to win. It may feel odd the first couple of reps, but as you warm up it will get easier. Regardless, the chest-up motion will always be the hardest part of the setup.

The fact is, if it's easy, you did it wrong.

You must understand this: you're not trying to squat the weight off the floor with the bar in your hands. This doesn't work, as you may have noticed if you've watched enough deadlifting to be informed about what really occurs when heavy weights are pulled off the floor.

When the weight gets heavy, you can drop your hips as low as you want to and push the bar as far forward as it takes to make you happy, but what actually happens before the bar leaves the floor is always the same: the bar comes back toward the mid-foot, the hips come up until the shoulders settle into position just in front of the bar, and the bar comes up in a straight line, if you haven't fucked up the pull too badly.

The shoulders-just-in-front-of-the-bar position is a feature of all pulls that are heavy enough, whether deadlift, clean, or snatch. I take a shot at explaining why in the new 3rd edition of Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training (hint: it has to do with the lats).

By now you've looked again at all the deadlift videos and seen this position establish itself every time, regardless of whether the lifter initiated the lift correctly or incorrectly (if the lifter initiated the lift incorrectly, the hips rise and the back angle changes until the shoulders are just in front of the bar anyhow).

You can identify this position because the arms don't hang straight down plumb, but rather hang at a slight angle when viewed from the side. While you were looking at them again, you also noticed the bar travels a vertical path. In fact, if you fuck the pull up too badly (i.e. let it get forward of the mid-foot anywhere in the pull so that the bar path isn't vertical) it won't go up – unless it's a sub-maximal attempt.

So squeezing the chest up as the best way to set your back merely incorporates the facts that you've gathered by watching the videos and informing yourself. If you set your back in the position it likes to pull from anyway, you minimize wasted motion before the pull and you create a simple procedure for doing it the same way every time.

All that remains is dragging the bar up your legs to lockout. "Dragging" implies contact, and contact all the way up ensures the vertical bar path; if you let it go forward as it passes your knees on the way up, you'll have let it drift forward of the mid-foot, and thus gotten out-of-balance.

But if you've set your back correctly and started the pull with the bar over mid-foot, it will come up your shins and your thighs in a straight vertical line, which I'm sure you'll agree is a mechanically pleasing configuration.

Of course, you have to keep your back flat, and that takes strength in the lumbar erectors that can only be built with heavy deadlifts done correctly. It has become fashionable in random exercise/"functional movement" gyms to permit the use of bumper plates and a bounce off the floor for all the reps of a set of deadlifts after the first one.

This isn't "functional" – no sane, responsible person picks up a heavy object by bouncing it off the floor because that might break something. An informed person knows that if you don't use a muscle, you won't train that muscle. Common sense dictates this fact, and no particular intelligence is required to arrive at this conclusion.

Simple observation tells us that people who bounce their deadlifts aren't very strong off the floor. Experience informs me that if a 185-pound man with three years of barbell "training" comes to my seminar lacking the ability to deadlift 300 pounds with a flat back, he's probably been bouncing his deadlifts.

The lumbar erectors are the muscles that hold the lumbar spine in extension. If you fail to use them for that purpose during a deadlift, they won't adapt to this isometric task, and you'll have turned the most basic back exercise in the gym into a ridiculous circus trick.

Let's be honest: you bounce your deadlifts because it's easier to do more reps that way. But you know this already, because you were never that ignorant.

Reset all your reps and make your low back get strong enough to hold itself flat during a maximum deadlift attempt. Even if more reps are the goal, a stronger back is the only way to achieve it.

There may be a slight tendency for the bar to drift forward as it comes off the floor. When this happens, it's usually because you've rocked forward during the setup so that your weight is forward of the mid-foot. Shoes with heels can do this, as can a misperception of your start position.

If this happens, you're probably too far forward, with your shoulders too far in front of the bar and your back too horizontal. To correct this, rock back off of your toes, reset your chest up, and think about actually pushing your mid-foot into the floor, instead of pulling on the bar.

Deadlifts are one of the easiest lifts to learn and do correctly. It usually takes me about five minutes to fix an incorrect deadlift, and everyone I fix tells me that the movement feels "shorter." We know that the trip from floor to lockout is pretty much the same distance, wrong or right, unless your grip is very wide, so what is responsible for this change in perception?

There are two components of the system – the lifter and the barbell. If the bar travels the same distance from floor to lockout, it can't be the source of the difference in perception. It's the lifter, whose ass is no longer waving around in the air before the lift starts. This decrease in body movement and increase in efficiency results in the perception of a shorter pull, even though the bar travels the same distance.

So, now that you're not ignorant, stop acting like you are. Do your deadlifts correctly, efficiently, and with impressive weights. Usually, the simplest method is the smartest method to use.

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Workout Routines to Build Muscle - Tips on How to Build Muscles Fast

Are you getting bored doing your regular workout and don't get the physique that you long for? Maybe you don't have the right workout routines to build muscle. Keep on reading to know what you are missing.

Having workout routines to build muscle is very important. It gives you focus on what you need to do to achieve your goal. Before you start doing workouts, you need to coordinate with your trainer what type of physique you want to achieve and if you have some medical condition that should be considered in preparing the type of workout plan that will be best for you.

The content of a workout routine would be the things you will do everyday inside the gym. Since there are different types of exercises that need to be done, your everyday task will give you a balance activity so as to achieve your objective faster.

In every workout that you are going to do, it is very important to conduct warm up activities before you start your routine. Warming up will prepare not only your muscles but the whole body to whatever stress it will have during a session which can also minimize injury. Warm up activities like walking, jogging and stretching for about ten to fifteen minutes would be enough as a preparation.

One important thing to consider also in doing a workout plan is by having a focus on one muscle group per day. This is to avoid over training of muscles. Over training will not only hinder muscle growth but might also cause injury.

Here's an example of workout routine for beginners which can be done for three sets with at least ten to twelve repetitions.

First day - focused on bicep and triceps. Bicep curls, preacher curls, incline bicep curls, triceps presses, double bar triceps dip and lying barbell extension.

Second day - focused on your chest and shoulder. Bench press, inclined bench press and peck deck, shoulder press, front lateral raises and reverse peck deck fly.

Third day - focused on your back and legs. Seated pulley rows, barbell shrugs, lat pull downs, hack squats, box squats and calf raises.

On the fourth day until the sixth day, you can focus on developing your abs by doing crunches and reverse crunches and combine the first day activity.

Fifth day, abs combined with the second day activities and for the sixth day abs and the third day activities.

On the seventh day, you can either rest or do some aerobic exercises to give your muscles and body ample time to recover and develop.

To have workout routines to build muscle is not enough. You need to monitor also if the program you are doing really works. If not, you need to revise your program. To know how to measure your muscle development, visit my website here: http://musclebuilding.net.au/ and be able to achieve the body of your dreams.

14 Important Programming Notes

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This post is for anyone who owns any of my programs (like the brand new Rampage 2.0)  just in case I didn’t include these notes anywhere in the workout notes or haven’t mentioned it somewhere in the past.

I write most of my programs with public gym goers in mind or those with limited amounts of stuff in their basement or garage gym. But if you have access to other stuff the training can be greatly enhanced.

With access to unlimited tools I would write many programs differently.

Here are some very important notes regarding all of my programs and changes you can feel free to make:

1) When I prescribe a deadlift you can and should always sub in the trap bar if you have one. High handles is my preferred option and deadlifts should never be close to failure. Smooth, clean reps are the way to stay injury free. The deadlift is the main exercise where submaximal training is of the utmost importance.

2) Because I assume that most people might not have the better option available to them I tend to write “rack deadlifts” out of habit when in reality I recommend pulling from rubber mats or blocks instead. That is a far safer option and much less stressful than pulling off pins (the same way that pressing off boards is safer and less stressful than pressing off pins). So if you have those use them.

Search some online fitness equipment stores and you should be able to find a place that sells small rubber mats. But a bunch of them or cut your own and stack the mats to do pulls from mid shin height to just above the knee. The difference between pulling off of these rubber blocks and pins will be instantly noticeable and you won’t believe how much better your back will feel.

As a side note for home gym owners, getting squat stands instead of a power rack with some rubber mats is a cheaper option and gives you everything you need. If you can get squat stands with a chin up bar you’re pretty much set.

3) If you have a climbing rope you can sub in rope climbs for chin ups. You could also sub in a modified rope climb where you start laying back on the floor for whatever type of rows are listed (See video below).

4) If you have wheelbarrow and train at home feel free to finish your workouts with some loaded wheelbarrow walks. These are basically the same as farmers walks and will build up the traps, grip and core along with total body functional strength and stability.

5) If you have a rope and a sled or prowler feel free to sub in some rope sled rows for whatever rows I have listed in the program. Rows with a two inch diameter rope will build up the forearms and biceps like almost nothing else.

6) If you have Fat Gripz you should use them on any press, curl or single leg lower body variation. Actually I should rephrase this. It shouldn’t be “if” you have Fat Gripz. You SHOULD have Fat Gripz.

A fat handle on the bar or dumbbell is infinitely safer for your elbows and shoulders and also eliminates the need for much direct grip or forearm work.

I personally would never recommend not training with a fat bar or fat handled dumbbells. It’s simply not worth the injury risk. Those skinny handles are an elbow injury in the making that will creep up on you sooner or later.

8] That said, if you own a fat bar it should be subbed in for all forms of straight bar pressing.

9) If you own a Swiss bar or football bar it can also be subbed in for all forms of pressing. Put the Fat Gripz on and you’ve got a winner. Pressing a straight bar is unnatural and stressful. Always opt for a bar with parallel or angled handles when available.

10) Muscle Gaining Secrets isn’t necessarily a sports performance program but you can definitely feel free to add three sets of five box jumps or med ball throws or power snatches from the hang before the workouts for explosive power development and to fire up the CNS before the main work.

11) If you have battling ropes feel free to use them for 5-10 minutes after any workout as a finisher.

12) If you have chains you can sub them in and use them for curls or even Dumbbell military presses, incline presses or flat presses. Simply attach cable handles to them and put the Fat Gripz over them.

13) Neck work can always be included at the end if it’s not prescribed. No one couldn’t benefit from having a stronger neck. Stick with 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps on the neck harness, front neck flexion and side neck flexion.

14) If you own a prowler or sled feel free to add it to the end of workouts for 5-15 minutes for conditioning.

***Shameless plug alert***

Finally, make sure you pick up my newest program, Rampage 2.0. It’s on sale today at an insanely low price but after that it’s going into the vault for good.

Grab it HERE.

Tags: Chin Up Bar, Climbing Rope, Deadlift, Failure, Fitness Equipment Stores, Garage Gym, Gym Goers, Gym Owners, Habit, Home Gym, Pins, Power Rack, Preferred Option, Public Gym, Rampage 2, Rubber Blocks, Rubber Mats, Trap Bar, Utmost Importance, Workout

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