How to Deadlift Safely

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In last week’s newsletter, I laid out some basic concepts for my 12-week Own the Off Season 2025 program. Heavy Hex Bar Deadlifting is the centerpiece of the program and I got a handful of people asking me questions about all that.

In light of all the questions regarding hex bar deadlifing, I wanted to write this newsletter to talk about one key concept: setting up the lift

Everyone knows how important form and technique are to successful lifting. Most people focus on what their bodies are doing when trying to maintain good form. But you can also manipulate details of the bar itself during the setup that can make a massive difference in your ability to execute the lift safely.

The main detail I want to focus on here is how high or low the bar is from the ground. Basically, if the hex bar or barbell you’re trying to lift is starting too close to the ground, you have to bend down further to reach it.

You want to make sure when you’re deadlifting that the bar is high enough off the ground. You might have to artificially raise it to perform the lift safely.

This may seem obvious but it has massive implications
Make sure the hex bar is high enough off the ground
I want you to imagine a hex bar or barbell that has NO weight on it and is just laying flat on the ground. To pick it up, you have to bend all the way to the floor to pick it up.

Now imagine you have that same hex bar or barbell but this time it has a 45lb plate on each side. Having the plates on the sides physically raises the whole thing higher off the ground. The radius of the 45lb plate raises the bar at rest.

Now imagine you can’t lift the bar with 45lb plates on each side so you have that same hex bar or barbell but this time only a 5lb weight is on each side. Yes the 5lb weight lifts it slightly off the ground, but compared to the mount the 45lb plate raises the bar off the ground, the 5lb plate keeps the bar much closer to the floor.

So the problem for beginners deadlifting is that the WEIGHT they are comfortable lifting is likely less than using 45lb plates on each side. Which means whatever weight they are using has the barbell closer to the ground instead of higher.

And starting with the barbell lower to the ground puts more strain on the lower back. So when starting off with deadlifting, you might have to ARTIFICIALLY RAISE your whole setup.

The easiest way to artificially raise your whole setup is to lay weight plates horizontally on the ground UNDERNEATH the weights on your bar. You can stack up a couple weight plates and essentially create a couple blocks for the weights on your bar to rest on.

Having the weights on the side of your bar resting on weights laid horizontally on the floor will make the whole bar rest HIGHER off the ground. Which is exactly what we want in order to execute a safe deadlift.

This is something I’m ensuring for all the participants in my 12-week strength program: Own the Off Season.

However, if you’re interested in getting more into strength & conditioning and/or barbell lifting, there is no one better in our Evanston community than Chris Van Nostrand at Strength Wise Barbell

Chris is a fantastic strength & conditioning coach and his whole business revolves around teaching adults how to barbell lift safely and creating a unique strength program for you.

If you haven’t heard of Chris, check out his website using the link above.

Your best is yet to come!

Dr. Michael

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