I got an article that will help you with your deadlift.

It is from Eric Wong.

Eric Wong does a lot a training with MMA fights and one thing he works on a lot is improving hip flexibility.

He has a great exercise for you to do to help with your deadlift.

If you have seen the exercise before, make sure to try the tweak to the exercise.

Rick Kaselj

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Hey! What’s up guys! Eric Wong here.

I wanted to share with you the best exercise to improve your deadlift.

The exercise that I’m going to show you is super powerful for improving your flexibility to get down into the deadlift.

Common Cause of Injury in the Deadlift

The Deadlift as we know is an amazing exercise, got to do it, got to lift those weights heavy.

The problem that a lot of guys and ladies encounter is they are tight in their hips, specifically the posterior chain. Hamstrings are part of it.

What happens at the bottom of the deadlift is the back rounds. This point is the most critical point of the lift and it is important to have the flexibility and mobility in your hips because if your back is round and you are lifting heavy, that’s going to cause lower back pain. (If you do have back pain when or from workout make sure to check out Rick’s Fix My Back Pain.)

Poor flexibility at the bottom of the deadlift is going to cause damage to the vertebrae, the ligaments and muscles in the lower back. A lot of different bad things can happen, so, we want to prevent that.

Powerful Exercise to Improve Your Flexibility

This exercise will help you do that. This is really a powerful sequence that you can do, not only to improve flexibility but also strength.

How to do the exercise:

#1 – What I want to do is kick that leg up and step back.

Depending on how high your bench is or whatever you’re sticking your foot up on. You can use a couch at home, kitchen table or whatever you got. Stick your foot up there, settle the hip down and keep your pelvis level until you get a stretch going on in your hamstrings.

#2 – Make sure both feet are pointing straight ahead to start, specially the one that’s on the ground.

Because if it is not, that’s going to change the dynamics of the stretch and is not going to be applicable to the deadlift where your pelvis is square and your foot and your legs are lined up straight. You need to make sure that your leg is a little bit bent and the knee cap is pointing up to the ceiling. Often times the knee caps are pointing in, we want to make sure it’s pointing up the ceiling.

#3 – Stick the butt out and drive the heel.

Once I’m organized here in a good position, remember to have the shoulders back and keep the curve normal in your lower back. I am sticking the butt out and feeling the hamstring stretch. What I want to do is drive that heel down and slowly contract the muscle. I don’t just all of the sudden contract the muscle because that’s going to fire up the stretch reflex that will cause contraction of the hamstring and will prevent the muscle from being stretched properly.

#4 – I slowly and gradually increase the contraction of the hamstring total about 80% or so and hold it there for 5 seconds.

After 5 seconds, relax everything and then you’re probably going to feel a little bit looser. You can step back and get that foot forward more or tilt over a little bit more at the pelvis in order to increase the stretch and then you do it again. Contract five seconds, relax from 5 to 10 seconds and go a little bit deeper every time you relax.

A Tweak to Make it Even Better

Now one little technique that I’m going to show you the trick to make this even better is to make sure you do this in different foot positions in order to hit the hamstring in a different way.

My other leg keeps me balanced here.

This foot is straight ahead.

Entirely rotate that hip in and now I got more of the medial fibres of the hamstring on stretch and from there I have the knee bent a bit. I contract. Push the heel straight down into the bench for 5 seconds and then relax and go a little bit deeper by tilting forward.

Last one you can do is you can do three different contractions. Same thing but rotate the leg out. Make sure there is a little bit of a knee bend, gradually increase that contraction. Hold for 5 seconds and then you relax and go deeper in to the stretch for 5 seconds.

So that’s it right there, a powerful hamstring flexibility and strengthening sequence that you can do to improve your position before you set in the Deadlift. Keep that lumbar spine nice and neutral, hips are back up, shoulder blades are tucked down, and you can lift heavy and lift safely.

Hope you enjoyed that video, put it to work for you and it’s going to provide a lot of benefits and keep you a healthy and strong lifter.

Thanks a lot for checking it out. Talk to you soon.

How to Improve Your Hip Flexibility Even More….

If you are looking for a hip flexibility program to help you improve your squat depth and improve your flexibility in your hips, make sure to check out my Hip Flexibility Program.

Eric Wong