Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Is Deadlifting Worth The Risk?

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

I’ve churned through over 150,000 emails, social media comments and messages, and blog comments in the last 6 years. And that means I’ve fielded a ton of questions. As you can imagine, some questions pop up more often than others, and I thought it might be helpful to take a little time every month to choose a few and record and share my answers. So, in this round, I answer the following question: Are deadlifts worth the risk? If you have a question you’d like me to answer, leave a comment below or if you want a faster response, send an email to [e-mail]. Timestamps 5:22 - Are deadlifts a risky or dangerous exercise for your average lifter or lifestyle bodybuilder? 10:52 - What’s the best alternative to the conventional deadlift? Rack pulls. 11:22 - Do deadlifts hurt your biceps? 15:56 - Is deadlifting especially difficult to recover from? Is 3 sets too much? 16:25 - What is CNS fatigue? 18:42 - Why should you deadlift? What are the benefits of deadlifting? 20:37 - Can deadlifts affect your hormones like testosterone? 24:18 - Do you need to deadlift? Are deadlifts required? Mentioned on the Show: My New Book Muscle For Life: https://muscleforlifebook.com/ Books by Mike Matthews: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/

Imagine your doctor says you have a fatal disease and the only way to cure it is to whirl around in circles for two hours per day. Now, after accepting that you do indeed have the strangest disease in the history of the human race, what would you do? Would you slink off and resign yourself to your fate? Or would you somehow free up the time to spin Witter shins? We both know without a doubt that you'd find a way, regardless of how busy you are. Maybe you would work a bit less.

Maybe you would banish streaming apps. Maybe you would disappear from social media. But somehow you would make the time, right? Well, think about that. Because you just admitted that you do have a couple of hours per day waiting in the time, right? Well, think about that because you just admitted that you do have a couple of hours per day waiting in the wings available for immediate use toward any goal of your choosing, such as transforming your body. So what's going on here? Well, many people understand that I don't have time to exercise is just another way of saying it's not important enough to me.

But these people struggle with prioritizing working out when the demands of their work, their marriage, their children, their errands, all pound like jungle drums from sunrise to sunset. When these people are told that they don't lack the time, they only lack the will, they bristle, and understandably so. On a good day, they have maybe 30 minutes to themselves, maybe before bed, after all the important stuff on the to-do list has been checked off. And so such situations can seem hopeless, but remember, every problem has a solution, even this one. And the first step is shifting how people view health and fitness in relation to their lives. Because the time given to eating well and to exercising regularly is often considered a luxury or even worse, a self-indulgence.

But here is the rub. or even worse, a self-indulgence, but here is the rub. You can make your health and wellness a priority now, or it will make itself a priority later. There is no third choice. Now, if you agree and you're ready to make your health and fitness a priority without having to live in the gym or eat like a tongueless monk, then my new book, Muscle for Life, is for you. It's currently available for pre-order. It's coming out in January of next year, and it's an A to Izzard guide to gaining muscle, gaining strength, losing fat, getting healthy at any age and at any ability level. So regardless of where you've been, regardless of where you are, Muscle for Life will meet you where you are and bring you to where you want to be. Go to www.muscleforlifebook.com and pre-order it now. Hey, I'm Mike Matthews and this is Muscle for Life. Welcome to another

episode and thank you for joining me today. And quickly, do me a favor, subscribe to the show in whatever app you are listening to this in so you don't miss new episodes and so you help boost the rankings of the show, which then helps other people find it. Okay, so every day I field quite a few questions via email, mike at muscle4life, F-O-R-Life.com if you want to email me. And Instagram, mostly those are the two biggest channels that I communicate with people on. And if you want to follow me on Instagram, that's at muscle4lifefitness. And every so often there's a question that comes up a lot or just kind of strikes my fancy, I guess. And I choose to answer it here on the podcast. And so

that's what today's episode is going to be. Me answering a question that I've been asked a number of times over the last several months, and that is, are deadlifts worth the risk? So there is a strongman champion named Robert Oberst, and he went on Joe Rogan, and he said that deadlifts are not necessary for anyone who is not a strength athlete because the risk to reward ratio is so great. And instead you should just do front squats or cleans. Basically, if you don't need to deadlift for a competition, there's no reason to do it. And what are my thoughts on that? So that is the question that I'm going to be answering. Now, if you don't know Robert, he is a very well-known strongman athlete, somebody who actually likes, certainly liked, probably still likes what Legion is doing, my sports

nutrition company. And we were looking at possibly sponsoring him, but we just weren't able to pay him what he wanted to be paid. And so that didn't work out. However, he did like Legion and Legion's products. And strongman, of course, is a sport that tests your strength in various untraditional ways. And in a fairly recent interview, Robert did go on Joe Rogan, and he suggested that people should not do the deadlift unless they are training to take part in some sort of strength sport, strongman powerlifting and so forth

because of the risks posed by deadlifting. They're just too great compared to the rewards. And I understand where Robert is coming from, but I think that that position is not applicable to your average gym goer and to your average, maybe lifestyle bodybuilder, which would include me. I am maybe a bit fitter than the average gym goer, but I'm not a professional competitive bodybuilder, physique athlete, strong man. I'm just a lifestyle bodybuilder who is strong-ish for my build and for my body weight and pretty fit. And the reason I say that is competitive strong men and competitive powerlifters, they are working up to deadlifting weights that most of us couldn't even imagine lifting. Like we wouldn't even be able to budge that bar,

let alone pick it up. And these people also do a lot of volume because it takes a lot of volume to get that strong and that big. And they push themselves very hard to make progress. And they are often deadlifting or doing different types of deadlift variations several times per week. So for example, Robert injured himself deadlifting a car that weighed over 800 pounds. And he went for a second rep when he knew that he had expended almost all of his energy on his first rep, but he wanted to win the competition. And so he went for it and it didn't work out. And so not only do any of us not lift anywhere near that amount of weight, we also use more balanced tools. We use a barbell, we use a trap bar, and we tend to not go for more reps or more sets when

we are already exhausted. At least I don't. And I talk about that every so often I'll bring it up in one tangent or another, the importance of managing your reps in reserve, especially on the big exercises, the squat, the deadlift, the bench press to some degree, the overhead press to some degree, but, but more so the squat and deadlift meaning never go to muscle failure on those exercises and all of your training sets with at least one good rep still left in the tank. I like to generally go for about two. If it's my fourth and final set of deadlifting for the session, and maybe I started with two or three good reps left in set one, and I'm ending in one ish good rep left, maybe two, I think that's fine. But if in set one on a deadlift, I feel like I could only get one more good rep before I'd reach failure, before my form

would fall apart, that's too heavy if I have to do four sets. I'm going to take a little bit of weight off the bar. I like to feel like I have at least two good reps left in me in the first set. And why does that matter? Well, when you lift very heavy weights, when you push yourself close to failure or to failure regularly, your chance of injury does go way up. And that's true of the deadlift and every other exercise. That said, many people are especially concerned about the deadlift, the injury risk that is generally associated with the deadlift. Many people think that the deadlift, any type of deadlift, whether it's a conventional deadlift, a trap bar deadlift, a sumo deadlift, it's bad for your back and it

increases the risk of lower back injuries. Many people also think it's bad for your biceps and it increases the risk of tearing a bicep or injuring your bicep somehow. And people also often believe that the deadlift is very taxing on the body and requires a lot of recovery. Even one hard set per week is hard to recover from. sets a week, like you do on my Beyond Bigger, Leaner, Stronger program is inconceivable to some people. But research shows that concerns like those are mostly unfounded. For example, studies show that the deadlift is the best exercise that you can do to train the paraspinal muscles, which are the muscles that run down both sides of your spine and that play a major role in the prevention of back injuries. So if you want to have a strong, resilient back, you want strong paraspinal muscles and the deadlift is fantastic for that. And that may be why one study found that the deadlift can be effective at treating lower back pain. So people who have lower back pain can

improve it by deadlifting. And I'll say, I have heard from many people. So people who have lower back pain can improve it by deadlifting. And I'll say, I have heard from many people over the years who have experienced that. And I know Mark Ripito from Starting Strength has not only heard from many people over the decades that he has been in the game, he has personally seen it again and again and again, people coming to him with back problems, lower back problems, getting strong on the deadlift and no more lower back problems, no more lower back pain. Now that said, in some people who have a history of lower back issues or very specific lower back problems, the conventional deadlift may not work. They may need to do a variation that places less stress on the lower

back like sumo deadlifts or trap bar deadlifts using the high handles as opposed to flipping the bar upside down and grabbing it a bit lower where you're not grabbing on the handles, you're grabbing on the actual chassis of the bar. And a high handle though, hex bar, trap bar deadlift, easier on the lower back. And another viable alternative to the conventional deadlift, if you need to put less stress on your lower back, is the rack pull. Fantastic exercise, fantastic accessory exercise to the conventional deadlift, so to speak. Not that you would do them alongside each other, but the rack pull is similar to the deadlift, a little bit of a shorter range of motion, allows you to add more weight, and puts more of the stress just on your bigger back muscles and less stress on your lower back. Now, as far as the concerns over the biceps go, tearing the biceps or otherwise

injuring the biceps, anecdotally speaking, the biceps tears that immediately come to mind that I know of that I've seen were in guys on drugs, deadlifting large amounts of weight with a mixed grip. And the palm up hand is the hand that almost always, all the instances that I can immediately remember, that's the biceps that tears. And if you are not that though, if you are not a very big, very strong guy on drugs, pushing yourself hard in your deadlifting. You are probably not going to tear your biceps. That said, mixed gripping, if you don't alternate, some people alternate set to set when they mix grip, meaning let's say set one, your right hand is palm up. Set two, your left hand is palm up. Some people do that. Some people alternate

session to session. So let's say they do three or four sets of deadlifting in one session. Maybe that's just one session per week. So that week they do it with their right palm up. Then the next week they're going to flip that and do it with their left palm up. And I think that's smart if you're going to mixed grip, because if you do it the same way over long periods of time, you may not acutely injure your biceps, but you can aggravate your biceps. And I experienced that firsthand. I pulled mixed grip for years, got fairly strong on it. A one RM of mid 400s. I'm a little bit stronger now than I was then, but that was a lot of deadlifting to get there because I was not naturally a big and strong

person. I've had to work a lot for what I've got. And eventually I started to develop some biceps tendonitis in my right biceps up in the bicipital groove on my right arm and the right shoulder region. And that was the arm. I'm right-handed, so I was most comfortable with my right palm up when I was mixed gripping. And I wouldn't alternate because I didn't know that I was supposed to. That was years and years ago. And even if I did know, I would have probably just stopped because it's, it's just awkward for me. I've tried, uh, when I did learn that you're supposed to alternate. And I didn't want to go through the learning phase and reacquainting my, myself to pulling with my left palm up. So instead I just double overhand when I'm warming up and maybe my

first heavy set, if I can, if I can hold onto the bar well, and then I use straps or I'll just use straps from the first heavy set. If I already know that my grip is going to fail, like if I'm doing a set of sixes, eights or tens, and the weight is going to be pretty heavy. I'm not going to be able to grip it throughout. I'm not going to be able to hold onto the bar for the whole set, or I'm not going to be able to hold onto it securely enough to not lose power. Because once your grip starts to fail on the deadlift, you just shut down as you have probably experienced. So again, now I warm up without straps and my warmup does get to a little bit of heavier weight, but not too many, not too many reps.

And then I just use straps. And if you want to learn more about deadlift gripping, just go over to legionathletics.com, search for deadlift grip, and you will find an article that I wrote. And I do think I did a podcast on it as well. It'll probably be in the article or in my podcast feed. You can search for it. So that's what I'd recommend for protecting your biceps. If you're going to mixed grip, make sure you alternate either each set or just session to session. Minimally, I would say month to month, one month with maybe the right palm up the next month with the left palm up. Uh, but my preference is double overhand if you can do it. But once you get to a certain amount of strength, you are not going to be able to hold onto the bar with a double overhand grip, at least not, uh,

for your heavy sets and not for the entire sets, maybe half of them, you'd be able to hold onto it. And then it's going to start slipping. Hook grip is an option. It's going to hurt your thumbs. I'm warning you, but if you can get over that, it does work. And then you have straps. Okay. Now let's talk about the claim that the deadlift is very, very difficult to recover from that. it produces a lot of central nervous system fatigue, CNS fatigue. That is a common claim and it is sometimes used as a reason to not deadlift at all or to do very little deadlifting. Again, maybe one set per week or one set every other week. And let's start with what is CNS fatigue? Well, it is a thing. It does occur in the central nervous system, which would be the brain and the spinal cord. And if your CNS is

fatigued, it has trouble activating your muscles, firing your muscles. So even though your muscles might be capable of producing a lot of force, let's say, they won't be able to because your CNS is not able to give the orders effectively. So yes, that is a thing, but check this out. In one study conducted by scientists at Massey University, researchers had trained men do eight sets of two reps of deadlifts at 95% of one rep max with five minutes of rest in between the sets. That's hard. Eight sets of two at 95%. I've done four sets of two at 95% and that is not exhausting, but it's difficult. Eight sets would be quite difficult. So that's what the participants did. And then the scientists running the study, they looked at various factors relating to CNS output, and they concluded that there was only about a 5 to 10% reduction in CNS output after doing that workout.

long as you follow a workout program that manages volume, intensity, and frequency properly, semi-intelligently at least, you are probably not going to have any issues with CNS fatigue, with deadlifting and CNS fatigue, squatting and CNS fatigue, or any other exercise and CNS fatigue. Because it would take an extraordinary amount of training, an extraordinary amount of exertion to produce large and lingering reductions in CNS output. To produce a meaningful amount of CNS fatigue that isn't gone by the next day. So all of that summarizes why I don't think the deadlift is as dangerous or is as costly as some people do. But there still is a question of benefits. Let's say you accept my premise, which is that the deadlift, the risks posed by the deadlift are relatively small if you do it properly, if you know proper form, and if you

program it correctly, but why should you do it? What's in it for you? Because even if it only entails a small amount of risk, if it doesn't also in it for you? Because even if it only entails a small amount of risk, if it doesn't also provide a fair amount of benefit, then it's not worth doing, right? You might as well just do other exercises. Well, the deadlift is a great strength and muscle builder. It involves a tremendous amount of muscle mass, and that's why studies show that it helps develop your lats, your traps, your paraspinal muscles. Like I mentioned, your glutes, your hip flexors, calves, quadriceps, forearms, the core as well. Research shows that the deadlift is a great core exercise so much so that if you are doing at least a few sets of heavy deadlifts and certainly heavy

deadlifts and heavy squats per week, you almost certainly don't need to do any core training, core exercises, ab exercises. That's why my program for intermediate and advanced weightlifters beyond Bigger Leaner Stronger doesn't have core exercises. It's really just not necessary at that point for who that book is meant for. And in the new fourth edition of Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger, I'm not getting rid of the core exercises, but I'm making them optional and I'm explaining why and where to insert them in the programming if you want to do them just to help bring up your core a little bit faster. Some people do have very underdeveloped core muscles, and even if they get lean,

they just don't like how it looks. And I do understand that. And if they remain patient and just get really strong on their compound exercises, that'll probably resolve itself, but they can get to the six pack if they're a guy or just the core, the level of core development that they want to get to a little bit faster by including some core specific, some ab exercises. Deadlifts are also great for progressive overload. They are great for increasing strength, for being able to add weight to the bar over time, which is the most effective type of progressive overload that we can achieve. And research shows that heavy compound exercises like the deadlift, like the squat, they can increase natural testosterone production in men, even when performed with moderate weights. And so that can give you a slight edge in building muscle, but it can make a difference in your sex drive, in your energy

levels. I've spoken with a lot of middle-aged guys, for example, over the years who told me that they really did notice a difference in how they felt. Their sleep was a little bit better. They had a little bit more sleep was a little bit better. They had a little bit more energy, a little bit more sex drive. When they started deadlifting and squatting heavy-ish, 75% to 85% of one rep max, in the rep range of, let's say, anywhere from four to 10 reps. When they started doing that, sometimes for the first time or for the first time in a long time, they noticed a difference quickly, a hormonal difference. And obviously in women, the hormonal environment is a bit different. And so the effects are a little bit different, but they also do these exercises have very positive effects

on women's hormones as well. And so really what we're left with then is the deadlift is dangerous when it's done with poor form, when it is programmed poorly, when you are doing too much of it, when you're doing it too close to failure, when you are not deloading as often as you should be and racking up too much stress that can eventually too much physical stress much physical stress on your tissues, on everything that gets stressed when you're training. And not enough rest and recovery. So, to minimize your chances of getting hurt when you deadlift, make sure that you've practiced and you've ingrained proper form before you start going heavy. proper form before you start going heavy. Put yourself on camera if you need to, to check your form when you do start getting heavy, especially later in those sets when they start to get hard and make sure that you have the flexibility to perform the deadlift with proper form. So

sometimes form issues like rounding the lower back come from a lack of flexibility. So make sure that you can set up for the deadlift properly. Make sure that your hamstrings aren't too tight, for example, to allow you to get into that flat back with your butt back, your chest up, that position where you're getting ready to pull. Because if you can get into that position and hold it without pain or discomfort, If you can feel solid before you pull, then you are ready to go. As I mentioned earlier, I would also recommend to not take this exercise, not take the deadlift to failure and all of your, your hard sets one or two reps shy of that. And if you are an intermediate or an advanced weightlifter, if you're somebody who's pulling fairly heavy weights and you're doing it consistently, spinal decompression exercises can help like the dead

hang, for example, and that can help relax your spine. It can help relax your biceps. Many people swear by it for shoulders where you just hang on a pull-up bar for 30 to 60 seconds. And you do that once or twice a day. If you have, if you have access to a pull-up bar, many people have said that that has worked wonders for their back, for their shoulders. It's interesting. And lastly, I'll say that you don't have to do the deadlift. It's a great exercise. It's in all of my programs and I love it myself. It's my favorite exercise personally, but it is not necessary. Some people will say that the deadlift is the nucleus of a good weightlifting program. And if you take that out, then the whole thing gets a lot less effective. And they'll joke that you're not even lifting at that out, then the whole thing gets a lot less effective. And they'll joke that you're not even

lifting at that point, or do you even deadlift? If you're not deadlifting, you might as well not even train. And I totally disagree. There are plenty of exercises that train your back muscles, that train your posterior chain muscles, the muscles on the backside of your body. And I mentioned a couple of them, deadlift alternatives, like the rack pull, for example, fantastic posterior chain exercise that you can do if you can't deadlift or you don't want to deadlift, or you can look at the muscles on the backside of the, of the body and look at the different types of exercises you can do to train those muscles. And you can do those exercises. Now the deadlift is very efficient in that it

trains a lot of muscles at the same time, but of course you can use other exercises to train all of those muscles. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did subscribe to the show, because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you.

And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.